The Philadelphia Flyers needed to play a near-flawless game against the reigning Presidents’ Trophy-winning Winnipeg Jets. They didn’t, and lost 5-2 Thursday night in a low-event affair that featured Matvei Michkov getting his first of the season.
The basics
First period: 5:45 – Vladislav Namestnikov (Nino Niederreiter, Gustav Nyquist)
Second period: 7:01 – Mark Scheifele (Gabriel Vilardi), 16:22 – Owen Tippett (Trevor Zegras, Travis Sanheim), 17:43 – Morgan Barron (Kyle Connor)
Third period: 9:39 – Mark Scheifele (Kyle Connor, Alex Iafallo) (PPG), 17:39 – Matvei Michkov (Noah Juulsen, Sean Couturier), 18:47 – Tanner Pearson (Unassisted) (ENG)
SOG: 17 (PHI) – 15 (WPG)
Some takeaways
Boos already?!?
At the end of the first period, some booing could be heard in the rink. It seemed a bit early (and a bit much) considering the Flyers were facing the Presidents’ Trophy winners last season. Winnipeg was solid most of the opening frame in getting the puck out of danger and getting in on the Flyers defense. Fortunately no bracelets or sweaters were tossed onto the ice. At least not after the first period. And can you really be out of sorts with a period where this was the end result? And in the second home game of the year?
York returns
Cam York was a little rusty early in the game. But the longer the game went on, the better he looked. At times it looked like the Jets had six or seven guys on the ice as their neutral zone pressure and checking had Philadelphia fighting for every inch. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that after one period (and with few chances either way), eight Flyers had zero percent of the shot attempts. York had 21:36 ice time, third among blueliners with only Sanheim and Jamie Drysdale ahead of him.
York should look better with each game, but he got a passing grade against one of the league’s heaviest and toughest teams.
Rip it Tippett
A huge goal by the Flyers late in the second saw Owen Tippett rip a shot high over Hellebuyck, giving the Flyers a huge boost and cutting the deficit in half. It’s a goal and shot you’d like to see Tippett deliver a lot more this season.
Ersson not nearly good enough
You can’t really blame Sam Ersson for Winnipeg’s opening goal. A nice little play left Vladislav Namestnikov in alone and simply deked out Ersson early in the first. The Flyers weren’t giving up a heck of a lot, but they only had two shots on goal in the opening 16 minutes and change. Early in the second Winnipeg’s Mark Scheifele’s line had a chance but Ersson managed to stop both the shot and play.
Mark Scheifele’s goal in the second was not great. You could argue if a huge Ersson fan that Nick Seeler’s stick might have gotten a piece of it. The timing sucked as it’s one Ersson needs to make at that point in the game.
Same for the third Winnipeg goal. Despite the bad bounce, it’s another crucial part of the game where Ersson needs to keep the Flyers within a shot from tying things up. It’s been two starts for Ersson, and both starts have somewhat paled in comparison to Dan Vladar’s. The Flyers outshot Winnipeg 12-5 in the second, yet gave up two goals. Overall Ersson ended the night with a horrible save percentage (.714), allowing four goals on 14 shots.
Michkov breaks the goose eggs
Matvei Michkov started the game looking pretty good, as his line with Sean Couturier and Travis Konecny had some strong offensive zone time early. Early in the second Konecny nearly ran into Michkov, but the Russian winger got a good shot from the point on goal. On the Flyers initial power play Michkov started a gorgeous passing play that saw Michkov feed Tippett who passed it quickly to Konecny. Konecny was stoned by Hellebuyck. It was still another small but good sign.
Michkov also drew a penalty when Jonathan Toews gave him a face rub during a holding penalty. However it was the second unit which started the power play as Michkov got a breather. Michkov didn’t drive much of the play, but he did look more comfortable out there. He was rewarded late in the game when he scored his first of the season, making it a 4-2 game. It was meaningless on the scoreboard but getting his first point and goal of the season should lift a bit of the weight off his shoulders.
Cates line had ups and downs
Even the Noah Cates line was having difficulty dumping the puck into the offensive zone at times. The best chance Philadelphia had in the first was courtesy of Tyson Foerster flying down the wing and trying to squeeze the puck through Connor Hellebuyck. Cates was right on the doorstep but could drive the rebound home. The Cates line had an 80 percent advantage in shot attempts after two periods, making one of the few bright spots early on.
The shift following Tippett’s goal should’ve saw the trio up in the Winnipeg zone. Unfortunately the Jets poured it on and gave themselves an insurance goal less than 90 seconds after the Tippett goal.
Power play coming, just not there yet
The first power play saw some excellent chances and great passing, something fans didn’t see much of last year. The second unit featuring the Cates line and Trevor Zegras is starting to show some promise. Foerster had a shot hit the post in the slot but there seemed to be some chemistry in finding some seams and nearly cashing in. It was a great sign as the Flyers had some momentum. The second power play? Well, it had a few moments where they looked settled, but there wasn’t a lot to fall in love with.
Overall it’s a work in progress, despite the Flyers showing some frustration in the third when nothing seemed to be going right.
Jett propulsion
Jett Luchanko isn’t quite getting to crunch time in terms of the Flyers deciding what to do with him. Luchanko had his moments, particularly when he broke up a two-on-one Jets rush early in period two. It looks as if Luchanko is not getting the ice time Flyers general manager Danny Briere would like him to get, nor is Luchanko producing much in that fleeting amount. After two periods Luchanko was last among Flyers skaters with just 5:27 of ice time.
The fourth line had a night to forget with Nikita Grebenkin on the ice for Winnipeg’s first two goals and just looking overmatched by Winnipeg’s fourth line.
Statistics via Natural Stat Trick.
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It’s the second week of the season, and the team’s centers have been taking center (ha!) stage in all three games: a victory in a rematch over the Florida Panthers, a snooze of a loss to the Winnipeg Jets, and a tight overtime win against the Minnesota Wild. That puts the Flyers at 2-1-0 on the week, with all three games played at the Wells Far – er, Xfinity Mobile Arena. That’s not too shabby a start for a Philadelphia Flyers team that wasn’t expected to do much by the general hockey media sphere.
In this week’s three stars, we have one repeat from last week and two players making their first appearances. Let’s get into it!
3. Trevor Zegras
0 goals, 3 assists, 3 shots on goal, 3 games played
Call it a lucky number with all those threes in Zegras’s stat line. If we include last week’s game against the Carolina Hurricanes, Zegras is now riding a four-game point streak; the only time he didn’t register a point was in the season opener in Sunrise, Florida.
Oh, and he made this jaw dropping pass:
We’ve been watching that play on loop all week. Zegras draws two Florida players to him, quickly realizes someone is probably open elsewhere, and slings the puck onto Sean Couturier’s tape in the slot. Couturier makes no mistakes and buries the shot. It’s exactly the kind of play we expected Zegras to be capable of when the Flyers acquired him over the summer.
That wasn’t the only great pass he had this week, either:
This pass wasn’t quite the “pull you out of your seat” play the one against Florida was, but it’s a subtle move along the boards that gets the puck right to Owen Tippett, who uses his speed to get the Flyers on the board.
The Zegras era looks pretty good so far–now he just needs to stick at center full time. The good work he put in this week, however, including his point streak, is enough to earn him third star of the week in our eyes.
2. Sean Couturier
2 goals, 3 assists, 5 shots on goal, 3 games played
The captain of the Flyers absolutely makes the cut this week–how could he not after that two goal, two assist game against the Florida Panthers? Especially considering he was the recipient of that outrageously good pass from Zegras we highlighted earlier; he really buried that shot, and it wound up being the game winner. If this is the level of play we can expect from Couturier for the rest of the season, the Flyers are in much better shape down the middle than we may’ve originally thought.
Couturier created a little of his own magic, too, on this excellent breakaway goal against the defending champions:
The Captain gets it done with a little help from the Travii.#FLAvsPHI | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/v1tx5uJqxB
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) October 14, 2025
Due to his lack of footspeed, it’s not often Couturier gets those sorts of scoring opportunities. In this moment, though, he has all the time in the world, and slips the puck past Daniil Tarasov to put the Flyers up by two. That game alone–plus a point against the Jets–are enough to make him the second star of the week.
1. Dan Vladar
2 wins, .931 SV%, 3 goals allowed, 2 games played
We highlighted Vladar in last week’s edition, but his excellent play carried over and it would feel wrong not to give him the first star of the week. The Flyers sport a 2-2-1 record, and both of those wins came this week with Vladar in the crease–he’s been a difference maker for the team, and he did it against the Cup champions and a strong Minnesota Wild team.
It’s difficult to choose which game Vladar performed better in: yes, he faced more shots against the Panthers than the Wild (26 and 16, respectively), but the Wild also have the best power play in the league at the moment, and the Flyers took a handful of penalties–including a botched video review challenge leading to a delay of game penalty. Vladar and the Flyers didn’t allow the Wild to score on the man advantage, though, and that’s quite a feat in itself.
If the coaching staff continues to alternate starts, we might expect Sam Ersson to get two of next week’s three games. If Vladar keeps playing like this, though, it’s hard to imagine him not taking more starts as the season goes on. For finishing the week with two wins and a .931 SV%, Vladar gets the first star of the week.
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The Flyers’ win over the Kraken last night was, in a number of ways, a big one. It gave the team a nice little boost as it kept their momentum rolling with their second win in a row and pulled them up to even in wins and losses on the season, which is good news for their aspirations of climbing up the standings, but even more critically, it saw them manage their highest true scoring output of the season, to date.
Scoring five good goals over the course of the game — that is, five goals scored on a goaltender, setting this game apart from their home opener against the Panthers, wherein they scored five but had the final two come as empty netters — the Flyers were able to bring a level of pop and cohesiveness in their offensive game that we hadn’t yet seen from them this season. Indeed, the question loomed large over them heading into this game just when their offense would break out and begin to finally start piling up some goals, and the team did well in this game, their sixth of the season, to finally put it to rest.
The Flyers got this one rolling on a bit of a slapstick-style play, capitalizing on a misplay of the puck behind the net by Joey Daccord, and while there is a degree of the old “they don’t ask how, they ask how many” effect at play here, it’s also true that this goal wouldn’t have happened the way it did were it not for the strength of their forechecking game, the pressure Sean Couturier was able to create by following Daccord down below the goal line, Nick Seeler’s heads up play to jump into a soft area to receive the pass, and his decisiveness to get it over to an open Owen Tippett. Every chance isn’t a slow developing, intricately plotted play, and a willingness to break out of the game plan can mean a grade-A chance created off of breakdowns like this one, so long as the Flyers are able to keep their level of concentration up.
But while the breaking open of this game ended up being a little unconventional, once it was done, the Flyers’ offense really began to come to life, and it would be an effort that would prove difficult for the Kraken to slow down.
The Flyers were able to double up on their scoring later in the first period, putting together an effort not dissimilar to the one that bought them their first goal of the night. That is, a bit of good work done along the boards — and a real willingness to go in for a battle therein by Bobby Brink and Tyson Foerster — and a couple of short passes exchanged help to create a bit of in-zone pace for the Flyers on the power play, and as Brink was able to draw two Kraken penalty killers to him and still come up with the strength to come out with the puck, this left Foerster wide open in the left circle in a prime shooting position. And even with the beat taken — no panic in that shot creation — to dust off the puck after receiving the pass, Foerster was still well placed enough to beat Daccord cleanly with the strength of his shot.
No.for No.
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) October 21, 2025
It was a similar level of patience which allowed the Flyers to set up their third goal of the evening, as they get into the second period of the game, but this time, as a product of getting their transition game working for them. With the Flyers able to make a clean breakout from their own zone, and Matvei Michkov jumping on a loose puck in the neutral zone and skating it in over the blue line, the Flyers were able to get into the offensive zone with control, and get themselves to work. Michkov was able to thread a pass cross-ice to a trailing Egor Zamula, who, resisting the defenseman urge to fire the puck on net from the perimeter, instead held on to it for a few seconds longer, and instead used that time to maneuver a bit and get himself to a more dangerous area, and to a spot where a better passing lane had opened up to get the puck over to Travis Konecny in front.
The Power Play is COOKING.#SEAvsPHI | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/nVZ055Z90O
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) October 21, 2025
On their fourth goal of the night, though, the Flyers found some success in a more traditional type of in-zone maneuvering. Back on the power play, the Flyers were able to get some crisp passing movement going around the perimeter while a pair of players — Foerster and Noah Cates — cycled down and got themselves parked in front of the net, in a perfect spot to go looking for a deflection in on net by the time Cam York’s shot from the point made its way to them. So perfectly placed in front of the net were both of them that the league scorers had a bit of trouble awarding the goal, it went back and forth a couple of times before they finally agreed that Cates had gotten the final touch. All the same, it’s a little trite, but it is true what they say — get to the front of the net, create a bit of traffic and havoc, and good things will happen.
The Red Lettuce is Red Hot.#SEAvsPHI | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/DUayIrt30x
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) October 21, 2025
Their final goal of the evening, though, saw the Flyers getting back a bit more to their finesse game. After winning a sequence in the neutral zone and turning the Kraken’s would-be breakout around on them, the Flyers were direct in their attempt to bring that rush right to the net, and with a quick-up bank pass into the offensive zone and a bit of back and forth passing on the go from Tippet and Couturier, Tippett ultimately ended up with the puck back below the left circle, and was able to get another shot past Daccord from a sharp angle, capitalizing on both the quickness of his shot and the continuity of his momentum to keep the pressure on the Kraken, even as it felt pretty clear that the Flyers had this game under control by that time.
This was, all in all, one of their more complete showings of the season, and an encouraging waking up of their offensive game. When the Flyers have looked the most stifled in their offense is when they’ve at once looked like they were trying to do both too much and not enough, working hard but not necessarily smart. One of the major through lines in the team’s comments to the media last night is that how they’re approaching generating their offense is situational — this isn’t a case of them getting tunnel visioned to the net and skating themselves into trouble because they think that’s they only way they can get good chances, or leaning on low percentage plays and throwing every puck on net as soon as it touches their stick just to try to see if some chance, any chance will stick eventually. The Flyers played a well-rounded offensive game last night, leaning on the pillars of their system to boost them where possible, but also departing from it to capitalize on broken plays when the door opened for it, letting their offense come to them in a variety of ways, and looking all the more dynamic and dangerous for it.
The Flyers still have some ground to make up, as they’re sitting 14th in the league standings at 5-on-5 goals and 15th in goals scored across all situations (19th and 17th, respectively, when adjusted for games played), so their work is far from done, but last night’s showing was a promising preview of what this team is able to do when their offense is finally closer to finally going on all cylinders. After all, it’s still very early in the season, the team is still getting completely comfortable with the plan and expectations from their new coaching staff, while that coaching staff is still looking for the best arrangement of their forwards up front. It’s a work in progress all around, but the uptick in skill that the Flyers have been able to foster up front is beginning to become apparent. The next step is to figure out how to keep it rolling, now that they’re approaching that optimal arrangement.
All stats via Natural Stat Trick.
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After a run of a few games at home, the Flyers are breaking up their stretch of home games with a quick trip up north to face off with the Senators, and a few familiar faces in the process. They’ve picked up a nice bit of steam over these last couple of games, but the next challenge is ahead of them, as they look to keep that rolling on another team’s turf.
Puck drop: 7:00 p.m.
How to watch/listen:
: NBCSP
: 97.5 The Fanatic
Pregame reading
- Even with a bit of time lost to injury, Cam York is off to a pretty stellar start to the season. [BSH]
- Speaking of defensemen, we got some — reportedly — bad news on a couple of the Flyers’ injured blueliners this afternoon. [BSH]
Pregame watching
Projected lineups
Philadelphia Flyers
Travis Konecny — Sean Couturier — Owen Tippett
Tyson Foerster — Noah Cates — Bobby Brink
Trevor Zegras — Christian Dvorak — Matvei Michkov
Nikita Grebenkin — Rodrigo Abols — Garnet Hathaway
Cam York — Travis Sanheim
Nick Seeler — Jamie Drysdale
Egor Zamula — Noah Juulsen
Dan Vladar
(Sam Ersson)
Ottawa Senators
Tim Stützle — Dylan Cozens — Drake Batherson
Michael Amadio — Shane Pinto — Claude Giroux
Nick Cousins — Ridly Greig — David Perron
Olle Lycksell — Lars Eller — Fabian Zetterlund
Jake Sanderson — Artem Zub
Thomas Chabot — Nick Jensen
Tyler Kleven — Nikolas Matinpalo
Linus Ulmark
(Leevi Merilainen)
Storylines to watch
Heat check
The Flyers’ last game against the Kraken on Monday sure was an exciting one, and it saw some meaningful scoring punches put together up and down their lineup. Travis Konecny picked up his first goal of the season, and a few others extended some nice runs — Tyson Foerster put up his second in four games, Noah Cates got his second in as many games, and Owen Tippett’s two goals brought him up to five in his last five. It was an impressive effort for all parties, and that more or less puts all of us around here on streak watch. Will any of these players be able to keep their hot streak rolling? Time will tell.
Momentum building
Monday saw a productive evening for a few players on an individual level, but it also saw the Flyers’ offense breaking open in the most meaningful way as it has all season. With five goals (none empty netters), the Flyers hit their highest offensive output of the season, and saw their offense looking as dynamic as we’ve seen all season. It was nice, after a bit of a slow start, to see things finally break open for them, but now that the dam has burst, as it were, the next challenge is going to be keeping that momentum going in the right direction. Maybe we don’t need to see five goals from them every single night, but it will still be important for them to come out for this one and show a bit of jump, and to maintain their scoring game to at least a moderate level.
The goaltending battle gets interesting
Speaking of bits of continuity, the Flyers will be continuing to ride the hot hand as far as their goaltending is concerned, going with Dan Vladar for the third game in a row. And it’s a choice that does make some sense — Vladar has been little short of excellent over his last two starts, looking very solid in his form, bailing out his skaters when he’s had to, and playing a major part in guiding the team to these two wins in a row. But this is a new challenge ahead here, as the Flyers will get a chance to see what Vladar can do when he’s being leaned on for the lion’s share of work. The hope is that he can maintain his form, but if he begins to slip a bit under the weight of the workload, they will have learned something, which is equally valuable in this early part of the season.
Lineup tweaks
On the whole, the Flyers haven’t really made any major changes to their lineup, as they’re beginning to find the right mix at the top of their forward group, and the defense group seems to be what it is at this point (with Adam Ginning seemingly out of the rotation), so the regular group is more or less set, with one notable exception. After a quite solid showing on Monday — indeed, one of his better games so far this season — Jett Luchanko has come out of the lineup, and Rodrigo Abols coming in in his stead. And, in some ways, this isn’t a huge surprise, as one imagines that they were going to want to get Abols back in for a game to keep him fresh eventually, but it’s hard not to wonder if it also signals Luchanko’s time with the Flyers, for the time being, coming to an end. With no signs that his usage is going to increase in the near future, that might just be where we’re headed, but if Abols has a strong showing tonight, it could well punch Luchanko’s ticket back to Guelph for him.
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Following the Philadelphia Flyers’ 2-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Thursday night, head coach Rick Tocchet held a brief media availability where he boiled down the Flyers lack of offense to one issue: the lack of an interior game. He mentioned it three times in the two-and-a-half-minute availability, driving the point home repeatedly.
“We’ve got too many guys who are playing on the outside, and that’s why guys are struggling to score goals. The good goal-scorers, they go to the interior. We have to do it consistently” said Tocchet.
Tocchet has made it known since the summer that he wants the Flyers to improve their puck possession and offensive cycle game — something that was sorely lacking under John Tortorella’s rush-heavy style. The new Flyers coach will have to remain patient, as the team is only seven games into the 2025-26 season and it will undoubtedly take time for his systems to become second nature for his players.
But there is one player succeeding early who is a bit of a surprise: Owen Tippett. The surprise comes not from Tippett’s lack of offensive ability, but from the uncertainty of how the speedy winger would fit in a more possession-based system, if at all.
The Data
Tippett has five goals in seven games, and his underlying metrics show solid early returns for creating offense from the middle of the ice. Looking at Natural Stat Trick’s data, Tippett ranks in the top three amongst Flyers skaters in both total and per-hour rate in high-danger shot attempts (iHDCF).
(All stats 5v5. Minimum 20 min TOI.)
Player iHDCF iHDCF/60 Noah Cates 11 8.11 Christian Dvorak 8 5.51 Owen Tippett 7 4.70
It’s worth noting that Tippett is keeping pace in terms of high-danger shot attempts with Christian Dvorak — a player who was coached by Tocchet in Arizona for 224 games. Sure, Dvorak doesn’t have the same offensive upside as Tippett, but he has a head start when it comes to Tocchet’s systems.
Looking at how he compares to his previous two seasons, he’s getting high-danger attempts at a rate more consistent with his 2023-24 season as opposed to his disappointing 2024-25 campaign.
Stat 2023-24 2024-25 2025-26 iHDCF/60 4.15 2.75 4.70
The rates are encouraging, both from a standpoint of Tippett gelling with what Tocchet wants from his players, and for fans who are looking for him to bounce back after last season. Tippett’s tenure in Philadelphia has been frustrating for fans, as they’ve seen him show flashes of a high-end goal-scoring power forward who can dominate a game. They’ve also seen stretches where he is tentative in using his size to get to the middle of the ice, seeing as he’s showcased he’s capable of it with numerous highlight goals.
It’s something Tocchet sees in him too. Back on October 6 he laid out his vision for Tippett, saying he could “be that big guy in front [who could] tip pucks [and] jump in on loose pucks. I think that’s the next level for him. Because he can score. Now it’s getting those other type of goals he has in him.”
Looking at the finishing heatmaps from HockeyViz.com for the past two seasons — a useful visual for seeing where players are making shot attempts and scoring goals on the ice relative to league average — it’s encouraging to see that Tippett’s finishing in the interior is “hotter” than last year.
Of course it’s a skewed comparison: a full season on the left, and seven games on the right. But thus far it does speak to the question at hand: Tippett is fitting well with Tocchet’s offensive schemes.
The Eye Test
It’s not just the data that tells the story. It’s clear as day when you watch Tippett’s shifts so far this year: he’s going to the interior regularly.
The following clips highlight some things we’ve already seen from Tippett: his speed backs off defenders on zone entries, and the threat of his shot to lures them in. This combination of tools opens up space for his teammates to go to those interior spots on the ice.
The next set of clips highlights Tippett going to the middle of the ice, putting himself in good position for high-danger chances. He’s in position for screens, rebounds, deflections, back-door tap-ins, and he uses his size to stand his ground — an asset that’s been underused thus far in Tippett’s career.
And this final batch of clips is more of the same, though it’s not just good positioning. These clips show his high-danger chances, shots, and goals.
These are early returns in a long, grueling season. But signs of how Owen Tippett might fit on a Tocchet-coached team have started to emerge. We’ve known that Tippett’s speed and shot open up space in high-danger areas, but it’s encouraging to see him go to those areas consistently so far. Fans have been yearning for a 30-plus goal breakout year from Tippett. We know he can snipe and dazzle on the highlight reels, but now he’s putting himself in position for the greasy goal in his repertoire. After all, it’s not about the “how” — it’s “how many.”
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Following the Philadelphia Flyers’ 4-3 shootout win over the New York Islanders at Xfinity Mobile Arena Saturday afternoon, forward Trevor Zegras rightfully stood squarely in the spotlight after logging a pair of goals, an assist, and a shootout tally.
But goaltender Sam Ersson deserved some recognition as well, and Zegras wasted no time giving his goalie his flowers after the game.
“I mean, he made a couple crazy one-timer saves in overtime, and then obviously he finished it off in the shootout,” Zegras told Scott Hartnell on the bench after the game.
“We got two amazing goalies, and that was an awesome win for Erss.”
An awesome win indeed — and Ersson’s first of the season.
Ersson, after an atrocious 2024-25 campaign, entered the season battling with newcomer Dan Vladar for the starting role. But just a week into the season, it appeared he’d already been usurped by Vladar on the goalie depth chart. Vladar stood out in his first pair of starts with the Flyers, then proceeded to earn the starting nod in each of the club’s last three outings.
Well, Ersson finally got an opportunity to swing momentum back into his favor against the Islanders, and he made it count. He turned aside 23 of 26 Islanders shots on goal, and while his .885 save percentage may not jump off the page, his timely stops certainly did.
His biggest save of the day — one of the saves Zegras referred to — came just over a minute into overtime. Jonathan Drouin scooped up a loose puck near the Flyers blue line, skated past Cam York, and slid the rubber through the low slot to Bo Horvat for a dangerous one-timer opportunity. The whistle should have been blown the moment Drouin touched the puck due to a too-many-men penalty, but the officials opted to let play continue.
Good thing they did, because it gave Ersson an opportunity to pull off a highway robbery with his glove.
Funny enough, Ersson also robbed Drouin on a similar play near the midway point of the third period.
Horvat, after getting away with a holding penalty on Owen Tippett in the neutral zone, set up Drouin with a perfect centering feed off his backhand, only for Ersson to make a lunging blocker save on Drouin to keep the score knotted up at three goals apiece.
It’s safe to say Horvat and Drouin will be seeing Ersson in their nightmares for a while.
ERSS SAYS NO.#NYIvsPHI | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/nDnmskTyfP
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) October 25, 2025
And if that wasn’t enough, Ersson sealed the win for the Flyers with a massive stop on Islanders winger Anthony Duclair in the third round of the shootout, improving his all-time shootout record to 9-3.
It’s unclear if Ersson’s performance will influence how Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet will approach choosing his starting goalie in the coming days. Still, there’s no doubt that Tocchet came away quite impressed with the 26-year-old Swede’s resilience since giving up starts to Vladar over the last week.
“I’m just a big fan of when guys, whether they’re not playing or things don’t go their way, his attitude was unreal all week. Practicing hard, he’s with [goaltending coach Kim Dillabaugh], and never complained,” Tocchet told the media after the game. “You’ve gotta give him credit. That was a hell of a save on Duclair at the end, so give him a lot of credit. Great attitude.”
With three games under his belt this season, Ersson has logged a 3.50 goals against average and a .861 save percentage — not exactly inspiring in comparison to Vladar’s stellar .932 save percentage and 1.81 GAA through five outings.
But even if Ersson may need to get comfortable in the backseat while Vladar takes the wheel, he’s taking it all in stride.
“I mean, he’s been playing unbelievable, obviously, so I think that’s what you want. You want to play the hottest guy, right? I think that’s the best thing for the team, and for me too. I think that kind of pushes me to try to get better every day,” Ersson told the media after the game.
“Obviously, I love competition, so it’s good.”
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