April 28, 2026
Charles LeClaire/Imagn Images
Trevor Zegras and the Flyers have to come back hitting harder, and smarter, for Game 6 Wednesday night in Philly.
There will be a Game 6 Wednesday night back in South Philadelphia, and the Flyers will be arriving to it needing to get their act back together quick.
They lost again to the rival Penguins, 3-2, Monday night in Pittsburgh for Game 5 of their first-round Stanley Cup Playoff series, narrowing their lead for the best-of-seven postseason set down to 3-2 also.
They were never fully out of it Monday night, but at the same time, they were never playing strongly or consistently enough to win and close out, either.
Pittsburgh was the stronger and more aggressive-looking team. They forechecked harder, won more puck battles, made crisper plays and rushes down the ice, and tested goalie Dan Vladar with more direct and challenging shots.
It felt like a complete inverse of the series' first three games, when the Flyers, to a lot of people's surprise, had pretty thoroughly outplayed a more veteran Penguins team and were suddenly holding all the cards, possibly looking to complete a sweep.
But ever since, something about the Flyers' game grew passive.
Following the Game 4 loss in front of the home crowd at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Saturday, head coach Rick Tocchet more or less chalked it up to a young team getting ahead of itself, while not fully understanding that it takes an extra gear to get that last win to finish up a playoff series.
"I think we just wanted to win the game, and forgot about the process," he said at practice the day after.
For Game 5, Rasmus Ristolainen got bumped off the puck behind his own net, which set up Pittsburgh's first goal from Elmer Soderblom. On a night where the Flyers struggled to clear the puck out in general, Owen Tippett's attempt to got knocked down after a lengthy stay in their own zone, which freed Connor Dewar to step into the open behind a bunch of tired legs to shoot for the Penguins' second.
Then, after Alex Bump took a turn down the ice and around Parker Wotherspoon, followed by Travis Sanheim getting a fortunate redirect of his shot to tie it, luck came back the other way. Kris Letang's shot from the point got tipped into the glass behind the Philadelphia net, and when it bounced back down, the puck hit an unaware Vladar in the back of the leg, who nudged it across the goal line as he reset in his crease trying to look for it.
The Penguins took the lead back, and the Flyers were left trying to sprint uphill until there wasn't any more time.
They needed that next gear. They haven't reached it yet. But they need to now.
"I always call it 'You have another reserve tank in you,'' Tocchet said in a video conference with the media late Tuesday morning. "There's more in there for some guys. We gotta – I call it 'Break the seal.' I just felt the last two games, we were a little bit too comfortable. We weren't finishing checks like we did. We weren't getting open for the guy. The fundamentals have been a little bit iffy.
"But it's hard to do. It's a very hard thing to do, to grind every day, and we're getting a baptism into it, like a quick one, which is great because we're getting the guys their experience early than maybe people expected."
But...
"Saying that, you gotta go into this game knowing it's going to be hard, really hard, and you're going to be very uncomfortable in situations," Tocchet continued.
And really, the Flyers have already been operating in that capacity for more than a month, since the rally to get into the playoffs to begin with required them to play at, or near, the top of their game with almost no room for error down the entire stretch.
They're still a relatively inexperienced group, sure, but at the same time, they do know what they have to be to take this series. They already were that through the first three games – tough, relentless, fearless.
Now they have to get it back – go above it, even
Because getting pushed away, missing the net on the looks you do get, or tossing the puck back and forth from up high on a power play, just waiting for the Pittsburgh penalty kill to gift them a lane to shoot through, that's not going to give the Flyers any free passes. That just doesn't happen in the playoffs.
So coming back home for Game 6, they need to get their act together, quick.
"I don't want to say the grind's getting to us, because we should welcome the grind," Tocchet said. "It's all a part of playoff hockey, is that grind, to embrace it."
A few other quick thoughts cleaning up from Game 5...
Alex Bump was inserted into the lineup for a scratched Matvei Michkov, and was far and away the Flyers' most impactful player on Monday night. The 22-year-old winger was strong along the wall with the puck, and chasing after it just as fiercely, while frequently cutting in toward the net to try and create shots.
His move to keep the puck himself and carry it in to turn past Wotherspoon, then tuck a quick shot in past Penguins goalie Arturs Silovs to the short side, largely contributed to why the Flyers still had a chance to take Game 5, even though it was clear they weren't at their best.
ALEX BUMP ANSWERS FOR THE FLYERS SECONDS LATER 🚨 pic.twitter.com/u4pimjtclz
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) April 28, 2026
Bump has sat for a bit, and Tocchet expressed before that he wanted to find a way to get him into the lineup, so maybe Monday night's effort is how he stays.
If Tocchet opts to stick with heavier checking for Game 6, it's likely that Bump will stay dressed while Michkov stays in the press box again, for however unpopular that decision will be among fans who recognize that Michkov is an important, though struggling core piece.
Officiating, on its own, never decides a series. But boy, can it sometimes be a headscratcher at its best, to outright baffling and infuriating at its worst.
Game 3, when a bunch of Flyers and Penguins got piled up into each penalty box through a lengthy delay and to little explanation and a riled-up Philly crowd, clearly, had gotten away from the officiating crew, but the Flyers walked away from that one just fine in the end.
In Game 5, Evgeni Malkin shot a puck into the Flyers' bench during a stoppage and that was let go.
Rick Tocchet was FURIOUS at Malkin after he fired a puck into the Flyers bench 😳 pic.twitter.com/7Qdndwckco
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) April 27, 2026
more dirty Pens nonsense pic.twitter.com/FotiGwPrvd
— Nick Piccone (@_piccone) April 28, 2026
Then, late in, Sanheim swept the puck away from Anthony Mantha, who was trying to cut into the Philadelphia net for a shot.
Mantha lost his footing and crashed into Vladar, sending the goalie down and the net flying off its moorings.
Naturally, the nearest Flyers wanted a word. Sanheim skated back to Mantha and so did the refs to intercept, but not before Mantha took a free hook and an uppercut with his closed glove straight to Sanheim's chin.
Mantha never even got a slap on the wrist.
Anthony Mantha sucker punches Travis Sanheim.
— Flyers Nation (@FlyersNation) April 28, 2026
Dude's been arguably the dirtiest player all series and never gets called. Unbelievable. pic.twitter.com/8dr7JaNR2z
The Flyers' current situation did have fans looking back after Monday night's result.
Similar to the team's spot right now, the 2012 Flyers went into their Game 6 against a younger Sidney Crosby's Penguins leading their first-round series, 3-2, and coming back home.
Through a ton of goals and a ton of fists thrown, those Flyers loudly took a 3-0 series lead, but then got crushed in Game 4, 10-3, then narrowly lost Game 5 in Pittsburgh, 3-2 (just like Monday night).
And after two straight Pittsburgh wins at the time, the thought did start to creep in among fans and media members assigned to the series.
Two years before, in 2010, the Flyers famously reverse swept the Boston Bruins in the second round, which heavily propelled their miracle run to the Stanley Cup Final.
A reporter asked then coach Peter Laviolette if that Boston series had seeded any concern about a reverse sweep coming back for the Flyers, or if having been there gave them any knowhow on how to stop it.
Laviolette, bluntly, replied that his team at that point wasn't the same one that pulled that feat off in 2010 and left the question there.
Then the puck dropped on Game 6. Claude Giroux leveled Crosby in open ice, took the puck in to score on the same shift, and the Flyers were on the fast track to putting the Penguins away, all while Giroux cemented himself as the next captain.
So here we are, a full 14 years later, with that same series lead and that same concern against that same opponent fainlty lingering again.
Will Wednesday night be the stage for a new Flyers star to meet the moment and finally put this series to bed?
Let's wrap with Giroux's shift to reminisce either way:
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