April 25, 2026
Charles LeClaire/Imagn Images
Jamie Drysdale and the Flyers have put the rival Pittsburgh Penguins on the ropes.
The arena lights dimmed, the first ring to "Hells Bells" brought a raucous crowd of nearly 20,000 to attention, and then the Philadelphia Flyers emerged from the tunnel to a bellowing roar.
Jamie Drysdale's skate blades met the ice. He felt a new kind of tension in the air. And then he looked up.
"It's probably the first time that I've seen, literally, not a seat open," Drysdale said. "Not an empty seat in the building, and everyone rocking the orange. The support was crazy."
But it was a long time coming, for Drysdale and the Flyers both.
Wednesday night, after a final rush to make it in and a collective eight years of waiting, finally brought on the Flyers' first home playoff game at Xfinity Mobile Arena with Game 3 of their first-round series against the rival Pittsburgh Penguins.
And it lived up to the billing.
The Flyers fell behind. Bryan Rust tackled Travis Konecny at the net, which triggered everyone else on the ice into hurling heated words and gloved fists. The refs stocked up each penalty box, which somehow left the Flyers with a power play amid the chaos. Then Drysdale, with an open lane across the way, sailed a pass through to Trevor Zegras, who launched an immediate shot right by goaltender Stuart Skinner and to the back of the net, which tied the game, opened the floodgates, and sent the building into a euphoria it hadn't felt in forever.
And to a scene that Drysdale has only ever heard stories about, along with most of the other young Flyers as they went on to crush the Penguins, 5-2.
"It was electric," Drysdale said after practice in Voorhees the day after, though with the dust feeling no less settled. "I think it lived up to everything that everyone's been talking about."
He's part of why these Flyers finally got to see it, and why Philadelphia is fully believing in them again.
TREVOR ZEGRAS!!!
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) April 23, 2026
WELCOME TO THE #STANLEYCUP PLAYOFFS!! 🚨 pic.twitter.com/iiDC7y4EFc
Drysdale always saw the faint beats of where this team could get to, of a fan base that just wanted a reason to fully get behind it, and in turn, the Flyers' front office, led by general manager Danny Brière, always saw the potential in what kind of defenseman Drysdale could become.
When he was dropped right into his first game as a Flyer, more than two years ago at home against Montreal, all the signs were there, albeit maybe just a bit suppressed.
His skating was fluid, he had a skill and a confidence to him with the puck on his stick, but it wasn't entirely there when he didn't have it, which was something Brière and former coach John Tortorella wanted to get right to work on. In other words, he was still a raw talent.
Fans wanted to believe in him, too.Â
Drysdale's arrival to Philadelphia was the result of former top prospect Cutter Gauthier cutting contact with the Flyers while he was at Boston College, which to the outside perception, forced a sudden trade with the Anaheim Ducks that, to this day, still has no complete explanation and still has the Flyers fan base feeling spurned.
They wanted the now 24-year-old to be "their guy" walking away from it, and they wanted to convince Anaheim and the NHL world at large that Philadelphia would be the team better off from it.
This season and last, fans made it a point to pack Xfinity Mobile Arena when the Ducks visited South Philadelphia with Gauthier on their roster, pouring down endless boos and a heavy wave of f-bombs onto the former top draft pick whenever he hopped over the visiting team's boards, along with echoing chants of "JAMIE'S BETTER!!!"
It definitely helped, too, that both times, the Flyers thrashed the Ducks, and that Drysdale arrived to both of those games with greater signs that he was becoming a much more complete defenseman – and even though a dirty hit to him cut the last time around short.
At the same time, he was seeing and hearing, from ice level, what it would actually be like if the Flyers could just break through.
The Playoff Flyers are here.
From the jump, there was always something different about Drysdale this season, and maybe quietly at first, about the Flyers, too.
Always looked at first for his puck-moving prowess and more offense-friendly style going back to his time in Anaheim, the actual defensive part of Drysdale's game suddenly looked far stronger under current coach Rick Tocchet's more measured and chance-suppressing system.
His skating and positioning let up less space to oncoming puck carriers, he kept a more active stick that was better about sweeping those pucks away, and he was winning more battles with quick moves out of them to change possession and to get the Flyers moving down toward the other net.
This season was never a straight line forward (see the January tailspin that nearly sunk them), but by the end, Drysdale had put up 24 assists from the blue line, a career-high eight goals, and a career-best matching 32 total points that he last reached in his second season with the Ducks back in 2022.
And by the end, he and the Flyers had fully clicked down the stretch.Â
They rallied coming back from the Olympic break to storm up the standings, which led fans across the Delaware Valley, who were always looking for just one reason to get behind the Flyers again, to turn their heads and rapidly start filling the arena back up.
Then, finally, by the second-to-last game against Carolina, they completed the run to fully break through. The Flyers made it back to the playoffs, and this era of the team, Drysdale included, would finally see what most of them only ever hear stories about.
Now, with a dominating 3-0 series lead over Pittsburgh, they have their greatest rival on the brink.
Drysdale scored the opening goal of the series on a pass into the open from Zegras during Game 1 in Pittsburgh.Â
Ever since, Drysdale and the Flyers have kept to the game and defensive style that has carried them this far, which has caused a veteran Penguins team fits through continuous failings to get to the middle and dangerous areas of the ice.
"I think it's just a brand of hockey that allows us to be successful," Drysdale said.
And ultimately brought the Flyers to the long-awaited moment Wednesday night that Philadelphia had waited years for.
It lived up to the billing.
The first bell to the AC/DC track rang out across the rink, the Flyers began their walk out of the tunnel, and an orange wave of nearly 20,000 who just wanted to believe again erupted once they saw their team take those first steps onto the ice.
"Walking out, seeing it, hearing it, it just gives you the chills," Drysdale said, thinking back to it.
Then, in the second period, Konecny got tackled, the penalty boxes filled up, and through the chaos and the ensuing power play, Drysdale returned the favor to Zegras and fed him a puck to tee up on.
The shot rocketed to the back of the net, the floodgates opened, and Xfinity Mobile Arena collectively lost its mind.
The celebration on the ice carried past the Philadelphia penalty box, with five Flyers inside hugging and banging on the glass to their teammates outside, and up to the Pittsburgh penalty box, where every Penguin there looked dejected.
Photographer Heather Barry captured the moment on camera. The next day, back in the quiet of the locker room inside the Flyers Training Center in Voorhess, Dysdale was shown the picture.
"Yeah, that's pretty electric," Drysdale said, as he and teammate Nick Seeler next to him both started laughing. "That's funny, that's a meme. That's a meme, for sure...Yeah, that's all-time."
He's part of why it is.
Showed the photo to Jamie Drysdale and Nick Seeler after practice today.
— Nick Tricome (@itssnick) April 23, 2026
"Yeah, that's pretty electric," Drysdale said, with both of them laughing. "That's funny, that's a meme. That's a meme, for sure...Yeah, that's all-time." https://t.co/EPkdtvLGUG
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