January 13, 2026
Eric Hartline/Imagn Images
The Flyers were overwhelmed against the Lightning in the past few days.
The Flyers were on a high from crushing Anaheim, then no sooner fell back to earth.
Old friend Scott Laughton returned to Philly and wired a shorthanded bullet to force overtime and an eventual Maple Leafs win on Thursday, then on Saturday and Monday, the Tampa Bay Lightning came through and trapped the Flyers in a strom of consecutive blowouts.
Sam Ersson got shelled in net in a 7-2 rout on Saturday, and Dan Vladar didn't hold up much better on Monday in a 5-1 thrashing. Granted, whenever the scores get that lopsided, it never solely falls on who's in the crease.
The responsibility heavily goes to the skaters in front of the goalie, too, and those skaters for the past couple games just looked overwhelmed against a Tampa team that's been there and done that plenty of times before.
"We have a lot of work to do to get to that level," Flyers captain Sean Couturier said postgame Monday. "They're a pretty experienced team that plays the right way and sticks to their gameplan. So something we can learn. I still believe in this group that we can get there. Just gotta put in work and get to that level."
Eventually, though. The Flyers are trying to take a tangible step toward it this season, and trying to get a first taste of the playoffs along with it, but to get to the Lightning's level – where they've won Stanley Cups, where they have the big stars, where they're regularly in the postseason conversation – that's still a long way to go for this team.
Because, like it or not, believe it or not, at the end of the day, this is still a rebuild for the Flyers. At a different stage now, sure, but in a process that the front office still seems content to take its time with.
The team on the ice now is improving – albeit banged up ever since the Anaheim game from losing Bobby Brink and Jamie Drysdale to nasty hits – but they're just not to Tampa's level.
They don't truly have a Nikita Kucherov, a Jake Guentzel, a Brayden Point, or a Brandon Hagel, each highly-elite skill level players who can take over a game, and each torched the Flyers in the past two games.
They don't have Tampa's level of execution on the ice either.
They have to slowly work their way to all of that still, and until then, they just have to take note as they go and adapt as much as they can.
"It's just the little things," defenseman Nick Seeler said after Monday night's loss. "That's a playoff hockey team. They've been doing it for a long time...I think we need to take stuff from their game and say 'You know what? This is why they're successful.' They're consistent. They play for each other – not that we don't play for each other. It's just those little things that we need to continue to grow at."
"It's a good hockey team over there," added head coach Rick Tocchet. "It's a measuring stick, so you can't get frustrated. You just gotta keep working, and you gotta do the proper things. You gotta hold on to pucks. Let's face it, their best players are very good. There's a level that we gotta find some of our guys to get to, and that's what we're gonna try to get to every day."
"So you play these types of games," Tocchet continued. "And then you realize 'Hey, I gotta do those sort of things that they do.' Their conversion rate's outstanding, right? We get a couple 2-on-1s, they get 2-on-1s, they convert. We gotta get to that level, and that's the only way you gotta do it is playing these types of games."
And hammer out the details as you go, even if it's still likely to take a long, long time.
Some other thoughts on the Flyers...
Matvei Michkov is expected to one day be one of the Flyers' elite, star-level players, but for right now, for this season, it's been brutal for the 21-year-old wing.
He has just nine goals and 23 points at a minus-6 rating through 43 games.
He scored his last goal in the Dec. 22 win over the Canucks. It was an empty-netter.
The last time Michkov scored with a goaltender between the pipes trying to stop him: Nov. 29 against the Devils, when he netted two goals in a 5-3 win.
Michkov, who arrived from Russia ahead of schedule going on two years ago, went home for the summer, didn't have his offseason training where it needed to be when he came back, and has been operating from behind ever since.
There's really no sugarcoating. He's looked bad, especially this past week against Tampa, where he's been on the ice and has had the puck, but could never seem to break away to do anything with it.
"He's trying," Tocchet said of Michkov postgame Monday. "I'd like to see him separate himself in the corners. He's easily checked, and I know there's some reasons because of it. We gotta keep working with him, but he's gotta get a little bit more separation skating away from people. It looks like he's just kind of stuck in mud sometimes, right? We gotta get him out of it."
Somehow, someway, because the Flyers have and will continue to count on Michkov to progress. A large part of their rebuild aspirations hang on him doing so.
It might be too late now to salvage a "good" season stat-wise for him, but coming back from the Olympic break next month, maybe that can be the opportunity for him to find a groove and help push the Flyers down the stretch.
Matvei Michkov has struggled to produce this season.
The Eastern Conference is a tight race.
There's never a positive to taking three straight losses, but the Flyers did take them, yet still woke up Tuesday hanging on to third place in the Metropolitan Division at 22-14-8 for 52 points.
They're definitely not safe, as a win or a loss right now can be the difference between second in the Metro or falling out of either of the two Wild Cards with either Washington or Pittsburgh pulling ahead.
But the Flyers are in this playoff race, and have a real chance to gain some separation over this next week.
They'll be in Buffalo to face a Sabres team that has woken up and propelled itself into Wild Card positioning on Wednesday night, then they'll go straight to Pittsburgh to face the Penguins, who are currently just outside the bubble, but still right behind the Flyers with 51 points.
These are key games that carry multi-point swings.
The Flyers should want to be as right and ready as possible for them.
Trevor Zegras admitted after last Tuesday's cathartic win over Anaheim that, although he might have downplayed it initially, that game meant a lot to him.
His exit from the Ducks, via the June trade that shipped him to the Flyers right before the draft, wasn't amicable, and for months, he had been thinking about when he would finally get the chance to play the team that, in his words, "kinda shoved you out the door."
He didn't waste it when the moment finally arrived.
Zegras scored twice against the Ducks before the first period was even up, following each with loaded celebrations and roars from a Philly crowd that wanted to back him just as much as it wanted to run Cutter Gauthier and anyone else in a Ducks sweater out of the building.
It was special, and for Zegras, it was validation that Philadelphia is his home now.
"This is home for me," he said with a big smile afterward. "I love being here. These guys are amazing. I'm having a blast."
Now he just needs the contract to keep him here for the long haul.
Christian Dvorak just got his as a pending unrestricted free agent to instead stick around for five more years as a flexible center who can slide down the lineup as the Flyers presumably get better and younger.
The Flyers can afford to take a bit more time figuring something out for the 24-year-old Zegras, as he'll be a restricted free agent after the season's up.
But a contract extension for Zegras feels way less about "if" now, and much more about "when."
Trevor Zegras is a Philadelphia Flyer. pic.twitter.com/OAJIiqYalB
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) January 7, 2026
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