May 01, 2026
Kyle Ross/Imagn Images
Jamie Drysdale and the Flyers will roll straight into their second-round series against the Hurricanes.
The league is wasting little time.
The Flyers will begin their second-round playoff series against the top-seeded Carolina Hurricanes this Saturday night on the road for Game 1 at the Lenovo Center.
Puck drop is set for 8 p.m. ET, taking a primetime broadcast spot on ABC.
The Flyers, finally, put away the rival Pittsburgh Penguins in six games to close out their first-round series on Wednesday night.
Dan Vladar, in the best performance of his career, stood on his head and made 42 saves for the eventual shutout, and late into overtime, Cam York shot the winning goal through for a 1-0 final, and a celebration that saw the home Xfinity Mobile Arena erupt.
After jumping out to a commanding 3-0 series lead, it took two straight losses and then 77 more nerve-wracking minutes for the Flyers to fully get past Sidney Crosby and the Pens.
But by comparison, the Hurricanes are going to be the far greater challenge, and taken on no sooner since neither of the Western Conference playoff series – between Anaheim and Edmonton, and Minnesota and Dallas – extended to a Game 7.
Carolina, coached by former Flyer Rod Brind'Amour, tore through the regular season to collect 113 points as the top seed in the Metropolitan Division and the Eastern Conference's overall best team.
They have plenty of punch at the top with their leading stars Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov, and Seth Jarvis; a ton of depth down the roster, too, with veterans like Taylor Hall and Jordan Staal; and they play a fast and disruptive game that has given most teams fits all season, the Flyers included.
Notable for the Flyers, though, is that in all four regular-season matchups against the Hurricanes, they've all gone past regulation.
They won the last matchup, too, with that shootout victory on April 13 that completed their month and a half long rally and officially punched their ticket back into the Stanley Cup Playoffs after six years away. The catch, however, was that Carolina was running a reserve lineup.
This time, the Hurricanes will be going full tilt as a clear Stanley Cup contender from the start.
Even so, these Flyers have been defying expectations all year long. What's a few more?
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