May 18, 2026
James Lang/Imagn Images
Porter Martone and the Flyers hope to complete many more of their offensive chances next season.
Rick Tocchet had an awareness of how much of the Flyers' play looked through most of his first year behind the Philadelphia bench. He had a hint of the criticism from the outside for it, too.
They didn't score much. They didn't shoot much either. But they did go to overtime, a lot, and had to work from behind almost just as often, it felt.
They were a low-event team, but going in, they almost had to be, the head coach explained now that the season was over.
And it was boring to watch at a lot of points, sure. It almost entirely went off the rails during that January tailspin that ended up getting reset by the Olympic break just in time. But ultimately, with help from an influx of youth and skill at the end, it was enough to get the Flyers into the playoffs and then past rival Penguins in the first round until they ran into that Carolina buzzsaw that was just too much.
It was part of the plan, well, aside from the frequent comebacks and a still-awful power play.
But now that the Flyers have broken through, and they're well on their way to getting better, Tocchet said he hopes that the lessons and experiences from this season will all coalesce into the team being able to turn it loose offensively in the next one.
Really, it's the next step for a young team like this, which was, all things considered, pretty mature when it came to understanding that it had to prioritize defense first.
"First of all, we don't have that type of team to run and gun," Tocchet said Wednesday during his end-of-season press conference at the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees.
He wasn't kidding.
By New Year's Day, the Flyers were led in scoring by a revitalized Trevor Zegras and an always-present Travis Konecny, but Owen Tippett was working through inconsistency, reality was setting in that Matvei Michkov got hit by the sophomore slump, Sean Couturier was well into a miserable offensive drought, and Tyson Foerster had gone down with what was originally thought to be season-ending injury in what was looking to be a breakout year.
There was just never a regularly dependable source of goals.
The arrivals of rookie forwards Denver Barkey, Alex Bump, and at the very end, ascending star Porter Martone did spike up the offensive output a bit to get the playoff push over the finish line. Tippett tapping into his most complete brand of hockey as a power forward in the second half, along with a strong post-Olympic break run from Michkov, Foerster making his way back early, and maybe indirectly, Couturier buying into a more aggressive checking role to shoulder more defensive responsibility, all helped, too.
But all that wasn't going to completely rewrite the Flyers' identity and structure alone for this past season.
Here's what they were by the numbers during the regular season...
• They averaged 2.93 goals for per game, which ranked 21st out of 32 teams in th NHL.
• On the flip side, their goals against per game average came out to 2.91, which ranked 9th in the league.
• They generated an average of 25.5 shots per game, which ranked 28th, but allowed the same average of 25.5 shots to opponents, which came out to the fourth-fewest.
• At 5-on-5 play, they carried a 1.08 goals for vs. against ratio, which was in the top half of the league at the 13th-best.
• But that power play, when they had a man-advantage and all that extra ice, remained brutal at a league-worst (32nd) 15.7 percent success rate.
• And on the whole, only 27 of their 43 wins were earned in regulation. They almost specialized in overtime and the shootout.
And that mostly held through in the playoffs.
Past Game 3's 5-2 home outburst against the Penguins in Round 1, the Flyers scored just 10 goals through the last seven games, and just five alone through the sweep from Carolina in Round 2.
They definitely had their chances, but struggled to bury them – with Konecny even admitting that his missed breakaway in Game 2 against Carolina still ate at him a bit after the fact – and when they had golden opportunities on the power play to really lay the hurt on or swing momentum, most of them often ended up a waste of two minutes instead.
But, with all that said, the Flyers were rarely ever, or completely, out of their playoff losses – and even most of their regular-season ones before that. Their defensive strength and even better goaltending from Dan Vladar behind them always left Philadelphia with at least a chance.
And that was part of the plan, well, for this year at least.
The Flyers had to lean on their defense and Dan Vladar in net for much of the season.
Eric Hartline/Imagn Images
"To give confidence, you have to stay in games," Tocchet continued on Wednesday. "I saw a lot of our players learn when they're in – I know people criticize me, a lot of overtime games and tight games, but I think that helped our team. That helped our steam, that helped get us in the playoffs.
"Losing 6-4, and just playing run and gun, for a young player, I disagree with because I think you get no confidence...First of all, you get the hell beat of you every night, physically, and you're losing 6-3, 6-4. It doesn't build confidence. Now [I'm not] saying you have to play a 1-4 defense and stay back all day. That's not what I'm asking. But I think the way the players approached this year, and being in games, being in a 2-2 game, and the comebacks we had this year, I think it's gonna mean a lot for our team going forward."
It's going to help them, Tocchet hopes, to start notching more of those wins in regulation going into next season, and finish on a few more of those chances that fall right in front of them.
"We have to stretch the envelope a little bit," Tocchet said of upping the offense for next year.
"The offensive stuff, you know, that 2-2 game, six minutes left, a 2-on-1, can we make that play to score to make it a 3-2 game?" Tocchet asked. "Those are the moments we're going to look for a lot more next year."
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