Flyers takeaways: Two key numbers from the team’s fourth straight loss
The goaltending did its part again with Dan Vladař standing tall, but that was one of the only positives from the 4-1 loss to Tampa Bay.
TAMPA, Fla. ― The Flyers are winless in their first four games and have looked flat and disconnected.
Monday’s 4-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning had moments of good — “pockets,” as coach Rick Tocchet described them — but nothing sustainable.
Tocchet was asked why: “It’s hard. It’s hard to do it consistently. So, starts with me. This team is way too comfortable, and it did not compete tonight.”
Let’s go inside two key numbers.
.914
Joseph Woll has a .929 save percentage across his two starts, and, after a rusty performance in the season opener, Dan Vladař posted a .914 save percentage on Monday, stopping 32 of 35 shots.
The goalies are doing their part to hold everything together but, unfortunately, aren’t getting enough help.
“End of the day, it doesn’t matter. We lost,” Vladař said when asked about his game. “I think overall, as a group, we’ve got to be better. Obviously, starts with me and Joe. We’ve got to be even more dialed in now. Hopefully we are going to turn this thing around because obviously this is not fun and this is not us.”
It may not be fun for the goalies, but they are not to blame when the team is averaging 19 shots a game and allowing 39.5, a slight tick down from over 40 entering Monday’s game. Through their four games, the Flyers are allowing the most shots on goal, almost seven more than the next team, and are averaging the second-fewest offensively.
According to Natural Stat Trick, Vladař faced 13 high-danger shots from the Lightning, with 11 coming at five-on-five, and seven rebound shots across all strengths. By comparison, Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy faced one high-danger shot, zero rebound shots, and eight from low-danger areas.
Compared to opening night, Vladař moved incredibly well and tracked the puck. His first save was not easy, but he kicked out the pad on a Jake Guentzel backhand shot from atop the crease on a power play.
He also made an authoritative glove save on Brandon Hagel, stopped Gage Goncalves’ redirect attempt on the doorstep, made a stretch save on Guentzel during a two-on-one, and made two diving saves on shots by Max Crozier and Pontus Holmberg in the third period.
“Our game is not at the level that it should be. So, starts with us goalies, and [we’re] the backbone of the team, so we’ve got to be better, and then hopefully we can bring even more confidence for the players in front of us,” Vladař said.
“And then they can just focus on offense because we have a lot of talent in the front and lots of really good guys that want to win, but we just got to find a way to start winning.”
18 feet
During a John Tortorella-like, 62-second postgame interview, Tocchet said his team had “not enough compete” and looked “too comfortable.”
When asked why there is such a disconnect, especially heading up ice, Tocchet replied: “Eighteen-foot pass. ... When you’re an NHL player, you’ve got to execute some passes. So we got to keep continuing to work on that.”
The Flyers’ passing is a mess. Several times they looked like they were either sustaining pressure or ready to set up a play, but instead the passes were either intercepted or missed connecting.
In the first minute and 39 seconds of the game, the Flyers iced the puck twice, with the second coming after a Travis Sanheim pass went by its intended target. On a penalty kill, Tyson Foerster went for a pass that didn’t work instead of shooting.
Despite the roster being the same — Noel Acciari was the only new forward skating against the Lightning — they don’t have the same cohesiveness as last season.
One of the most egregious miscues came off the rush when Travis Konecny opted to drop the puck to Jamie Drysdale, who didn’t appear prepared to receive it. Typically, the trailer calls for the drop pass. The Lightning went the other way on an odd-man rush, forcing Vladař to make that stretch save on Guentzel. A few minutes later, Matvei Michkov played with the puck too much just inside the Tampa blue line and lost it.
In the second period, 2:35 after the Flyers made it 2-1, Porter Martone drew the Flyers’ first power play. But on the man advantage, Michkov gave the puck away; Konecny lost it along the end boards; Foerster had a giveaway that the Lightning took the other way; and Trevor Zegras dumped the puck in, but the Flyers failed to get it back.
» READ MORE: The Flyers’ Achilles heel has long been their last-ranked power play. Turning the tide in 2026-27 is imperative.
That Flyers power play had zero shot attempts and, across a total of six minutes on the night, the man-advantage generated seven shot attempts and three shots on goal.
“I think going back to just executing,” said forward Denver Barkey, who made his season debut. “Obviously, yeah, we look a little disconnected, but I think it just comes back to being ready from the puck drop and executing the game plan that the coaches have in place.
“And figuring out amongst ourselves too; talking to your linemates, talking to the D, just communicating, working through things. It’s a long season. We’re only four games in, but definitely got to start figuring some things out here.”
The third period didn’t get much better as Cam York, who seemed to struggle all night alongside his old defensive partner Sanheim, with Rasmus Ristolainen out due to injury, lost the puck to Goncalves, who skated in for a snap shot Vladař had to stop. David Jiříček and Zegras had a miscommunication in the neutral zone, and later on, Zegras tried to center the puck to Foerster, but it didn’t work.
For the fourth straight game, Tocchet tweaked his lines — albeit Monday was because Barkey returned from a lower-body injury. And for the fourth straight game, they didn’t generate much.
Natural Stat Trick tracked every line that played more than a minute together as allowing more shot attempts than they took. The line of Michkov, Konecny, and Christian Dvorak had two shots on goal and gave up seven across a little more than seven minutes. They did not create a high-danger chance, while the Lightning had five when they were on the ice. The Bolts outchanced the Dvorak line, 9-2.
“Honestly, no. I mean, we’re all smart hockey players. We can play with anyone. We play in the NHL for a reason, and the coaches got to do what they got to do to get us ready and make lines. And it’s for us to be able to adjust on the fly,” said Martone, who easily had his best game of the season.
“So, I think this is [more] the blame’s on us right now. We’ve got to be better. We’ve got to show up, and we’ve got to do what we got to do.”
