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Season-opening cheers turn into boos as Flyers get blown out by Penguins
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- Season-opening cheers turn into boos as Flyers get blown out by Penguins
Season-opening cheers turn into boos as Flyers get blown out by Penguins originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Rick Tocchet felt the Flyers were humbled in their preseason finale .
Four days later, they were served a much bigger slice of humble pie. It came on opening night, in a game that counted, in front of a packed crowd at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
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The Flyers commenced the 2026-27 season with an embarrassing, 7-0 loss Wednesday night to the Penguins.
"That was about as ugly as it could have gotten," Travis Sanheim said. "The fortunate thing is it's Game 1 and we've got 83 more of these and we're playing again tomorrow night."
In this same building not even five months ago, the Flyers received a standing ovation after their promising run to the second round of the playoffs came to an end. On Wednesday night, they were booed. Heavily.
And it was warranted.
"At some point, we've got to learn here, we've got to wake up," Sean Couturier said. "The last exhibition game we played, it was the same way. Everyone's like, 'Oh, it's training camp, we're going to ease our way into the season.' But we've got to wake up here.
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"I mean, there's no panic, nothing, but obviously we've got to realize that we're not that good, what happened last year is last year and we've got to move on. It's a fresh year and we've got to get back to outworking teams and trying to get points."
Pittsburgh finished off the eyesore with a power play goal.
"There were alarming things out there," Tocchet said. "We honestly didn't win a battle."
The Flyers dropped to 0-2-0 in season openers under Tocchet.
"They outcoached us tonight, they outplayed us," Tocchet said. "They did everything better than us tonight."
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The Penguins got some early revenge on the Flyers. The opener was a rematch of last season's first-round playoff matchup. The Flyers won the physical and feisty series in six games .
The Flyers face Pittsburgh three more times this season.
• Dan Vladar did not look like himself. Perhaps there was some rust.
The 29-year-old goaltender saw only one abbreviated period of preseason action because of an upper-body injury . Ideally, he would have played five periods before the real thing.
"He hasn't had a preseason," Tocchet said. "He wants to battle and stay in there. That's what I thought."
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Pittsburgh's sixth goal was salt in the wound. It came on the Flyers' power play in the third period when Nick Robertson had a shot go off the boards and then Vladar's skate.
But this loss wasn't squarely on Vladar's shoulders. The Flyers didn't help him whatsoever. And they knew he barely had a preseason. They gave up 38 shots.
"I know for us up front, we need to do a lot better, we put the D in some tough spots and we put Vladdy in a tough spot," Travis Konecny said. "Vladdy, he didn't deserve to go through that tonight."
The Penguins flipped the game upside down in the second period by ripping off three goals over a span of 4:40 minutes.
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Evgeni Malkin padded the lead to 3-0 with a power play blast. Hendrix Lapierre made it 4-0 on a wide-open look after Jamie Drysdale lost a puck battle in the neutral zone. The boos really came down after Filip Hallander batted home a loose puck, making it 5-0 with about half of the game still left to be played.
"When we were down 4-0, even some plays we were making, just disturbing plays," Tocchet said. "Obviously we've got to figure this out quickly. Since I've been here, it's the worst D-zone I've ever seen."
The Flyers were not sharp at all in the first period. They couldn't connect on passes and their last shot came with 12:25 minutes left in the period.
They had a poor line change, which resulted in Pittsburgh's second goal. Rasmus Ristolainen , Porter Martone and Owen Tippett all came off. Trevor Zegras was in the process of changing, but had to circle back. Ville Koivunen capitalized, taking a pass and going down broadway to beat Vladar on a nifty move.
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The Penguins' onslaught started 7:26 minutes into the action. Ristolainen elicited a roar from the crowd when he leveled Sidney Crosby in the defensive zone, but Pittsburgh kept possession and scored 15 seconds later. Crosby picked up a secondary assist on the play as Robertson snuck one past Vladar with a deflection.
Penguins netminder Arturs Silovs stopped all 19 of the Flyers' shots.
• The Flyers were not a high-end scoring team last season and their offense dried up badly later in the playoffs.
They couldn't generate much at all Wednesday night.
"That's a team that didn't want to be engaged tonight, as much as defensively and offensively," Tocchet said. "Like, hold onto a puck. We just kept throwing pucks and giving it away."
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The Flyers' power play went 0 for 3. The club entered the opener with the NHL's worst power play percentage over the past five seasons combined.
• The Flyers are right back at it Thursday when they visit the Devils (7 p.m. ET/ESPN+, Hulu).
