The Philadelphia Flyers were winners on Thursday (Nov. 14), but really, were they? Yes, they defeated the Ottawa Senators 5-4 in overtime, but it hardly felt like a satisfying night. The Flyers were brutally outshot 37-19, including 28-7 through two periods, and generated just one-third of the expected goals at 5-on-5. Their best center, Sean Couturier, missed the game due to injury, and though he returned on Saturday night (Nov. 16), starting goaltender Sam Ersson did not. While Ersson isn’t expected to miss much time, as recently as Nov. 7, the Flyers didn’t have another goaltender with a save percentage above .870.
Squeaking out any victory could have caused other teams to overlook their flaws, especially because the Flyers had delivered their best three-game stretch of the season leading up to it. But the Flyers aren’t the type of team that can afford to sleepwalk through games and expect high-end talent to bail them out, amplified by the 1-5-1 hole they’ve spent the last two weeks digging out of.
Saturday night was a game that called on the team’s culture to restore their level of play to a higher standard. It’s the main reason the team chose to avoid a full-scale rebuild, a plan their opponent, the Buffalo Sabres, has embraced not once, but twice since their last playoff appearance in 2011. On both points, the Flyers came out ahead, getting their points percentage back to .500 for the first time in over a month.
Flyers Win Again, But This Time Deserve It
Two nights after being thoroughly outplayed by a Senators team that is a strong play-driving group with a 51.27% expected goals share (xGF%; sixth in the NHL) but mediocre in the standings (8-8-1, 21st), the Flyers flipped the script. A 10-8 shots edge and 63.92% 5-on-5 xGF% yielded a 2-0 lead on a breakthrough goal for Tyson Foerster and a breakout tally by the continually thriving Travis Sanheim. This put the Flyers in control of the game, which they never relinquished.
“I think we are playing better. The biggest thing is we are playing in fives. The two biggest things we worked on when we were all distracted was playing in fives and making sure we had a guy high all the time. That allowed us to play on our toes. That allowed us to check forward. That’s been a lot more consistent,” said head coach John Tortorella.
“But look at how we played against Ottawa,” he cautioned. “It comes and goes.”
It feels like the Flyers are finally shifting into phase three of their on-ice development, which started when Tortorella took over in 2022-23. The first season was about figuring out who fit and who didn’t, which Tortorella revisited during Saturday’s post-game press conference. Last season’s main goal was tailoring the team’s play style to make it a better fit for the future as management started to stockpile picks and prospects. This season should be defined by how well the Flyers, particularly their young players, can master that system and make the leap(s) to be on a trajectory to be impact players when the team is ready to contend.
Erik Johnson was once in the shoes of those players back when the St. Louis Blues drafted him first overall in 2006. Though he never became a star, Johnson has had a strong career by any measure and checked another box by playing in his 1,000th NHL game against the Sabres, who traded him to the Flyers at last year’s trade deadline.
He knows what a good team feels like – he won the Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche. He knows what a bad team feels like – he was a part of the 2016-17 Avalanche team that finished with the third-worst single-season points percentage (.293) of the salary cap era (from “Avalanche 2016-17 Season in Review: Colorado sinks to new low,” The Denver Post, April 19, 2017). His feelings on the Flyers are clear.
“It just seemed like that right away when I got here, at the deadline last year, the guys were just unbelievable welcoming me,” Johnson recalled. “You could tell it was a special room and I’m really not just saying that. I really think the culture here is awesome and the people here are amazing. It makes it that much better to come to the rink every day and play hockey. Where I’m at in my career, this is just a breath of fresh air. This is one of my favorite places, if not the most favorite place I’ve played.”
The last time the Flyers were at the Wells Fargo Center, Johnson made a statement by scoring in the first two minutes but even more so by fighting Givani Smith off the ensuing face-off after Smith took some liberties with Matvei Michkov. Making those decisions is easier when it’s naturally paying back support rather than being on an island. That’s from a player who’s been healthy scratched on several occasions, averaging easily the least time on ice of his career.
“Yeah, I think that it gets talked about a lot like what is culture and how does it affect your team. I think it’s people doing things for the good of the team that might not be in the best interest for themselves. I think that’s a big thing. You have to accept a certain role as a player that sometimes you might not think that you should be in, that might not serve you better but will serve the team better. There is a lot of that here,” Johnson said.
Johnson Sees the Bigger Picture
Johnson became an unrestricted free agent for the first time in the summer of 2023. After 13 years in Colorado, Johnson could have chased another Cup but instead chose to sign with a Sabres team that seemed on the rise. The Sabres finished one point behind the eventual Eastern Conference champion Florida Panthers for the final Eastern Conference playoff berth. Their 91 points were their most since 2010-11. The team was littered with young talent and seemed to be on the cusp of breaking through.
Saturday was the Sabres’ 100th game since then. The Sabres are 24th in the NHL record-wise (47-46-7) and 26th in 5-on-5 xGF% (48.59%). Some of that talent has stagnated, and even the players who have performed well individually didn’t mesh together under previous head coach Don Granato and are still adjusting to Lindy Ruff’s systems. Buffalo has already failed to get a rebuild out of second gear once during their playoff drought, topping out at 81 points in 2015-16 in the Jack Eichel era, which was his rookie season. Eichel kept getting better, yet the Sabres never did before he left town.
The Sabres’ backend Saturday includes two former No. 1 picks in Owen Power and Rasmus Dahlin. The latter had a rather eventful night, canceling Buffalo’s first two power-plays with penalties before scoring on its third. Bowen Byram, the No. 4 pick in 2019, came over from Colorado last season for 2017 No. 8 pick Casey Mittelstadt. The Sabres were without first-line center Tage Thompson due to injury, who took a concerning step back last season. He scored at a 56-goal pace this season before his injury, but his 21.6% shooting percentage is well above his career 13.3% mark (even in his 47-goal 2022-23 campaign, he shot 15.9%).
The Sabres and Flyers have gone down two very different roads. One prioritizes raw talent, while the other takes a more well-rounded approach. Saturday’s game shouldn’t be considered a Flyers victory lap by any stretch – the Sabres are only one of five teams with a longer playoff drought than Philadelphia’s. While Johnson said he believes the pieces for long-term success are in Philadelphia, he admitted the Cup’s return to the City of Brotherly Love probably isn’t imminent. Teams using both strategies have succeeded and failed. There’s a long way to go for both.
Home, Sweet Home
The Flyers won’t have a road game for almost two weeks with just one remaining before Thanksgiving (Nov. 27 at the Nashville Predators). The five-game homestand is the team’s second-longest this season – they have a seven-game run from March 4-15, with the trade deadline in the middle of it on March 7.
Related: 3 Young Flyers Defensemen Provide Excitement for the Future
Over the last two seasons, home-ice advantage hasn’t had much impact, as the Flyers are 24-21-4 at home and 22-20-9 on the road. However, the Flyers have generally played better 5-on-5 hockey at the Wells Fargo Center (52.88% xGF%, seventh) than elsewhere (50.01% xGF, 15th). Maybe that proves helpful for a team still looking to hone its play.
Advanced Statistics via Natural Stat Trick
