Flyers vs. Devils reminded fans what could be

The Flyers largely beat the brakes off of the Devils on Saturday. It was one of the season’s more satisfying games, so it’s fitting that I missed it live. I had to settle for basking in the discourse of the game played in cruise control, and then going back to see the action for myself.

What struck me about the game… besides how bad Jake Allen was at tending the goal, to be totally honest… was how utterly shocking it is that this was an outlier. That this was a fun and crazy event we don’t really expect to repeat itself. Now, of course, 6 goals are just far too many to consistently ask for.

But need it really take a modern miracle to see a 6-goal game? I don’t think so. Is it a bit of a joke that their 6-goal night didn’t even come alongside 30 shots on goal and the Devils actually out-shot and out-chanced them? A little, yeah.

Score effects are real, and the Devils had every reason to throw caution to the wind and throw everything they had at the Flyers in order to claw their way back into the game. That’s all true.

It’s also kind of the problem. It’s always the other team who throws caution to the wind. The Flyers don’t throw caution to the wind. They wear caution as a yoke around their neck and try to win a race while crawling across the finish line with that weight on their shoulders. Especially this year, they’ve become totally married to “game management.”

Recently, Frank Seravalli got a lot of plaudits for an appearance on Snow the Goalie in which he lambasted the direction the organization was headed. And good, the organization needs to be lambasted.

Wow. Rockstar stuff from Frank here. Absolutely hit the nail on the head. #Flyers https://t.co/mn3lJCwHYN pic.twitter.com/A5aKWWwetg

— TLY (@TheLibertyYell) November 20, 2025

But to me, almost none of that came even vaguely close to my actual frustrations with the team. No, actually, there are not 6 franchise changing players at the top of the 2026 Draft. Really, I’m not even certain that there’s just one.

Yes, I’d love a top center. Guess what? There is maybe one top center prospect in this class and even he isn’t a sure thing in Tynan Lawrence. Certainly not a surefire superstar 1C that everyone’s always clamoring for.

So, no, really. I don’t need to tank for 2026. I’m not overly upset if the team decides to go on a run here. But how that run is created and what it looks like makes all the difference.

And that’s where my frustrations with the organization lie at present.

Winning the way the Flyers win is utterly useless in the long run.

There’s no tangible value to Sean Couturier and Travis Konecny and Travis Sanheim playing 20 to 30 minutes a night to defeat the St. Louis Blues 3-2 in overtime in order to claw one point closer to the second wild card spot.

I’m not flipping a table if it happens, but it does nothing for the long-term health of the organization. And yet, that’s what we’re getting a steady dosage of.

For about half a game, I was reminded of how the Flyers played hockey the previous two years. The daring neutral zone stops leading to an unending flurry of counterattacks off the rush. The quick passes up the middle of the ice to trigger an immediate entry and scoring chance.

The Flyers… flew. They were a high-paced team that stepped on another team’s throat, for a change. That didn’t last. They sat back on the lead they built and allowed themselves to get smothered with a pillow for giant swaths of the second and third period, relying on a shockingly strong night from Dan Vladar to keep their lead.

But why was that a fleeting moment you see as rarely as a freaking comet?

And why does the team seem happy to let that kind of play die?

Sean Couturier after his line scored 2 goals off the rush:

"We did a good job dumping the puck in and not trying to enter with possession all the time."

Bro 😂🤦‍♂️

— Derek Dunn (@SuitableAlias) November 23, 2025

When asked after the game about the offensive explosion, Couturier credited the Flyers’ success to… dumping the puck in. I wish I was kidding, but you can look for yourself.

First of all, Couturier has to be hallucinating.

The Flyers’ 6 goals came from 6 rush plays. There wasn’t a dump-in to be found in the bunch. Every single one directly succeeded a controlled entry, and these were the exact things he swore they succeeded without.

But I’m more concerned that Couturier thinks it’s some badge of honor to dump the puck in more and not attempt to make a play over the blueline. Couturier, at least according to my lineup card, is not a bottom-six center. He is paid nearly eight million dollars a year.

He isn’t paid to get defensive results at the expense of all else. If I wanted that, I could hire Jesperi Kotkaneimi for half his salary.

He’s paid to be an all-around player. A “200-foot player.”

He’s paid to get defensive results without allowing that to come at the expense of his offense, but he’s blatantly admitting that he is achieving these defensive results at the expense of his offense.

And that’s what I find unacceptable. Because it isn’t just Couturier. it’s nearly everyone who has decided that they’re going to “manage the puck” by freely giving it to the other team whenever the other team doesn’t practically grab their ankles at the blueline and beg to be posterized.

Ironically, the defensive results aren’t that good. They’re mostly an artifact of excellent goaltending from Dan Vladar. And I believe Vladar is a good goaltender, but I can’t imagine he continues to be the Vezina contender that he has been.

Or maybe he does. And if he does, that’s precisely what I find to be totally unacceptable. Yes, Dan Vladar had a great year. How much does that matter if all it cost was… everything?

I want Jamie Drysdale to produce for me by joining the rush, but there’s never a rush to join because Sean Couturier is dumping the puck in.

I don’t care if we tank for some prospect who isn’t better than Porter Martone, other than the fact that he happens to play (probably) defenseman. I really couldn’t care less.

But I care deeply about how the team is being built on a structural and cultural level. And I don’t want a team that always assumes they’re the team with lesser talent. I don’t want my players coached to believe that they can’t make plays. Or worse, that they don’t need to make plays.

That they’ll win if they just do the easy thing, get scared as soon as they see the slightest bit of resistance, and dump the puck in and pretend to “get it back” while actually allowing a breakout to go the other way.

The team added Trevor Zegras, who is playing simply sublime hockey, and they’re acting as if they have less skill than they did just last year. That’s unforgivable to me.

That isn’t a worth first round exit. That isn’t worth taking a fleeting, single step forward.

I want the team to take a step forward, but to borrow a phrase, I want them to do it The Right Way.

By playing a kind of hockey that can be scaled up with greater and greater levels of talent, that will develop and cultivate the skill-level and the offensive minds already on the team, that will be fruitful to the next generation of skilled Flyers.

I want that.

It’s hardly as if I have sour grapes for forechecks. But creating off the forecheck doesn’t need to be some choice between either rushing the puck or not.

Creating off the forecheck should be what you do after you’ve gotten your rush chance. You go to work on your forecheck to get the second and third opportunities in an offensive zone sequence.

For half a game, the Flyers showed us what could’ve been. And you know what? I wish it wasn’t an anomaly.

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