Flyers drop a shootout to the Blue Jackets and fall six points back in the Wild Card race

The Flyers had a chance to gain ground in the wild card race on Saturday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena. Instead they dropped a 2-1 shootout decision to the Columbus Blue Jackets and fell six points back of the second wild card spot. They entered the day five points back. It got worse.

Kirill Marchenko was the lone scorer in the shootout. Matvei Michkov, Trevor Zegras, and Travis Konecny all came up empty in the skills competition. The Flyers are now 8-4 in shootouts on the season and have lost three of their last four home games.

The turning point was a four-minute power play that carried over from the second period into the third. Golden opportunity to take the lead. The Flyers did nothing with it.

The Flyers had just swept a back-to-back set capped by a road win in Minnesota on Thursday and clearly came out flat. They got a point. That is the glass half full version. The glass half empty version is that a home game against a team fighting for the same wild card spot as you is not a game you can afford to give away, and they gave it away.

Alex Bump tied the game in the first with a deflection off an Emil Andrae shot for his second goal in five games since his NHL debut. Christian Dvorak picked up a secondary assist on the goal for the 39th point of his career, a new personal high.

Flyers tie it up on Alex Bump deflection:

Well, well, well…How the turntables…@Peacock | #NBC100 pic.twitter.com/adudcNKq7J

— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) March 15, 2026

Dan Vladar was not the problem. He stopped 27 of 28 shots and made a string of three saves in the first period that had him sprawling across his crease before Marchenko got one through six seconds later. Nothing you can pin on him. Jet Greaves stopped 18 of 19 for Columbus.

The Flyers are 31-23-12 with 16 games remaining, six points back of the second wild card spot and five points behind the Blue Jackets who are also chasing a berth. They have earned at least a point in seven of their last nine games. This team is hanging around but hanging around is not going to be enough if they keep leaving points on the table at home.

A three-game California road trip starts Wednesday in Anaheim against the Ducks at 10 PM ET on NBCSP.

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