The 2025-26 NHL regular season begins Oct. 7. Leading up to the season opener, NHL.com is identifying six things to watch for each team. Today, the Philadelphia Flyers.<\/p>\n
Last season: 33-39-10; eighth in Metropolitan Division, missed Stanley Cup Playoffs<\/p>\n
Coach: Rick Tocchet (first season)<\/p>\n
Biggest challenge<\/p>\n
The Flyers allowed 27.0 shots on goal per game last season, eighth fewest in the NHL, but their .890 5-on-5 save percentage was the worst since the League began keeping the stat in 2009-10. With upgrading the goaltending an offseason imperative, they signed Dan Vladar<\/a> to a two-year contract July 1. The 28-year-old had an .898 save percentage in 30 games for the Calgary Flames last season but finished 6-1-1 with a .927 save percentage in his final nine, and said he feels even better now with his March 2024 hip surgery further in his past. He’ll start the season in a tandem with Samuel Ersson<\/a>, who had an .883 save percentage in 47 games. Philadelphia believes Ersson is at his best when he has a reliable goalie partner to spread the work. He had a .904 save percentage last season with two days of rest, but .872 with one day.<\/p>\n How they make playoffs<\/p>\n Beyond the need for better play in goal, fixing the power play is a necessity. The Flyers were 30th in the NHL last season at 15.0 percent, the fourth straight season they’ve ranked in the bottom three of the League, and they haven’t had a power play in the top half of the NHL since 2019-20 (20.8 percent, 14th). It’s a unit that has skill, including forward Matvei Michkov<\/a>, who tied San Jose Sharks forward Macklin Celebrini<\/a> for first among NHL rookies with eight power-play goals and was third with 17 power-play points last season. He tied forward Travis Konecny<\/a> for the team lead in those categories, and Tyson Foerster<\/a> and Owen Tippett<\/a> are threats from the flanks. The struggle has been finding a quarterback from the blue line and a consistent net-front presence. If Philadelphia can get the power play at least to League average, and there are improvements in goaltending, it could compete for a wild card.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2025-26 NHL regular season begins Oct. 7. Leading up to the season opener, NHL.com is identifying six…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-187143","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}