Rick Tocchet’s\u00a0Philadelphia Flyers’ (6-10-6)\u00a0 return home on Sunday to rematch for the second time in a week against Mike Babcock’s powerhouse Edmonton Oilers (15-3-3). It is the final meeting of the two game season series between the interconference teams.<\/p>\n
Gamt time at Xfinity Mobile Arena is 7:00 p.m. EST.\u00a0 The match will be televised on NBCSP.<\/p>\n
On Thursday in Edmonton, the Flyers put forth one of their best all-around 60 minute performances of the season. They outplayed the Oilers most of the night but had to rally back from a 2-0 deficit to force overtime. Finally, Edmonton prevailed in sudden death.<\/p>\n
Zach Hyman notched two goals — one even strength and one power play — in regulation. The Flyers fought back for goals from Tyson Foerster and Travis Sanheim to send the game to overtime. In sudden death, a semi-broken play turned into a game-winning goal by Evan Bouchard.<\/p>\n
Both the Flyers and Oilers were in road game action on Saturday night. The Oilers squeaked past the Toronto Maple Leafs, 1-0. Meanwhile, the Flyers recovered from another 2-0 deficit and found a way to defeat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 4-3.<\/p>\n
Offensively, the Flyers were led by a two-goal night — one at even strength and one on the power play — from young forward Denver Barkey (3rd and 4th goals of the season). Philly also received a tally apiece from Trevor Zegras (5th) and\u00a0 Matvei Michkov (team-high 11th). Michkov’s goal came on a breakaway.<\/p>\n
Saturday’s game marked the statistical start of the second quarter of the Flyers’ 2026-27 season. The match is the Flyers’ fifth game in an eight-night span: an extremely busy stretch with air travel involved between each game.<\/p>\n
Here are the RAV4 Things to watch on Sunday.<\/p>\n
1. Start on time <\/p>\n
The Flyers have been prone to slow starts much of the season to date. This was also the case last year despite Philly’s 98 points and first-round playoff victory against Pittsburgh. On Thursday, the Flyers came out of the gates fast with a very solid opening 20 minutes in Edmonton.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That set a positive tone that Philly could compete with the lethal Oilers if the Flyers stayed on the same page and played with pace all night. The same challenge presents itself again in Sunday’s rematch.<\/p>\n
The Flyers need a much stronger start on Sunday than they produced during much of Saturday’s first period in Columbus. Both the Flyer and Oilers are in the\u00a0second game of a back-to-back. Philly has to deal with a cumulative fatigue factor that’s more significant than Edmonton’s right now.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, it’s not an excuse for a letdown. The Flyers have to match — or exceed — their performance from Thursday’s tilt in Edmonton.<\/p>\n
2. Owen Tippett <\/p>\n
Speedy Flyers winger Owen Tippett (2g, 4 points in 16 games) has had a lot of frustration — injury issues, pucks not going in for him — dating back to the stretch drive of last season. On Saturday in Columbus, Tippett seemed to have a cathartic night.<\/p>\n
He didn’t score a goal. However, he provided a spark to the Flyers with a heavy bodycheck and the first fight of his NHL career (which he won decisively).\u00a0 Tippett, who scored in the November 8 game in Calgary, is the Flyers’ streakiest offensive player. When he gets hot, Tippett scores in bunches.<\/p>\n
The rematch with the Oilers presents a golden chance for Tippett to start one of his hot streaks. Step one: shoot the puck and get it on net. Tippett knocked on the door all game in Calgary (six shots on net) before he finally buried a scoring chance.<\/p>\n
Over the three games since his most recent goal, Tippett has generated one shot on net. He’s also seen less ice — 13:34 TOI average — over the last five tilts. If the first part falls in place, so will the second (more ice time) and final piece (scoring some goals again).<\/p>\n
3. Special teams <\/p>\n
The Flyers took just one minor penalty apiece against the Oilers and Blue Jackets. However, Edmonton made quick work of its one power play in Thursday’s game.<\/p>\n
The Flyers have 11 power play goals in their last 13\u00a0games. They are now ranked in a tie for 24th in the NHL at 19.4 percent success after stumbling out of the gates (7.1 percent in the first nine games).<\/p>\n
Philly’s penalty kill started out rough at the beginning of the season but has been generally solid since then. Entering Sunday, the Philly PK ranks 12th in the NHL at 79.7 percent success.<\/p>\n
However, the best strategy to combat Edmonton’s lethal power play is to stay out of the penalty box in the first place. The Oilers enter this game ranked 3rd in the NHL at 32.9 percent this season. It’s been the NHL’s top-ranked power play attack over the last five seasons combined (28..3 percent).<\/p>\n
The Edmonton penalty kill is competent. The Oilers rank 17th in the league this season at 78.3 percent success. However, it remains more dangerous in terms of posing a shorthanded scoring threat than it is at completely shutting down\u00a0 opposing chances.<\/p>\n
For the Flyers, breaking even on special teams in this game and winning the game at 5-on-5 presents their best chance to win.<\/p>\n
4. McDavid, Draisaitl and Bouchard — Part 2<\/p>\n
Any time a team plays Edmonton, containing Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard is job number one. The Flyers did that rather well in Edmonton on Thursday but the three players still loomed large in the ultimate overtime victory for the Oilers.<\/p>\n
Specific to McDavid, the Flyers once again must deal with the NHL’s most lethal transition player and top playmaker. He’s opened the 2026-27 campaign with at least one point in all 21 games the Oilers have played.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rick Tocchet’s\u00a0Philadelphia Flyers’ (6-10-6)\u00a0 return home on Sunday to rematch for the second time in a week against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-328174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}