Flyers Winless Start Hits Eight Games After Shootout Loss

The Flyers winless start now stretches to eight games, the longest in franchise history, after Philadelphia fell to the Seattle Kraken in a shootout on Tuesday night. The final was three to two, and for about twenty minutes in the third period it looked like the drought might finally be over. Instead, the Flyers sit at zero wins, five regulation losses and three losses past regulation, and the boos are getting louder in South Philly.

How the Flyers let another one slip away

Seattle came out sharp. According to the Kraken's official game recap on NHL.com, Bobby McMann opened the scoring with a first-period power-play goal. Then Ville Ottavainen scored his first career NHL goal about seven minutes into the second period, a shot through traffic from the right point that put Seattle up two-nothing.

That second goal drew boos from the home crowd at Xfinity Mobile Arena, a crowd already worn down by a season that has gone nowhere. Philadelphia kept crashing the net, but the offence looked disjointed for two full periods, which has been the story of the Flyers winless start since opening night.

The third-period rally that almost saved them

Then the building woke up. Christian Dvorak scored at six minutes and seven seconds of the third, off a feed from rookie Oliver Bonk, according to PhillyTalks. Just seventy-three seconds later, Trevor Zegras tied it for his first goal of the season. Suddenly the Flyers had life, and the Kraken, who had been cruising, were scrambling.

Overtime brought a chance too. Philadelphia was called for too many men on the ice, handing Seattle a four-on-three power play. The Kraken could not cash in, partly because Flyers goalie Dan Vladar kept making saves. PhillyTalks reports he finished with twenty-nine of them, several spectacular, and even picked up an assist along the way.

Zegras versus Grubauer: the beef nobody asked for

The night had a side plot. Seattle goalie Philipp Grubauer and Zegras went at it twice after second-period whistles. Grubauer, nicknamed "The German Gentleman" by Kraken fans, said he was fed up with what he felt were liberties in his crease. "He stabbed me twice and I punched him back," he said, per the Kraken recap. Another quote from him was even blunter: "All I did was punch him."

Later, after Zegras grabbed a chance down the right side, Grubauer snared it, then slowly and theatrically underhanded the puck back toward the winger. Zegras fired it right back, skated up for a chat, and got shoved with two hands. Both players picked up minor penalties. The Kraken recap itself compared the moment to Ron Hextall, the longtime Flyers netminder known for intimidating forwards who got too close.

Grubauer got the last laugh. He stopped Zegras on the very first shootout attempt, and PhillyTalks says he turned aside four of five shooters overall. McMann then ended it by beating Vladar over the blocker and in off the post, bookending a night in which he also scored the opener.

What a zero-five-three start actually means

Here is the math. Each of the three games that went past regulation earned the Flyers one standings point, so they have three points from a possible sixteen. That is a brutal hole this early in an eighty-two-game season. The AP headline on the game, published by the Associated Press, put it plainly: the winless start reaches eight games.

The bigger issue behind the Flyers winless start is scoring. PhillyTalks notes the Flyers have scored just ten goals in eight games, barely more than one per night. Michkov has been one of the few bright spots; he scored in the shootout against Seattle. But a team that cannot score cannot win, and even strong goaltending only goes so far.

Tocchet sees a pulse, but the clock is ticking

Head coach Rick Tocchet tried to find positives. "We're still upset at the last two weeks, but the energy was there," he told reporters, according to 97.5 The Fanatic as quoted by PhillyTalks. "I saw a lot of guys digging a little bit harder."

Moral victories do not count in the standings, though. Philadelphia now heads to Detroit on Thursday to face the Red Wings, still searching for win number one. Seattle, meanwhile, moved to five wins and two losses and has won three straight on a five-city road trip that continues in Tampa on Thursday and ends Saturday against Florida.

For a fan base that has been through plenty of rebuilds, this is a different kind of pain: the Flyers showed fight, fell short again, and now carry a record nobody wanted. Keep up with the rest of the league on our sports coverage, because if Thursday goes sideways in Detroit, the questions around this team will only get louder.