Flyers' Astonishing Lack of Mental Fortitude Costs Them vs. Flames... Again

Throughout the entire early portion of the 2026-27 season, the Philadelphia Flyers have done what really bad teams do: find ways to lose games. In Sunday night's 4-3 overtime loss to the Calgary Flames, the Flyers did so in improbable fashion... again.

Much like their recent games against New York and Minnesota, the Flyers, on the whole, probably played good enough to win. But they didn't, instead spotting their opponents cheap goals and making unsightly mental mistakes along the way.

That trend continued on Sunday night, when they blew 1-0, 2-1, and 3-2 leads en route to the 4-3 loss to the Flames.

Just under halfway through the third period, old friend Joel Farabee scored a short-handed goal in the dying seconds of a Flyers power play, tying the game at 3-3. The Flyers' power play, which went 1-for-3 on the night, was actually quite poor.

Owen Tippett's second-period turnaround shot was released at sonic speed to catch Flames goalie Devin Cooley off guard through some traffic, but it was an otherwise horrific showing from the man advantage.

The fascinating part is that Tippett's goal gave the Flyers a 3-2 lead, and then his hospital pass to Oliver Bonk on the power play allowed Farabee to go down and beat Dan Vladar on a breakaway to erase the lead for good.

Special teams can swing the momentum one way or another, and it wound up sinking the Flyers in the end.

Earth to veterans?

For Tippett, and many other Flyers, this was a night to forget. Tippett, despite scoring a goal, finished the night with a -4 rating... as in he was on the ice for every Flames goal.

On the Flames' first of the night, from Zayne Parekh, Tippett and linemate Trevor Zegras were easily bypassed in the defensive zone, with Calgary's stud young defenseman skating through defenders with absolutely no fear.

Neither Tippett nor Zegras made a play on Parekh, and the skillful defender placed an excellent shot past Vladar to tie the game at 1-1.

On Zach Whitecloud's goal to make it 2-2, Tippett was beaten on the wall by a pinching Jake Middleton, who was able to cancel Jamie Drysdale's attempt to rim the puck to safety out of the defensive zone.

The third was the pass to Bonk, and the fourth, the overtime winner, came when Tippett took a long-range shot from the blue line, with Cam York and Christian Dvorak converging on Cooley.

Cooley made the save easily, and Dvorak bowled over York, leading to a 3-on-1 for some of the Flames' most talented players: Matvei Gridin, Simon Nemec, and Matt Coronato.

Coronato buried Gridin's feed with Tippett back defending, and that was it. 4-3 final.

The bottom line is, on each goal, there was a comedy of errors.

Simon Benoit picked up Parekh way too late, while Tippett and Zegras stood idle. Middleton completely erased a simple D-zone breakout. The Flyers still have no idea how to enter the zone on a power play.

And the worst of all, shooting for rebounds and deflections in a 3-on-3 setting, with a defenseman like York crashing the net. If you remember, it was York who tried to drive to the net and lost the puck in that overtime to Columbus a few weeks back, too.

York, Tippett, Zegras, Dvorak, and Benoit are all experienced players who should know better.

Overall, it doesn't help that the Flyers, as a team, have no backbone or killer instinct to go out there and bury their opponents.

Of course, head coach Rick Tocchet bears the majority of that responsibility, but as an athlete and a competitor, some of that has to come within, and the Flyers clearly don't have it.

This is a deeply, deeply flawed hockey team, from top to bottom, on and off the ice, and a magical, seamless fix isn't immediately forthcoming.