Same Old Flyers Showed Up In Epic Choke vs. Rangers

Just under a quarter of the way through the 2026-27 season, the Philadelphia Flyers have won only four of their first 18 games, and the way they continue to find ways to lose games is impressively bad.

Overall, the Flyers actually played a solid game against the Metropolitan Division rival New York Rangers on Thursday night. The Rangers held a narrow 28-25 advantage in shots on goal, while 5-on-5 shot attempts, according to Natural Stat Trick, were an even 48-48.

In the expected goals battle, the Flyers eked out a 2.67 to 2.65 advantage.

By the numbers, it was an extremely even game, but one the Flyers should have won.

Thanks to unlikely goal contributions from Simon Benoit, who scored his first goal since March 10, 2025, and Noel Acciari, the Flyers went into the third period on Thursday night nursing a 2-1 lead. And they played like it.

The Rangers, of course, pushed, out-shooting the Flyers 10-8, and out-attempting the Flyers 17-11 at 5-on-5.

Midway through the third period, a chintzy slashing penalty on Denver Barkey put the Flyers on the penalty kill, and Pavel Dorofeyev cashed in to tie the game at 2-2.

The Flyers continued to sit back and play conservatively, and a routine offensive zone dump-and-chase was quickly thrown back the other way, with Rangers forward Ty Kartye finding an inexplicable amount of open space for a breakaway, which he scored on to give the Blueshirts an insurmountable 3-2 lead.

On Kartye's goal, Travis Sanheim was pinched up in the neutral zone on his man, Jamie Drysdale was far off to the left of the ice, and Sean Couturier was at the red line. In the end, nobody cut off the middle and right side of the ice, and regardless of whose mistake it was in coverage, it was made by someone who should know better.

"I'm not sure. I was up on my check in the neutral zone, and I haven't watched it yet, so I'm not sure what happened," Sanheim said bluntly of the goal after the game.

In the end, nobody on the Flyers knows, or wants to say, what the issue is that's causing this team to turtle and throw games away.

"I think we were trying to defend a lead rather than just play the game and kind of do what made us successful during the other period," Acciari offered. "I don't know what it was, but needed to keep the foot on the gas and keep doing what got us there."

Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet, who bears the responsibility for this fairly or unfairly, is out of answers, too.

"I don't know the answer. When the pressure hits, you want to embrace it. You want the puck. You want to be in situations that, 'I want to be the difference.' Whether it's a wall play, a blocked shot, a good back check. Those are the moments that we need people to consistently give," Tocchet said.

As for players who weren't as involved in the collapse, Matvei Michkov played just three shifts inside the final 10 minutes of the third period, including the 6-on-5 with the extra attacker at the very end of the game.

For Porter Martone, he played just two, was left off the 6-on-5 entirely, and finished the night with just 11:51 of ice time.

First-year pro Cole Knuble played just two shifts in the final 10 minutes, too: once immediately before the Barkey penalty, and once for the faceoff after the Kartye goal. That was it.

It's become abundantly clear that the Flyers are trying to grasp at wins, playing not to lose instead of playing to win at a point in the season where every point in the standings matters. That's what happens when you light the first nine games of an 84-game season on fire.

Now, the Flyers are 0-4-3 against divisional opponents this season and cruising along in their race to the bottom of the NHL.