The Flyers’ season opener stretched way late into the night, and in almost typical Philadelphia Flyers fashion – or at least the one fans have become conditioned to over the past decade or so.
A slow start, a push to catch up, and then a stalemate through overtime that takes them into the shootout.
Philadelphia has seen that script before, numerous times and to varying degrees of frustration and then longstanding apathy, but as Morgan Frost buried the winner at 1:00 a.m. Saturday on the dot back here on the East Coast, the energy about the Flyers felt different from mostly anything seen in years past.
They beat the Canucks, 3-2, in the shootout out in Vancouver to take that first game of the 2024-2025 season, and they did it because they were faster. They did it because they were younger – one of the youngest teams in the entire NHL even. They did it because Sam Ersson, going in for the first time as the full-time No. 1 goaltender, looked the part. And they did it because there was a newfound creativity and decisiveness to them, with a power play that finally looked effective and actually was in its first rollout of the year.
The Flyers won, this first game at least, because they played in a way they couldn’t before – not last year, and definitely not in the several years prior since leaving that 2020 COVID bubble.
They won because they have Matvei Michkov, the offensive phenom on the ice now, and first-round speedster Jett Luchanko, too. They won because Cam York can take on 20 minutes and counting on the blue line while knowing when to sneak down for an opening to unleash a laser of a shot. And they won because a healthy Jamie Drysdale was able to fly up and down the ice roaming with the puck, because Bobby Brink is stronger and another year wiser, and because Tyson Foerster isn’t as hellbent on his defense above all else anymore – he’s going to get down in front of the net to score now.
The Philadelphia Flyers, the new Philadelphia Flyers, they’re coming together, and Friday night (into early Saturday morning) was the first show of it, as well as the first result.
Back-to-back penalties early into the first period put the Flyers on their heels out of the gate, which let Quinn Hughes and the Canucks – a club that fell just a goal shy of sending the eventual Western Conference champion Oilers home in the playoffs a few months back – go to work.
Ersson got tested immediately in goal, but he answered the call, stopping 10 Vancouver shots within the game’s first 10 minutes, including an impressive nab of a Brock Boeser shot from across the crease.
A blistering wrister from Nils Höglander in front of the net off of a defensive zone turnover later in the first and then a deflection from Teddy Blueger in the second on an assignment Luchanko lost track of were the blemishes, but the 24-year old Ersson held the line to keep the Flyers in it and give them a chance.
He stopped 24 of 26 shots through overtime on Friday night, then 4 of 5 in the shootout, and as the one in the front of a goalie situation that head coach John Tortorella admitted during training camp he wasn’t entirely sure about, Ersson offered an early assurance.
“That’s what I thought the key to the game was, Ers just giving us a chance to get our legs,” Tortorella said postgame.
They started finding them when Höglander went to the box for holding late into the opening frame.
The Flyers’ power play, statistically, was the worst in the league last season at a 12.2 percent conversion rate, and watching at the time arguably made its case worse.
They struggled to establish steady cycling in the offensive zone, and even when they did set up camp, it often devolved into circling around without anyone opening up an impactful shooting lane.
The speed just wasn’t there, neither was the true skill to present a serious threat of scoring, but a couple of new faces and structural changes over the summer can do wonders sometimes.
Michkov took in the puck from up high and before the Canucks could even react, he had zipped it down to Morgan Frost who had snuck his way to the front of the net, only getting stopped shy of the tying 1-1 goal on a great stop from Vancouver goaltender Kevin Lankinen on the move.
The power play units swapped, Brink, Foerster, and Joel Farabee tried nearly the same sequence, and Foerster put the puck home to knot the score.
Everything happened so fast, much faster than anything the Flyers’ power play would’ve done last season, and though they only went 1-for-4 on the man advantage for the night on the whole, the difference in how the power play was operating was night and day – plus, Farabee came a fraction of an angle away from netting another. He knew it, too.
But the Flyers pressed on.
York dropped toward the circles to rifle a puck that found him from behind the net to match Blueger’s goal, 2-2, early into the third, and as the game progressed, both Michkov and Luchanko as the debuting rookies grew increasingly comfortable and involved.
By the second period, Michkov started shooting from anywhere, from the sharp angle near-parallel to the goal line and on between-the-legs tries from way in close.
Then, past the halfway point of the third with the game still tied, the 19-year old took the puck from the right of the Vancouver net, then made a cut inside and a shot where the rebound had him and Luchanko an inch away from their first NHL points.
Michkov went on to play a considerable 18:32 of ice time and Luchanko 14:36. Neither ended up making it on the scoresheet for the night, but as the key faces to the Flyers’ long-term vision, whenever they were on the ice, they were noticeable. They had a hand, at least, in something happening that got the puck going Philly’s way. And at the outset, that’s huge.
So is their composure through it all.
“I thought they looked as calm as ever for guys making their debuts,” Frost told the NBC Sports Philadelphia broadcast after his shootout goal secured the Flyers win. Even throughout the day and over the last couple of days, they’ve been pretty stoic. I don’t know what they were really feeling inside, but they weren’t showing it too much.
“And yeah, they’re big parts of the team, and I thought they played really well tonight.”
There are still 81 games to go, with the next one directly on deck for Saturday night in Calgary, and years’ worth of work beyond that for the organization to get the team built up into the Stanley Cup contender it hopes it can one day be.
But the Philadelphia Flyers, the new Philadelphia Flyers, they’re coming together.
Friday night was the first show of it.
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