The curtain rises on the 2025-26 Philadelphia Flyers season on Thursday night. New head coach Rick Tocchet, a Flyers Hall of Famer, oversees a fully revamped coaching staff. Meanwhile, the Flyers drew an extremely tough assignment right off the bat.
The task: Win on the road against the back-to-back defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers. Paul Maurice’s squad is missing two vital players due to injury: Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk. Nevertheless, the team still had enough to defeat the Chicago Blackhawks, 3-2, on Tuesday. Despite the close score, Florida controlled most of the game play.
Game time at Amerant Bank Arena on Thursday night is 7:00 p.m. EDT. The game will be broadcast on NBCSP.
Here are the RAV4 Things to watch on Thursday night.
1. The staples
Different coaches have different terminology for the team identity they try to instill in their club. Tocchet is fond of the term “staples”. Tocchet has said he’s a coach with few non-negotiables beyond the staples.
He doesn’t want his players to fall into the trap of “robotic” hockey; always break out the same way, deploy a predictable forecheck and power play, constantly look for “the perfect” slam-dunk scoring chance before someone actually shoots the puck, etc.
In terms of Tocchet’s staples, the short list of shift-to-shift demands comes down to paying attention to details: Game management decisions (see below), defending the middle of the ice, fighting for the prime real estate in the offensive zone, and players going to the right places.
A team that consistently adheres to the staples becomes much harder for any opponent to play against. It’s how a team overachieves. It’s how a tired team or one with less star power than its opponent can still scratch out a win.
2. Game management
Tocchet has said that he wants his Flyers players to feel empowered to make plays with the puck and feel creative. However, the old TPS principle applies: time, place, score.
“When you’ve been out on the ice for 45 or 50 seconds and (Sam) Bennett or (Sam) Reinhart jumps on the ice, that’s not the time to try to stickhandle around three guys,” Tocchet said on Wednesday by way of a game management example.
The head coach felt the Flyers team as a whole played with too much risk during the preseason. Low-percentage gambles too often result in opposing odd-man rushes and breakaways. Going to the wrong place without the puck is at the root of many backdoor goals and scrambled coverages that leave the dangerous man open in the slot.
3. Flyers blue line: Sanheim and Drysdale
The Flyers enter the regular season banged up on defense. Cam York (lower body) and Rasmus Ristolainen (upper body) are on Injured Reserve. The team will need Travis Sanheim to absorb a lot of tough minutes right from the outset. There is also a lot of pressure on Jamie Drysdale to use his feet and puck game to add a dynamic element to the offense.
Beyond Sanheim, Drysdale, and the reliably steady Nick Seeler, the Flyers need the other three starting defensemen to hold their own against a very tough Panthers team. The Panthers are big, physical and aggressive when they see an opening.
4. Flyer power play
Much has been said and written about the Flyers’ chronic power play struggles in recent years. With power play co-coaches Yogi Svejkovsky and Jay Varady now at the helm, the Flyers showed some promising signs on the man advantage during the preseason.
More consistency is needed, however. It’s not about a one-game oasis or a fleeting hot streak. Example: The Flyers started out last season by scoring on eight of their first 32 power plays (25 percent). That was long forgotten by the end, as the team finished at 15 percent success.
No matter how the Flyers fare on either end of special teams in the opener, the judgement period is month to month. Nevertheless, a strong night on the power play and penalty kill against the Panthers could swing the outcome if the Flyers are able to hold their own at even strength.
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