Costly Penalties Cause Flyers to Fall to the Panthers

This game was wild.

After trailing 0-3 at home to the Florida Panthers, the Flyers stormed all the way back to take a 5-4 lead, only to lose 7-5. This was a crazy back-and-forth game where you got to see some of the best and worst traits of this 2024-2025 Philadelphia Flyers team.

The first half of this game was all Florida, as Evan Rodrigues and Niko Mikkola bother scored on Ivan Fedotov within the first seven minutes of the game. This caused John Tortorella to pull Fedotov and send in Aleksei Kolosov. Kolosov held his own until an Aleksander Barkov power-play goal at the start of the second period made it seem as though this game would end up being a blowout by the reigning Stanley Cup champions, but this is where Philadelphia would finally start to lock in.

The Flyers would get a power play of their own and Tyson Foerster would capitalize, finally putting Philly on the board with a score of 3-1. This seemed to ignite the entire team, as shortly after this goal Nick Seeler would steal the puck away in the Panthers’ zone to fire it past an unsuspecting Sergei Bobrovsky, making it a one-score game.

The dynamic Florida power play would strike again, however, as Carter Verhaeghe would put them back on top 4-2. Under John Tortorella, the Flyers have built their identity around being a tough and gritty team, but this has caused problems for the team this season. Philly has taken on some unnecessary penalties this year in an effort to show their fight, but when playing a team like Florida, with an incredibly strong power play, it can be detrimental.

The Flyers would end the second period with an unbelievably impressive two goals from Owen Tippett in 23 seconds to tie the score. Matvei Michkov would tally an assist for both goals, giving him three points for the entire game and 22 points on the season, which leads all NHL rookies by five.

Garnet Hathaway would keep the momentum on Philly’s side early in the third by giving the Flyers the 5-4 lead. Unfortunately, it was after this that the aforementioned penalty problems reeled their ugly head. A Flyers power play would turn into a 4-on-4 after a fight broke out. The Panthers would use this to tie the game thanks to Gustav Forsling. Another fight started by the Flyers would give the Panthers another power play. Sam Reinhart would give Florida a lead with less than two minutes to go, and would never look back.

Even after pulling their goalie, the Flyers still managed to get another penalty in the final minute, which meant they wouldn’t even be able to enjoy a true man advantage when they brought Fedotov to the bench at the end of the game. Matthew Tkachuk would score the empty netter for his fifth point of the game to give the Panthers the 7-5 lead that would ultimately be the final score.

We have seen the Flyers take massive strides these past few months, but they need to start playing a much cleaner brand of hockey moving forward. The Flyers took five penalties in the game and the Panthers scored on four of them. You’re not going to beat a lot of teams when their power play percentage is at 80%. Tortorella needs to find a way to get his team to play a cleaner game without losing any of that fighting spirit.

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Bo Lynett

Bo has been a fan of Philly sports his whole life and has spent the entirety of his four years at Colgate University working to start a career in sports media. Double majoring in Economics and Film & Media Studies gave him the opportunity to study both the financial/ analytical and broadcasting/ production sides of the sports world. Outside of the classroom, he’s worked as a director and producer for Colgate’s athletic events streamed on ESPN+ and a writer for the Colgate Athletic Website. Through all of this, however, it was his love of Philly sports that drove him to this career.