Flyers Blown Out in New York Against the Rangers

All good things must come to an end.

The Flyers’ season-long six-game point streak came to an end tonight in a blowout against the New York Rangers. The Rangers. After scoring five goals in three of their last four games, the Rangers put up six goals tonight, and the Flyers offense was unable to keep up. New York goalie Igor Shesterkin was a brick wall for most of this game, and even though it can be argued that Philly outplayed their opponents tonight, a good performance from your goalie can completely change the complexion of a game, as was evident tonight.

The Flyers started off strong, scoring within the first two minutes of the game to take an early 1-0 lead. Owen Tippett scored on a wide-open net following a fantastic pass from Travis Konecny off the breakaway. Halfway through the period, the Rangers would tie up the score with a Braden Schneider redirect into the net after the Flyers were unable to clear the zone. The Rangers would keep the momentum on their side by taking the lead before the period ended. Less than two minutes after the game was tied, Adam Edstrom tipped in a shot from Ryan Lindgren that didn’t seem that tough to stop, but evidently, there were enough people in front of the net that it obstructed the view of Flyers goalie Samuel Ersson. From this point on New York would not relinquish the lead for the rest of the game.

The second period was significantly less active from an offensive standpoint, but the Rangers were still able to increase their lead. Less than five minutes into the second K’Andre Miller snapped a wrister from the middle of the Rangers’ offensive zone past Ersson. The Flyers had chances to tie the score or cut the lead several times throughout the period, actually significantly outshooting New York 17 shots to 8, but none of them were able to find the back of the net.

After letting in that first goal in the first two minutes, Shesterkin was light out for the rest of the game. He stopped not only the 17 shots from the Flyers in the second period but 10 of 11 shots in the first and all 8 of the Flyers’ shots in the third. This was good for a .972 save percentage, which are numbers that you come to expect from a Vezina Trophy candidate, but it still hurts to see when it comes against your team.

The third period was just all Rangers. Ersson let in another tip-in goal off of a long shot early in the period that put New York up 4-1, completely draining the life out of the Flyers. As the game was coming to a close, the Flyers went on a power play, representing the last chance they had at making this a competitive game. John Tortorella also pulled Ersson to give the Flyers a six-on-four-man advantage, but it didn’t end up mattering. Adam Fox snagged the puck and sent it the length of the ice for the empty netter to put them up 5-1.

To add insult to injury, when Ersson went back out on the ice the Rangers went on the power play and lit the lamp one more time to really drive this loss home.

As tough as this loss is, the Flyers need to move on and forget. They have been playing very well throughout all of 2025, and bad games like this are going to happen. They can’t let one negative performance completely derail all this good momentum they’ve put together, and thankfully they don’t have long to wait before they’re back out on the ice.

The Flyers will stay in New York for a game against the Islanders tomorrow January 24th, at 7:30 pm EST. The game can be watched on NBC Sports Philadelphia.

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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.