With a disappointing end to the 2024-2025 season, where the team finished near the bottom of the league, a long-term rebuild began for the Philadelphia Flyers under General Manager Daniel Brière. Life-long Flyers fan Michael Mothersbaugh has shared his thoughts on the Flyers’ past season, saying he is “disappointed in their struggles to make the playoffs.” The first stages of this rebuild began in late March of 2025 when head coach John Tortorella was fired after nearly three full seasons. As the head coach, Tortorella and the Flyers had a record of 97-107-33. (Wins, losses, overtime losses) The Flyers then hired former Vancouver Canucks Coach Rick Tocchet, who also brought assistant coaches Todd Reirden and Dylan Crawford with him. From there, the Flyers traded Ryan Poehling for Trevor Zegras in the second round pick of the NHL draft. Zegras is a skilled finisher and was brought on to help the offensive line, which had recently struggled with scoring. The Flyers have also traded away players like Ethan Samson and Samu Toumaala, and with this have acquired Roman Schmidt. Along with this, the Flyers are using a multi-year process focused on developing young talents like Matvei Michkov, Owen Tippett, Noah Cates, and Morgan Frost.
Since the Flyers have started to rebuild, improvements have already been seen. The Flyers are statistically off to a better season than last year, with a current record of 19-9-6, as compared to last year’s end-of-season record of 33-39-10. The Flyers are currently third in the Eastern Conference Metropolitan Division with 40 points behind the New York Islanders. If this pace is maintained, the Flyers would reach the 100-point mark for the first time since the 2011-2012 season.
This upcoming weekend, the Flyers play a league rival away, the New York Rangers, on Saturday Dec. 20 away at Madison Square Garden. The Flyers are statistically better than the Rangers this season, with the Rangers’ record being 16-15-4, but these games are typically a little more chippy. High School Flyers fan Brandon Pescatore says, “Games against the Rangers do tend to be higher tension. Whenever a Philly team plays a New York team, it’s gonna be a chippy game.” Despite the fact that the Rangers have won the past seven out of 10 games against the Flyers, with recent program changes, the Flyers have a better chance this season.
With the beginning of the Flyers program rebuild they hope to have a better season than last year. Mothersbaugh also shared that he is now “ Optimistic that with new management and a new coaching staff, we’ll continue to improve to be a playoff contender.” Now, looking at the upcoming game this weekend, fans hope to see the Flyers win versus a familiar rival.
