Rick Tocchet's Philadelphia Flyers (0-2-2) are in Canada's capital city on Thursday to play Travis Green's Ottawa Senators (2-1-0). The Flyers are still in search of their first win of the young 2026-27 season.
Game time at Canadian Tire Centre is 7:00 p.m. EDT. The game will be broadcast on NBCSP.
On Monday in Tampa, the Flyers suffered a 4-1 setback against Jon Cooper's Lightning. Tyson Foerster (1st) notched Philly's lone goal of the game. Despite being heavily outshot and outchanced for the fourth straight game, the Flyers stayed within one goal until the Bolts pulled away in the late minutes of the third period. A strong goaltending performance from Dan Vladar (32 saves on 35 shots) went to waste.
The Flyers signed veteran winger Michael Bunting to a one-year contract on Wednesday. The team subsequently assigned young winger Alex Bump to the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
Meanwhile, the Senators are coming off a 5-3 road loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday. Outshot 13-2 in the first period, the Senators scored first but trailed by intermission. In a losing cause, Tim Stutzle, Drake Batherson (PPG), and William Eklund scored for Ottawa.
Here are the RAV4 Things to watch on Thursday night.
1. Shot quantity and quality
Shot quality matters more than shot quantity. Nevertheless, when a club repeatedly gets outshot and outpossessed by wide margins, it's almost inevitable that it is also getting outchanced by a similar amount.
Through the first four games of the season, the Flyers have been outshot by a staggering 82 shots on goal. The only team in NHL history to be outshot by a wider margin at the same juncture was the 1970-71 Buffalo Sabres (minus-104).
More importantly, the Flyers are yielding too many scoring chances, including high-danger opportunities, at an alarming rate. The Flyers rank last in the NHL in high-danger chance share (26.55 percent). The NHL's second-worst team in that category, the San Jose Sharks, is at 29.27 percent.
2. Between the pipes
The Flyers have gotten strong goaltending in three of the four games they've played to date. The exception was Vladar's opening-night return from a preseason upper-body injury.
Thursday's game marks the start of a busy stretch for the Flyers: three games in four nights and four games in six nights.
Most likely, Vladar and Joseph Woll will receive two starts apiece between now and next Wednesday. They are expected to split the duties this weekend, one start each.
3. Special teams
The Flyers are still looking for their first power-play goal of the 2026-27 season. The club enters the game 0-for-11 with the man advantage. Ottawa, meanwhile, is 1-for-13 to date.
On the penalty-killing side, the Flyers have allowed four opposing power-play goals on 15 opportunities. Ottawa has allowed three power-play goals on 13 penalty-kill opportunities.
4. Trevor Zegras
The Flyers are counting heavily on Zegras to make the transition from hybrid forward to full-time No. 1 center. He's had an uneven start to the season on both sides of the puck. Zegras has one assist through four games.
