Flyers Game

Flyers Lose Fifth Straight, Dominated Thursday Night vs. Penguins

Published

4 weeks ago

January 15, 2026

It was another night of struggles for the Philadelphia Flyers (22-16-8), who scored just one goal as their losing streak extended to five games, falling to the Pittsburgh Penguins (22-14-10) 6-3 on Thursday night at PPG Paints Arena.

Rodrigo Abols, Nick Seeler, and Matvei Michkov scored for the Flyers. Justin Brazeau, Bryan Rust, Egor Chinakov, Noel Acciari, Sidney Crosby, and Connor Dewar scored for the Penguins.

The Flyers played a good, if not really good, second period. Unfortunately for Philadelphia, it was doomed by two really, really bad periods of hockey. Pittsburgh’s power play had no trouble with the Flyers’ penalty kill, scoring three times, which would still have been enough to beat the Flyers’ single goal.

It was yet another ugly, ugly game for Philadelphia.

Here is how we got to the final score.

Special teams lead the way in period one

Tic-tac-toe. That’s how the Pittsburgh Penguins started the game. Rickard Rackell drove the net within the first 30 seconds of the game. He did not score, but he did earn his team a power play after a Cam York holding penalty.

The Flyers, whose penalty kill had been struggling lately, were actually off to a pretty good start against one of the league’s best man-advantage units. But, it wasnt enough. The Penguins, with some beautiful passing, scored with 7 seconds remaining on the power play, going Anthony Mantha (16) to Ben Kindel (12) to Justin Brazeau (13) for the power play score.

Philly went on the penalty kill once again shortly after the York penalty after a Travis Sanheim high-stick. They killed that one off successfully, but a little over eight minutes later, the Flyers were forced to kill another penalty after Garnet Hathaway was called for tripping. The kill did not have the same success.

Kris Letang (21) set up Brian Rust (17) on top of the left-side dot, who ripped home the shot, beating Sam Ersson. Sidney Crosby (26), unsurprisingly, got the secondary assist on the goal, with the Penguins going up 2-0.

Special teams were the story in period number one. Pittsburgh went 2/3 while the Flyers went 0/2 on the power play, taking the 2-0 score into the first intermission.

Penguins bury the Flyers

It did not take long for the Penguins to extend their lead once the second period began.

1:16 into the second period, Tommy Novak (14) found Evgeni Malkin (23) cherrypicking in the neutral zone. The two Flyers defenders both bit and chased down Malkin, leaving Yegor Chinakov (6) all alone for the easy score, making it 3-0 early.

The Flyers answered the score moments later, after Rodrigo Abols (3) redirected a Cam York blast (16) to get Philadelphia on the board. Carl Grundstrom (2) picked up the secondary assist. That cut Pittsburgh’s lead to 3-1.

Immediately following the Flyers’ goal, Philadelphia’s head coach, Rick Tocchet, made the change in goal, pulling Sam Ersson and playing the freshly recalled Aleksei Kolosov.

The Flyers, for the first time, really, since Scott Laughton’s short-handed goal against them a week ago, started to show a sign of life.

Offensively, the Flyers became much more dangerous. On the defensive side of the puck, they started playing much better in front of the goal – it’s like pulling Ersson was a wake-up call to the skaters.

Despite the improved effort, it was a hard-working shift by the Penguins, leading to the game’s next goal. Pittsburgh crowded the net, and eventually, Noel Acciari (5) got a shot up, and bounced off Kolosov’s shoulder an in the net, assisted by Blake Lizotte (6).

The Penguins killed all the Flyers’ momentum, taking the 4-1 lead into the second intermission.

In the third period, Matvei Michkov tried to give the Flyers a spark, firing up the bench after a fight with Blake Lizotte following his hit on Denver Barkey.

Michkov picked up the instigator penalty, served by Trevor Zegras, but Sidney Crosby did the inevitable. Rust (21) to Malkin (26) to Crosby was how the Penguins scored their third power play goal, but the scoring did not stop there.

Already up 5-1, Tommy Novak (15) found Connor Dewar (9) cross-crease, who banked the shot in off the side of Kolosov. The Penguins had a 6-1 lead, never giving the Flyers a chance to come back.

Two more Flyers goals came, but it was too little, too late.

Nick Seeler (2) scored from the left-side faceoff circle, assisted by Denver Barkey (3) and Noah Juulsen (6) to cut the deficit to 6-2, followed by Matvei Michkov (10) cashing in on a great feed from Barkey (4) and Sean Couturier (20) with the secondary assist, making it 6-3, just before the final horn.