Road trip offers Flyers an opportunity for improvement

The Philadelphia Flyers saw their season-long 6-game road trip start disastrously with a 7-3 loss at Pittsburgh before Christmas, and they are now set to embark on the rest of the swing. This trip will take them on their traditional trek through California to visit all three clubs, a stop in Sin City to face the Golden Knights, and finally a game back east in Toronto before returning home to face those same Maple Leafs once again on January 7.

And while teams love home cooking, this time away is probably coming at a good juncture of the season for the Orange and Black.

Road trip offers Flyers an opportunity for improvement

After an excellent November, the Flyers are struggling to close out 2024. They've lost four of five games and are just 3-6-1 in December. The power play, as it has for three years in a row, is bottoming out, sitting at just 15.6 percent, 27th in the league. While the Flyers inexplicably didn't even earn a power play opportunity in their loss to the Penguins, their drought dates back seven games to when Travis Konecny scored on the man advantage on December 10 against Columbus. They are 0-for-11 on the PP since then.

Less expected, and perhaps more concerning, is the penalty kill. It was a strength of the club last year when the team finished fourth in the league on the PK. This year's version has slid down to 21st thanks to its recent performances such as the Pittsburgh game (3 PP goals on 3 attempts) and the Flyers' December 5 loss to Florida that saw the Panthers net four tallies on the man advantage. There is a large clump of teams in the middle of the pack, so just a few goals here and there can make a big difference in being considered a "good" penalty kill or a below-average one. Right now, the unit is performing at a sub-optimal level.

A lot of focus will be put on the first game of this continuation of the road trip, as the Flyers visit Cutter Gauthier and the Anaheim Ducks. For Gauthier, his rookie campaign has largely been a struggle after a long goalless drought to start the season, and he's scored just four goals and 10 assists over 33 games. But the Ducks didn't expect to set the world on fire this season, and they'll play the long game with Gauthier and their other young players. It remains to be seen if the Flyers' first-ever meeting with Gauthier will produce any fireworks, but the rematch between the teams on January 11 in Philadelphia is probably the better bet for any hostilities to show.

The schedule makers didn't do the Flyers any favors, lining them up to face the Kings the day after visiting Anaheim, as the Flyers look to take some revenge for the way the Kings treated them on their home ice just last week. And then they have a New Year's Eve date in San Jose, which will be the first head-to-head matchup between presumptive Calder Trophy favorites Matvei Michkov and Macklin Celebrini.

Speaking of Michkov, the Flyers' rookie phenom has gone five games without a point, so one wonders whether one of John Tortorella's famous healthy scratches is coming on this road trip. Here's hoping that Michkov's play picks up, although some more talented linemates could only increase his production.

Once the calendar flips to 2025, the Flyers' trip to Vegas on January 2 will be their last game in the Pacific time zone this season, and they'll put a wrap on the trip in Toronto three days later. Ultimately, the Flyers will go 17 days between home games, as they always seem to do this time of year, and the rest of this road trip will go a long way toward determining their fate for the remainder of the season. While out west, they'll look for continued production from the likes of Konecny and Owen Tippett, while others like Morgan Frost and perhaps Joel Farabee could up their trade value with a stretch of good play.

Basically everything is on the table for the Flyers, but they sure aren't going to get anywhere this year without drastic improvement from the goaltenders. Yes, the defense in general needs to tighten up, especially on the penalty kill, but the Flyers can seemingly count on at least one bad goal allowed by their netminders every single game of late. Whenever they decide that they are finally ready to compete, that can't be the case, and the whole rebuild fails if the team has to overpay for average goaltending via trade or free agency rather than producing a viable "homegrown" option or two. That's a long-term problem that extends past this current road trip, but some improved play over these next few games would be a nice start in the right direction.

Once the Flyers emerge from this road trip, 23 of their remaining 42 games will come on home ice, and big changes are expected as the club takes shape for the next phase of the rebuild. Some hold out hope for a surprising playoff berth this season, but there will be none forthcoming if the Flyers don't hold their own over the next two weeks.