Friday, October 2, 2026
84 ° Mostly Cloudy
84 ° Mostly Cloudy
The Philadelphia Flyers showed a much better effort Thursday night, but it still wasn't enough to secure their first win of the season.
Philadelphia fell 3-2 to the New Jersey Devils in overtime, with Jack Hughes scoring the game-winner with 1:37 remaining. The Flyers picked up their first point of the season after being shut out 7-0 by Pittsburgh the night before.
Rasmus Ristolainen opened the scoring in the first period, redirecting a Travis Sanheim shot to give Philadelphia a 1-0 lead. Dougie Hamilton tied the game in the second before Sanheim put the Flyers back ahead early in the third. Luke Hughes answered later in the period to force overtime.
Joseph Woll was the biggest reason Philadelphia remained in the game. Making his Flyers debut, Woll stopped 41 of 44 shots, including several highlight-reel saves.
'Obviously Woll was outstanding, he was terrific.' Rick Tocchet said. “The way ‘Woller’ played gave us some juice. We chipped away, got the point but we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
'I thought we did a good job and were opportunistic with our scoring chances.' Woll explained. 'Had a chance to win it. Just disappointed we didn’t finish the job.'
Sanheim finished with a goal and an assist but acknowledged there was still plenty to clean up.
“I thought it was better tonight,” Sanheim said. “I thought our guys battled harder for sure, but when you’re turning over that many pucks and spending that much time in the defensive zone, it’s hard to win hockey games.”
Christian Dvorak echoed that message, saying the Flyers need to 'execute better and play simple hockey' while getting back to their identity.
Philadelphia blocked 32 shots and killed off all four of New Jersey's power plays, but the Devils controlled much of the possession and eventually found the overtime winner.
The Flyers leave New Jersey at 0-1-1 and will return home Saturday looking for their first win of the season.
MORE: Dissecting the Flyers' opening night disaster
