It’s the second week of the season, and the team’s centers have been taking center (ha!) stage in all three games: a victory in a rematch over the Florida Panthers, a snooze of a loss to the Winnipeg Jets, and a tight overtime win against the Minnesota Wild. That puts the Flyers at 2-1-0 on the week, with all three games played at the Wells Far – er, Xfinity Mobile Arena. That’s not too shabby a start for a Philadelphia Flyers team that wasn’t expected to do much by the general hockey media sphere.
In this week’s three stars, we have one repeat from last week and two players making their first appearances. Let’s get into it!
3. Trevor Zegras
0 goals, 3 assists, 3 shots on goal, 3 games played
Call it a lucky number with all those threes in Zegras’s stat line. If we include last week’s game against the Carolina Hurricanes, Zegras is now riding a four-game point streak; the only time he didn’t register a point was in the season opener in Sunrise, Florida.
Oh, and he made this jaw dropping pass:
Z put it on a TEE. #FLAvsPHI | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/uXIKmYtrTO
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) October 14, 2025
We’ve been watching that play on loop all week. Zegras draws two Florida players to him, quickly realizes someone is probably open elsewhere, and slings the puck onto Sean Couturier’s tape in the slot. Couturier makes no mistakes and buries the shot. It’s exactly the kind of play we expected Zegras to be capable of when the Flyers acquired him over the summer.
That wasn’t the only great pass he had this week, either:
A bar-down beauty.#WPGvsPHI | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/9akCSn30Q2
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) October 17, 2025
This pass wasn’t quite the “pull you out of your seat” play the one against Florida was, but it’s a subtle move along the boards that gets the puck right to Owen Tippett, who uses his speed to get the Flyers on the board.
The Zegras era looks pretty good so far–now he just needs to stick at center full time. The good work he put in this week, however, including his point streak, is enough to earn him third star of the week in our eyes.
2. Sean Couturier
2 goals, 3 assists, 5 shots on goal, 3 games played
The captain of the Flyers absolutely makes the cut this week–how could he not after that two goal, two assist game against the Florida Panthers? Especially considering he was the recipient of that outrageously good pass from Zegras we highlighted earlier; he really buried that shot, and it wound up being the game winner. If this is the level of play we can expect from Couturier for the rest of the season, the Flyers are in much better shape down the middle than we may’ve originally thought.
Couturier created a little of his own magic, too, on this excellent breakaway goal against the defending champions:
The Captain gets it done with a little help from the Travii. 🫡#FLAvsPHI | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/v1tx5uJqxB
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) October 14, 2025
Due to his lack of footspeed, it’s not often Couturier gets those sorts of scoring opportunities. In this moment, though, he has all the time in the world, and slips the puck past Daniil Tarasov to put the Flyers up by two. That game alone–plus a point against the Jets–are enough to make him the second star of the week.
1. Dan Vladar
2 wins, .931 SV%, 3 goals allowed, 2 games played
We highlighted Vladar in last week’s edition, but his excellent play carried over and it would feel wrong not to give him the first star of the week. The Flyers sport a 2-2-1 record, and both of those wins came this week with Vladar in the crease–he’s been a difference maker for the team, and he did it against the Cup champions and a strong Minnesota Wild team.
It’s difficult to choose which game Vladar performed better in: yes, he faced more shots against the Panthers than the Wild (26 and 16, respectively), but the Wild also have the best power play in the league at the moment, and the Flyers took a handful of penalties–including a botched video review challenge leading to a delay of game penalty. Vladar and the Flyers didn’t allow the Wild to score on the man advantage, though, and that’s quite a feat in itself.
If the coaching staff continues to alternate starts, we might expect Sam Ersson to get two of next week’s three games. If Vladar keeps playing like this, though, it’s hard to imagine him not taking more starts as the season goes on. For finishing the week with two wins and a .931 SV%, Vladar gets the first star of the week.
