For the first time in six years, the Philadelphia Flyers are back in the Stanley Cup playoffs and naturally, the hockey Gods have tasked them with the Pittsburgh Penguins as a first round matchup. With both teams entering the season as relative longshots to qualify for the postseason at all, their matchup represents a golden opportunity for either club to get one over on their Keystone State Rival.
At face value, this is a battle of underdogs. The Penguins assembled an island of misfit toys around their collection of future Hall of Famers and the Flyers have accumulated young and promising pieces under the leadership of GM Danny Briere. That overall framing, at least on paper, presents as a mismatch.
In the macro, the Penguins lineup with a far more established group of talent. Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby lines up before game one with more career playoff games than the entire Flyers’ forward group combined.
That in of itself presents a golden opportunity for Philadelphia. While the Penguins are far more proven and accomplished, the unknown ceiling of the Flyers is enticing and reason to believe. The unknown is a great equalizer in a short playoff series, especially for talented but unproven players.
The Top Guys: Sidney Crosby vs Trevor Zegras
I’ll refrain from the millennial urge to quote Paul Rudd on Hot Ones but this is so crazy in the abstract. Sidney Crosby is one of the most accomplished players in the history of professional hockey and has inner ring status in the Hockey Hall of Fame as the best player of his era. Trevor Zegras was cast off as an exile from the Anaheim Ducks last summer for being a poor fit for the team’s identity.
At face value, this is absurd. Crosby in his illustrious 21 year NHL career has never been under a point per game. While Zegras isn’t the same wide-eyed prospect who thrilled at the NHL skills competition a number of years ago, the 24-year-old came the closest to a point per game production this season, registering 67 points in 81 regular season games.
Under the hood the two players are closer than you might expect.
While Crosby has the edge in the raw quantity stats (scoring chances, shot attempts and goals), Zegras has a greater share of the expected goals and high danger chances. The difference in actual finishing is likely tied to shooting talent of both Zegras vs Crosby but also their respective most common linemates at 5-on-5.
While Crosby got hurt at the Milan Olympics and missed 12 games, the forward registered 15 points in the 12 games he did play upon his return. Over the span of the Flyers’ 14-5-1 run that catapulted them into the postseason, Zegras picked up 17 points while averaging 18:21 per game.
Just for posterity, it should be noted that in 17 career playoff games against the Flyers, Crosby has recorded 28 points across three postseason series.
The Depth
Overall, the Penguins have a modest edge in goal scoring talent. Pittsburgh had ten different players record at least 15 goals to the Flyers’ 6.
That in of itself isn’t disqualifying for the Flyers. Going player for player the depth isn’t as wide as you might think.
Ironically, for all of Pittsburgh’ s future Hall of Fame level talent, it’s largely been unproven players taking a leap that’s propelled them back to the playoffs. Anthony Mantha set a career in goals and assists at 31-years-old; Ben Kindel is a rookie and Egor Chinakov was a castoff from the Columbus Blue Jackets that struggled to connect with the team’s former coach Dean Evason.
On the Flyers’ end of the spectrum, Travis Konecny and Owen Tippett are two of the few players with postseason experience. But truly, amongst the Philadelphia depth pieces, the unproven capacity for both Porter Martone and Matvei Michkov is extremely enticing. The postseason is where stars aren’t born, they’re revealed. While neither is long in the tooth, both have shown incredible potential over the team’s climactic stretch run. In the team’s final 16 regular season games, Michkov, who’s largely been rendered 3rd line and second power play minutes recorded 18 points. Martone, who’s played all of nine games in his NHL career has 10 points.
That in of itself should be equal parts exhilarating as it is terrifying. For the Flyers to get past the Penguins into the second round, that likely means head coach Rick Tocchet needs to throw caution to the win and lean into what he doesn’t know. Both Martone and Michkov represent tantalizing opportunities for the Flyers to lean into against the Penguins’ collection of buy-low candidates.
Final Thoughts
At the top end, Crosby and Evgeni Malkin vs Konecny and Zegras seems like a mismatch. Fortunately for the Flyers, this series is in 2026 and not 2016. While the two Penguins’ forwards are bound for the Hall of Fame, on roller skates, the Flyers have a reasonable enough amount of talent up front to keep this series close.
The Penguins had a better operation in the regular season with a better share of goals and expected goals. There’s no getting around the fact that the Penguins were largely a better team in the regular season.
But, the Flyers’ over the course of the last month found a level that few teams struggle to reach. With the team largely playing playoff style games for the better part of the last month, the Flyers not only played well, the team thrived.
While Crosby is one of the great big game players of all time, the Flyers have enough depth that this is going to be a tall order.
