Coming off of a gutsy shootout win on Tuesday in Montreal, the Flyers wrapped up their quick little road trip in Nashville tonight, and it was another strange game, but one which amounted to another big win for them. Bookended by pretty meaningful goals for Matvei Michkov and Travis Konecny, the Flyers delivered another bend-but-don’t-break type of game, coming away with a 3-1 win and a sweep of the road trip. Let’s get into it.
The Basics
First period: 1:44-Ryan O’Reilly (Forsberg, Blankenburg)
Second period: 4:43-Matvei Michkov (York, Couturier), 17:37-Noah Cates (Drysdale, Konecny)
Third period: 18:47-Travis Konecny (Dvorak, York)EN
SOG: 26 (PHI) – 24 (NSH)
Some Takeaways
Starting slow again
After such a punchy win on Tuesday up in Montreal, the hope was that the Flyers could find some momentum from that and stay hot right from the start of this one, but this isn’t quite how this one played out. Rather, the Flyers looked pretty disorganized through much of the early goings — running around a little aimlessly, struggling to string together even more routine passes, and just generally not bringing much of anything in the way offense to match the early flurries that the Predators were able to put together, as they were held to just seven shots in the period and were held to just one through the first half of the frame.
The Flyers had some luck going their way that this first frame didn’t really get out of hand on them, and they were able to bear down really nicely in the second two periods, so the rough start becomes something of a wash, but it also remains a datapoint in the growing collection of slow starts the Flyers have had to contend with so far this season. It’s something to keep an eye on.
Vladar keeps it rolling
A huge factor in keeping this game reasonably under control for the Flyers, particularly in those early goings, was the sharpness of Vladar’s play. There was a bit of a hiccup early, when he let in the first goal of the game, but it’s hard to call that anything other than flukey, as it came on a double deflection play. Even more critically, though, was the way he was able to stop the bleeding there and lock in his play through the rest of the game. This wasn’t the highest workload game he’s ever had to contend with — the Predators putting up just 24 shots on goal on the night — but Nashville played with some real desperation in this one, and had a couple of intense flurries of shot attempts piled on while the Flyers skaters were left scrambling in front, and Vladar came up huge for them every single time.
It was a big effort, keeping this game under control until the Flyers could make their comeback and then still keep it, a strong showing in a big win, and a really nice bounce back effort after giving up eight goals across his previous two starts.
Michkov breaks through
Of course, the Flyers weren’t going to find themselves shut out for the whole of this one, and after that nice bit of work put in to regroup at the intermission and find their legs in the second period, they finally got their offensive game going, and came up with a huge goal to break open their scoring and tie up the game.
Mich was ready. 😤#PHIvsNSH | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/UOK6NdF853
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) November 7, 2025
The goal was a nice one all around — the high-effort play from Cam York to evade pressure and feed that pass up from below the goal line, and it was Matvei Michkov in position and coming through with the finish — but it also feels particularly meaningful. Tying the game was one thing, but for Michkov to pick up his second of the season, after the slow start and after all of the mind-numbing discourse that followed it, felt like a huge weight lifted off the shoulders. Now, the bigger question is what Michkov is able to do from here, but it’s finally starting to look like things are coming together for him again, and perhaps this can be the catalyst to some greater and more consistent production again.
Grebenkin has some jump
Tuesday’s game also saw Grebenkin hitting a nice milestone, picking up his first NHL goal in that win, and while the Flyers may have struggled to maintain their momentum to the fullest of their ability into this next game, the same certainly can’t be said of Grebenkin. The injury to Tyson Foerster has afforded him a chance to spend some meaningful time skating up in the lineup (tonight it was alongside Noah Cates and Travis Konecny) and he’s making the most of this opportunity. He came out for this one with some good jump, and was able to create a couple of nice looks for himself, including one very good chance to get a shot off on the rush with pressure bearing down on him pretty directly, flexing that strength nicely.
The Foerster injury — and the move to send Jacob Gaucher back to the Phantoms earlier this evening — have both opened the door for him to more easily get an extended run of playing time, but it’s clear he isn’t taking that for granted, and is working nicely to continue to work for his ice time.
Discipline remains an issue
We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention, in closing, that while it didn’t end up biting them in a major way this time around, this wasn’t really the most disciplined game that the Flyers could have played, this time out.
Now, there was one of those penalties that really shouldn’t have been called — the Juulsen high sticking penalty was actually Jost hitting himself with his own stick in the tangle-up — but the Flyers were able to take that one particularly in stride, killing it without allowing so much as a shot on goal. The Flyers are getting some good results from their penalty kill right now, and that’s been a huge boost for them, but the Flyers still got goaded into two pretty needless roughing penalties, and that’s just not a trend they can keep falling into, a position they can keep putting their penalty killers in. That said, the Flyers have made some nice progress in the discipline department from where they were at the very beginning of the season, but tonight was a reminder that there’s still some work left to be done.
