The 2025-26 Flyers are historically bad at generating shots

If this year’s Flyers team has shown us anything, it’s low-event hockey. The team under the stead of Rick Tocchet has prioritized the prevention of shots against above everything else, and the numbers reflect that reality. 

The Flyers have allowed the fourth least shots in the league to this point, less than contenders like the Avalanche, the Stars, and the Lightning. They play a very tight, perimeter game that makes it hard for most teams to truly set up and find open shooting lanes. Add into the fact that the Flyers also have three defensemen among the top 30 blocked shots, and you can see how this makes sense. 

But the problem isn’t preventing shots, it’s creating them. 

Flyers are historically bad at generating shots this season

Out of the 584 NHL teams that have played since advanced stat-tracking began in 2007-08, this year’s Flyers have the dubious honor of being one of the bottom ten offenses when it comes to generating shots on goal. 

The 2025-26 Flyers’ 24.53 shots for/60 ranks them seventh worst at all situations, including power play and penalty kill. That is shockingly inept, especially for a team that is still in the thick of a playoff race.

But to make matters even worse, when you isolate their numbers to just account for time spent at even strength, the Flyers’ 23.03 shots for per 60 minutes is the second-worst mark of the last 19 seasons. Only the 2014-15 Buffalo Sabres managed to be worse, and that was a team who lost 51 games, and whose top scorer was Tyler Ennis.

Part of the Flyers remain so divisive among fans and analysts alike, is because of the appreciable data that tells us they leave so much to be desired on offense. In 37 of their 69 games, the Flyers have failed to record over 25 shots, and 15 of those contests went to overtime, which means they even had an extra five minutes to reach the 25-shot mark, and still couldn’t get there. 

Meanwhile, teams like the Blue Jackets, Ducks, Senators and Penguins, teams who find themselves in the same playoff battle that the Flyers do, all average over 28 shots per/60. 

It’s clear that the Flyers have been content to rely on their defensive structure to try and win games, and largely, that has worked. It is very dependent on Dan Vladar and the trio of hardworking, primarily defensive centers that they have in the lineup basically every night, sure, but it has brought them at least this far. 

The problem arises when you extrapolate this type of style to the playoffs, where the scoring chances dry up, offense is much harder to come by, and a team has the ability to gameplan and find ways to crack through your defensive shell. If the Flyers were to make the playoffs this year somehow, it wouldn’t be shocking to see them average around 20 shots per game.

There does seem to be a trend this year, being that five teams from the 25-26 season are among the 10 worst SF/60 marks of the last two decades, of teams shooting in less quantities. The quality of a team’s shot diet has become nearly as important as their quantity these days. But even if you do concede that modern offenses have less total shots on goal and that the Flyers’ struggles are more indicative of that trend, you still are left with the fact that the current teams that surround the Flyers in this metric are either actively rebuilding, or had catastrophic seasons. The Rangers, Blues, and Blackhawks are all in the league’s basement, while the Kraken are more similar to the Flyers in that they really don’t have an offensive identity that they can count on.

With the Flyers looking like they have a decently potent group of wingers, even without Tyson Foerster, along with some offensively capable defenders who can move the puck, there really isn’t a reason for them to struggle this much. Trevor Zegras wants to shoot, Owen Tippett wants to shoot, Travis Konecny wants to shoot. It should not result in this little production.