Flyers sleepwalk into the Olympic break as season slips further away

The Flyers skated so quietly through the night that even a mouse would've wondered if anyone was even playing.

Then they woke up at the 11th hour to force overtime…just to crash straight back down to earth.

Claude Giroux and the visiting Ottawa Senators were shutting the Flyers out through nearly 59 minutes Thursday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena, but then Dan Vladar got pulled for the extra attacker, and Jamie Drysdale rifled a shot through to keep Philly alive for just a couple of extra minutes.

The Flyers turned a 2-on-1 rush in the extra frame, and Travis Konecny had the game on his stick. He missed.

Brady Tkachuk picked up the careening puck and slipped it to Tim Stützle as he streaked up the ice, carrying the puck around Travis Sanheim skating back on his heels and past Vladar with a quick move to the backhand to usher on a 2-1 Senators final and the Winter Olympic break.

TIM STUTZLE WITH A NASTY OVERTIME WINNER pic.twitter.com/WdQxSqXfgH

— TSN (@TSN_Sports) February 6, 2026

For a while, the Flyers were playing like they were trying to get to it early, until they scrambled trying to find some kind of gear at the last minute.

They still lost regardless, making it 12 defeats in their last 15 games.

The Flyers dropped to 25-20-11 with the overtime loss, which still grants them a point, but makes up next to no ground in an Eastern Conference playoff race that, a month ago, they looked like they were ready to take a step into and compete for.

But now? They got outshot 21-8 through two periods and didn't even register a proper shot on goal until more than 15 minutes had elapsed in the first period. Across three regulation periods and change, they had just 16 shots in total.

You can't blame fans for getting upset about likely going on Year 6 without any meaningful hockey, nor about wondering where this rebuild is really going, or for starting to eye draft boards and lottery odds once again.

It's far more entertaining than whatever lethargic effort they watched for all but a couple of minutes of Thursday night.

Sanheim (Canada), Rasmus Ristolainen (Finland), and Dan Vladar (Czechia) will be off to Italy to represent their countries in international play, but otherwise, there are no games for three weeks. Everyone could probably use a breather from this.

The clock ticked, and the Philadelphia shot count on the board stuck at zero.

Five minutes elapsed into six, then 10, then to 12 and 15, and the Flyers couldn't even manage to just flail a puck at the net.

They held themselves to the outside along the wall, about just as much as Ottawa was checking to keep them there.

If they had the puck in the zone, they'd fumble it away in the corner, with a teammate in too close and the forward at the front of the net covered with his feet still.

If they were trying to move it through center ice, an errant chip or pass would get picked up by a Senator and send the Flyers skating back the other way.

With five minutes left in the first period, the Flyers didn't have a single shot on goal. Senators goalie James Reimer looked bored.

Then, finally, Owen Tippett took off down the ice and fired. He sailed the puck high and wide, but recovered the bounce and slung it back to Denver Barkey in front to at least get Reimer to stop something with his pads.

A few seconds later, the play circled around to Sanheim at the point, and he just wound up a slap shot and launched it straight through traffic and into Reimer's jersey.

After nearly 16 minutes, the Flyers had a grand total of…two shots on goal.

They got a power play before the period closed with about 40 seconds left. Ottawa cleared the puck out twice without it ever falling into danger, and then time expired as the Flyers tried stumbling into the zone with horizontal passes ahead of the blue line.

Even by the Flyers' own low-event standards that they've set for themselves this season under head coach Rick Tocchet, this was abysmal, and things hardly got better as the game wore on.

Nick Cousins tapped in a backdoor rebound for the 1-0 Senators lead halfway through, and the Flyers had nowhere near the fight, pace, or urgency to answer until Drysdale found a lane and, at that point, a lucky break. If anything, the team largely looked like they just wanted to get off the ice.

Matvei Michkov, who has been struggling through the better part of this season and became the focal point of a PR fire with Tocchet that GM Danny Brière needed to step in and put out this week, had probably the Flyers' best chance through two frames.

He hopped over the bench after a long shift from Carl Grundstrom, and picked off an outlet pass that he ended up stepping right in front of while still in the offensive zone. The winger took the puck in and circled it around to the net by the right side, throwing on a backhander that generated a decent bounce, but with no one able to show up in time to put the rebound away.

By then, it was hard to imagine anyone in an orange sweater would.

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