Owen Tippett took a swipe at the puck, which sprung the Flyers down the ice on a rush.
The winger weaved through the middle in stride as he took the resulting pass in. Then, with a Sabres defenseman angling toward him, he swept the puck right through the Buffalo skater's feet and slipped a pinpoint feed right to the stick of Jakob Pelletier for his first goal as a Flyer.
Tippett is incredibly skilled. That sequence from last Saturday's 7-4 home win over the Sabres, which accounted for one of his two assists for the game, was a clear reminder of that.
But that show of talent has just gone missing far too often this season, albeit in a year where much of the Flyers overall has taken a step back, through injuries, selling at the trade deadline, and then John Tortorella's recent firing as the head coach with Brad Shaw taking over in the interim.
It's all left the Flyers headed toward another early offseason with six games left, in a rebuild, sure, but to the frustration of the players nonetheless – Tippett included.
Two years ago, the key roster return in the Claude Giroux trade with Florida broke out into a 27-goal scorer, last year, he one-upped that to 28 and a new career-high 53 points during a surprising though stalled-out playoff push, but this year? Tippett dropped to 19 goals and 39 points through 71 games, with a minus-12 rating and while skating an average of 16:08 a night.
The parts of the 26-year-old's game that make him special were still there throughout this season – that lightning-quick shot, that powerful stride, and that instinctive and sometimes shocking playmaking ability – but only as seemingly fleeting blips on the radar, not anything fully sustained.
And he still hasn't scored in his last 12 games, but with that said, and maybe more important right now, it's become noticeable again when No. 74 is out there skating.
Owen Tippett, sheesh 😮💨😮💨#Flyers pic.twitter.com/8oonUsqOTp
— Flyers Nation (@FlyersNation) March 29, 2025
The setup to Pelletier's goal on Saturday was evidence of that, along with Tippett's second assist later that game on the power play, when he had a lane to shoot from up high and Ryan Poehling tipped the puck through. There was the pass he picked off over center ice during Monday night's 2-1 win over Nashville, too, that sent himself and Travis Sanheim storming toward the net on a 2-on-1, and then the late break up the ice soon after that generated a couple of dangerous looks alongside Poehling and a returning Garnet Hathaway also.
"When he gets the puck in open ice, there's few players like him in the league," Shaw told the media of Tippett in Voorhees on Wednesday. "I'd like for that to show up a little bit more.
"The play he makes on Pelletier's goal is a play that you couldn't describe to somebody unless you really knew how hard that is to do at this level. That's…that's ridiculous."
But Shaw, in the three years he's been in Philadelphia as the defensive-minded associate coach and now as the interim head coach, has seen Tippett do it dozens of times before – calling immediately back to his highlight-reel backhand goal against Dallas from last season as one of them.
It's just that consistency is Tippett's key right now, which hasn't been so easily achieved in these past few months.
"And that's hard for a guy who has that skill package," Shaw said. "You can't always show that."
But the interim coach does believe that Tippett will get there.
"I think being consistent means maybe you don't look for those spectacular plays maybe quite as often," Shaw continued. "When they're there and you're feeling it, absolutely, but I don't think it needs to show up all the time because he's good enough in other elements of the game to play a simpler game at times, or maybe a more north-south game.
"I think how he combines the two, eventually, when he starts playing his absolute best hockey, I think you'll see a little bit more of that simplicity come through, along with the exceptional skill and talent that he has."
Tippett won't reach the same level of production that he's had from the past couple of years at this point, but these last few games for the Flyers can serve as a means to take a step back toward it, or even greater.
- MORE FLYERS
- Flyers thoughts: Matvei Michkov's late Calder surge and making the time left count
- 5 candidates to consider as the next Flyers head coach
- Flyers thoughts: What is Danny Brière's path forward after firing John Tortorella?
Last season, in the middle of that playoff push, Tortorella, the now former coach, stressed that Tippett had all the tools to be a special player in the NHL. At the time, general manager Danny Brière and the organization felt the same when they offered him an eight-year contract extension to stick around for the long haul.
He's a core piece to what the Flyers are building. They already decided that, and when they did, they did so with the belief that there was so much more to his game.
Tippett struggled to tap into that this year, but he still can, and might be setting up to with what's left of the season.
He got bumped off what was his regular line with captain Sean Couturier and star rookie Matvei Michkov. That combo just wasn't working. But further down the forward lineup with Poehling and Pelletier, No. 74 has been flying out there.
It's noticeable again.
Follow Nick on Twitter: @itssnick
Follow Nick on Bluesky: @itssnick
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Sports
