Flyers schedule: They’ll open 2025-26 at the Stanley Cup champions; won’t host annual Black Friday game
The Flyers will play the Panthers in South Florida on Oct. 9 and then host Florida four days later in the home opener.
Flyers fans hoping for a nice cushy beginning to the Rick Tocchet era on Broad Street, look away.
The NHL released its full 2025-26 schedule on Wednesday afternoon, and let’s just say the schedule makers didn’t do the Flyers any favors out of the gate. Tocchet’s Flyers will open the regular season on Oct. 9 in South Florida against the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, before hosting the Panthers at the newly named Xfinity Mobile Arena four days later in the home opener. This season will mark the sixth time the Flyers have opened up against a defending Stanley Cup Champion.
If that wasn’t daunting enough, in between those two contests on Oct. 11, the Flyers will visit old friend Rod Brind’Amour and the Carolina Hurricanes, who racked up 99 points and reached the Eastern Conference finals last season. Oh, and the second home game of the year? That would be an Oct. 16 date with the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Winnipeg Jets. Yikes.
While expectations are the highest they’ve been for the Orange and Black in several years, that opening gauntlet sure is a little sobering, and will certainly provide an early litmus test of where the Flyers stand as they begin the next step in their rebuild under Tocchet. The schedule does get a little easier from there, as the Flyers will host 2024-25 wild-card team Minnesota on Oct. 18 before finishing up October with four of their final five games — a trip to see Claude Giroux and Ottawa on Oct. 23 being the other — at home against teams that missed the playoffs last season in Seattle (Oct. 20), the New York Islanders (Oct. 25), Pittsburgh (Oct. 28), and Nashville (Oct. 30). The Oct. 28 game against the Penguins will be part of ESPN’s “Frozen Frenzy” TV broadcast and will have a 6 p.m. puck drop as all 32 teams will be in action at staggered times.
November’s 14-game slate is highlighted by a visit to Philly from Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and the Western Conference champion Edmonton Oilers on Nov. 12, and equally, the absence of what has become an annual tradition. For the first time in a full season since 2005, the Flyers will not host a home game on Black Friday. The decision likely has everything to do with the Eagles playing a home game that day across the street at the Linc against the Chicago Bears. Instead, the Flyers will be on Long Island to play the Islanders.
November will also be a month of homecomings, as beloved teammate and leader Scott Laughton returns to Philly for the second time with Toronto on Nov. 1. A night later, Joel Farabee, Morgan Frost, and new Flyers goalie Dan Vladař will play against their old teams when the Calgary Flames come to Xfinity Mobile. Center Christian Dvorak, who signed a one-year, $5.4 million deal with the Flyers this summer, will return to Montreal for the first time on Nov. 4, while the Flyers will face off with former assistant Brad Shaw twice, when they host the New Jersey Devils on Nov. 22 and visit them on Nov. 29.
In December, the Flyers will host some of the league’s biggest stars, as Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby (Dec. 1), Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon (Dec. 7), San Jose’s Macklin Celebrini (Dec. 9), and Vegas’ Jack Eichel (Dec. 11) will come to town as part of a season-high six-game homestand. Tocchet also will face off with his former team, the Vancouver Canucks, whom he coached for the last 2½ seasons, for the first time in Philly on Dec. 22. No rest for the weary, Matvei Michkov and fellow 2023 draft classmate Connor Bedard will renew their rivalry a night later in Chicago before the league’s holiday break. With Disney on Ice coming to town, the Flyers will begin their annual Christmas road trip out west on Dec. 28 in Seattle, before Tocchet’s return to Vancouver on Dec. 30 and a 9:30 p.m. New Year’s Eve tilt in Calgary. So much for watching the ball drop in Times Square ...
The Flyers will wrap up their Western Canada swing with a Jan. 3 matinee in Edmonton, and hurry home for the second annual “Boo Cutter Gauthier Bowl” on Jan. 6, a date that fans have undoubtedly already circled in anticipation. This game will also be the first time Trevor Zegras and Ryan Poehling will play against their former teams since last month’s trade. Last season’s home game against the Ducks will be tough to top, as the Flyers trounced Anaheim, 6-0, and fans booed Gauthier, who forced a trade from Philly after being drafted by the team in 2022, every time he touched the puck. I’d bet the over on the “Jamie [Drysdale’s] better” chants.
On Jan. 21, the Flyers will make their second visit to Utah to take on the rebranded Mammoth, and later close out the pre-Olympic schedule with home games vs. Los Angeles (Jan. 31), Washington (Feb. 3), and Ottawa (Feb. 5). The NHL will break from Feb. 6-24 for the Winter Games in Milan, although Tocchet (Canada), Travis Sanheim (Canada), Travis Konecny (Canada), Sam Ersson (Sweden), Rasmus Ristolainen (Finland), Rodrigo Ābols (Latvia), and Vladař (Czechia) might want to keep those dates free.
The Flyers will reconvene in our nation’s capital on Feb. 25 to take on Alexander Ovechkin and Co., followed by games at Madison Square Garden against the Rangers (Feb. 26), and at home vs. Boston (Feb. 28).
A busy 15-game March will come in like a lion, with the Flyers visiting Laughton, Auston Matthews, and the Maple Leafs to open the month on March 2, in what will serve as a homecoming of sorts for Konecny, Owen Tippett, Tyson Foerster, and Drysdale. March 11 is another date to circle, as it could represent Ovechkin’s final game in Philly, a city he has tormented for the last two decades to the tune of 52 goals in 78 games. Ovechkin, who turns 40 in September, is in the final year of his contract with the Capitals and could elect to return to Russia to play next season.
The Flyers, who will hope to be in playoff contention through March, will face an eight-game sprint to the finish in April, culminating with a tricky final five-game stretch that starts with away tilts against New Jersey (April 7), Detroit (April 9), and Winnipeg (April 11), before a home back-to-back with Carolina on April 13 and Montreal on April 14.
The Flyers will play 26 games against their Metropolitan Division rivals, including four games each against the Capitals, Hurricanes, Rangers, Islanders, and Penguins. They will also play each team in the Atlantic Division three times for a total of 24 games, and all of the Western Conference teams twice (32 games).
The Flyers’ longest road trip is just four games, which they will manage three times, and they will play 14 back-to-backs. Last season, the Flyers finished last in the Metro with 76 points and a record of 33-39-10. They will be looking to improve on that under a new coach in Tocchet along with the additions of Zegras, Dvorak, and Vladař, and the continued growth of young players like Michkov, Foerster, Tippett, Cam York, and Sam Ersson.
Full season-ticket holders will have first access to purchase single-game tickets for the 2025-26 season during presale beginning at 10 a.m. on July 22. Full and half-season tickets are available now and include access to the presale and other exclusive membership benefits. Single-game tickets will go on sale to the general public at 10 a.m. on July 23.