Every day we learn something new about the Flyers. Every day we check in to see what this team is – if it’s one we can finally believe in, or if it’s one that is presenting fool’s gold and we shouldn’t buy in or believe.

But, in this city, fans want to believe. They want nothing more than to have a great ride with one of their sports teams again. There’s nothing like that high.

However, the Phillies failed them for the umpteenth consecutive year. The Eagles are like a British farce with unintentional comedy around every corner, and the Sixers are such an off-court soap opera, that until the Ben Simmons thing is settled, what happens on the court is simply a sidebar.

That leaves the Flyers, who haven’t done the fans any favors for much of the last decade – and are starting to notice it by the lack of crowds who will show up for games in the early part of the season.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s always a harder sell for the Flyers ticket-wise from October through December – but when the building is as empty as it was for a game against the Bruins Wednesday, with an announced crowd of 15,310 but a drop count of actual butts in seats a few thousand fewer than that – that should tell you that the fans want the team to prove that they deserve attention again.


If the first three games are a sign, the Flyers are doing just that.

Blowing out an expansion Seattle team is one thing, but putting up a touchdown and emphatically beating the big, bad, Bruins 6-3 is something else.

This win was impressive. It said a lot about the Flyers. It said a lot about their cohesiveness. It said a lot about their buy-in to what coach Alain Vigneault is selling. And it said a lot about a team with three new faces in the lineup being able to continue to pull on the same rope and find a positive result.

The FAB line was at it again, with two goals from Cam Atkinson and another by Joel Farabee:

(God, I love when Russ takes things I say in the press box and turns them into his own tweets as an original idea.)

That makes 15 points in three games for Farabee, Atkinson, and center Derick Brassard. They are the difference makers right now for the Flyers, as I wrote about the other day, both taking pressure off the top line and at the same time giving them more time and space to operate when they get matched up against weaker competition.

“I am obviously very comfortable playing with Brass,” Atkinson said. “When I was a rookie and then for a couple years, he was my centerman and we are obviously best buddies, so we are always talking and always staying positive. You add a guy like Beezer who is obviously very skilled and can make plays and shoot the puck… I had a feeling we were going to click.”

Travis Konecny scored for the third straight game and Sean Couturier picked up his first goal of the season.

Then you sprinkle in a little production from the third line (Scott Laughton scored) and you have the best offense in the NHL through three games.

There’s no way the Flyers can keep up this torrid pace of averaging 5.33 goals per game. But, if nothing else, it should allay concerns that this team would have a hard time scoring offensively, when, in fact, the style of play of certain players playing together really seems to suit them well.

Confident Konecny

Having Konecny back to being the dangerous goal-scorer we saw he can be earlier in his career is a boon for the Flyers. Now, if you have a goal-scorer like Farabee on your second line and Konecny doing his thing on the first line and JVR bringing a veteran presence and a track record of scoring goals on the third line, then the Flyers are super strong on the right wing.

That all stems from Konecny’s confidence, which right now is at a high.

Maybe he’s more relaxed now that he’s a year older, that he’s settling down and that he’s a dad for the first time, and is able to refocus his energy solely on playing hockey and not the distractions that come with playing the game at the highest level.

Whatever it is, you can tell that TK is enjoying himself on the ice again. He’s got life in his skates. He has that wry smile like he’s getting away with something more often than not. And he’s producing while playing with two all-time great Flyers in Claude Giroux and Couturier:

“He is a shooter and we all love it when he uses that shot,” Vigneault said. His goal “almost put the game out of hand there. It was a great shot at a great moment.”

Debuts: Risto, Jones and MacEwen

Rasmus Ristolainen was under the biggest microscope Wednesday, making his Flyers debut after missing the first two games with an upper body injury. It was an OK game for Risto. I think Jordan Hall of NBCSN Philly did a great job comparing the good and the bad of Ristolainen, and the Flyers may either have to learn to live with that or really work with Risto to clean up the parts of his game that could get him or the team in trouble:

That’s the good Risto. Here’s the bad….

Ristolainen admitted afterward it was a bad play by him. If he’s going to change there, he has to be sure the puck gets in deep so he doesn’t create the opportunity for someone to get a breakaway. If he doesn’t get the puck in, he has to stay on the ice until there is a safer time to change. That’s fundamental. Those mistakes were a plenty in Buffalo. They won’t be acceptable in Philly.

Speaking of proving it, Martin Jones still has to prove it to me. I’m not sold on him as a reliable backup to Carter Hart. Other than the fact that he’s younger than Brian Elliott and in turn has the stamina to play multiple games in a row if need be, I’m not sure his skill set is where it needs to be to be relied on other than the odd start here or there.

He was OK in this one, making a couple good saves early, and ended up with 37 saves on 40 shots, which is a fine performance overall. It’s just that he hasn’t shown an ability to be consistent in net for quite some time, so I need to see more outings where he can steal the Flyers a win before I’m officially on board.

As for MacEwen, he was physical. He registered four hits in the 9:09 ice time he had. He didn’t look out of place on the fourth line, which could have a winger rotation for a bit.

Doing things that hadn’t been done in a long time

  1. The 16 goals scored through three games is the most since the Flyers scored 17 in 1983-84.
  2. Atkinson is the first player since Konecny (2016-17) to register at least one point in his first three games as a Flyer.
  3. Farabee and Konecny have each scored in all three games. That’s a career-best streak for both.
  4. Farabee has two points in each game so far this season. Only one player in Flyers history has recorded at least two points in each of the first four games – Orest Kindrachuk in 1977-78.
  5. Atkinson, Konecny and Farabee are the first Flyers trio to score three or more goals in the first three games since Bill Barber, Brian Propp and Darryl Sittler in 1982-83.
  6. The Flyers have six players who have registered at least one point in all three games. Farabee (3G, 3A), Keith Yandle (5A), Konecny (3G, 1A), Ryan Ellis (1G, 3A), Atkinson (3G, 1A) and Claude Giroux (2G, 1A).
  7. The Flyers have yet to allow a goal in the third period.