Who: Pittsburgh Penguins
(0-0-0) @ Philadelphia Flyers (0-0-0)When: 7:30 p.m. eastern
How to Watch: Nationally televised game on TNT and TruTV, streaming on HBO Max
Pens’ Path Ahead: The Penguins have a few days off to prepare for their home opener on Saturday night against Montreal. Next week will be a busy one with games on Monday (10/5) at home against Winnipeg, followed by road games on Wednesday and Friday in Washington and Columbus before returning back home for another Saturday home game against Dallas.
Opponent Track: Tonight’s the Flyers’ first game, they have a quick turnaround to play in New Jersey tomorrow before going back home on Saturday against Carolina. Add in road games next week against Tampa, Ottawa and Boston (followed by another Carolina game after that) and it’s a challenging start of the year for Philadelphia based on opponent strength.
Season Series: The Pens and Flyers won’t see each other again after tonight until January 31st. The two rivals then play late-season games on March 30th and April 3rd to close out the four-game set. Last year the Penguins went 2-0-2 in the regular season against Philadelphia.
Hidden Stat: Philadelphia has finished 32nd on the power play in four of the last five seasons. They’ll certainly be looking for improvement in that department this season for what’s long been a dreadful man advantage.
Hidden Stat 2.0: Pittsburgh has points in 10 of its last 15 season-opening games (9-5-1), per Penguins PR.
Getting to know the Flyers
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Owen Tippett – Trevor Zegras – Porter Martone
Alex Bump – Christian Dvoark – Travis Konecny
Tyson Foerster – Noah Cates – Matvei Michkov
Carl Grundstrom – Sean Couturier- Noel Acciari
DEFENSEMEN
Travis Sanheim /Rasmus Ristolainen
Cam York / Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler / Simon Benoit
Goalies: Dan Vladar and Joseph Woll
Potential scratches: Denver Barkey, David Jiricek, Garrett Wilson
Injured Reserve: None
- It stings to see Acciari cross the state after a few solid seasons in Pittsburgh. Tough to hate on the player for securing the bag (Philadelphia gave Acciari a $2.8 million AAV for two years, a bigger salary than both of his former linemates last year took to stay in Pittsburgh).
- The Flyers are largely unchanged from the end of last season, making ancillary additions of Acciari, a backup goalie in Woll and a couple of depth defensemen. They’ll benefit from a full season of Martone, who essentially is a new add, but otherwise had minimal roster movement over the summer.
- Vladar and Barkey picked up minor injuries during the preseason. Especially with the Flyers having another game on deck tomorrow, one would wonder if Vladar gets an extra day off since he’ll likely only play one of the two opening games anyways. Rick Tocchet was “hopeful” earlier in the week about Vladar in the season opener, which may suggest he will play if he’s able.
Season stats (from last year)
via hockeydb
- The stability from last year is apparent with 14 of the top-15 scorers from 2025-26 back again this year for the Flyers (only Bobby Brink, traded at the 2026 deadline, is gone). One piece of good news for them: they should expect more than 38 total games out of Foerster and Martone this time around and other young players like Bump, Barkey and David Jiricek figure to work their way into larger impacts.
Key to the Game: Flyers offense vs. Penguins defense
This is from last season but figures to dictate the game for which team’s perceived weaker areas will perform better than the other. Will the Flyers offense be better? Can the revamped new Pittsburgh defense with three new defensemen limit more chances? How will (presumably) Arturs Silovs do as a follow-up against the Flyers given his strong postseason play? If Philadelphia scores a power play goal and piles up shots, it will be an indicator that Pittsburgh’s weaker areas can’t hold up against what has been a very limited attack in the past, if they take care of business there then it’s obviously a great sign for a positive result could be coming at the end of the night.
And now for the Pens
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Nick Robertson – Sidney Crosby – Rickard Rakell
Egor Chinakhov – Tommy Novak – Evgeni Malkin
Filip Hallander – Hendrix Lapierre – Ville Koivunen
Connor Dewar – Blake Lizotte* – Elmer Soderblom
DEFENSEMEN
Declan Carlile / Erik Karlsson
Sam Girard / Kaeden Korczak
Trevor van Riemsdyk / Kris Letang
Goalies: Arturs Silovs and Sergei Murashov
Potential Scratches: Rutger McGroarty, David Gustafsson, Ilya Solovyov
IR: Ben Kindel, Ryan Graves, Justin Brazeau, Bryan Rust
Non-roster: Andrei Kuzmenko
- The Penguins work in five new players to make their official team debuts tonight, highlighted by half of the blueline getting turned over from last year. That will be a huge element of change as the team looks to tighten up some messy defensive numbers from 2025-26 where they were in the bottom 10 of the league in 5v5 scoring chances allowed and ninth worst in overall goals allowed.
- Lizotte is on IR retroactive to his injury date of 9/24, he can come off at any time. He went through practice yesterday and could be in line to play tonight. The Penguins have 22 players on the active roster, so they don’t even need to send anyone down to make room (though they could still choose to send McGroarty back to the AHL today if they wanted).
Throw the popcorn
Per Pens PR: Evgeni Malkin (32G-67A) enters today’s game one point shy of becoming just the sixth player in NHL history to notch 100 or more points against the Flyers. Four of the five have Penguins ties: Sidney Crosby (139), Mario Lemieux (124), Jaromir Jagr (120), Bryan Trottier (117), along with Wayne Gretzky (100). Malkin likes when the Philly faithful throw popcorn at him.
Letang to set record
Other assorted milestones on the horizon:
- Sidney Crosby (654) is two goals away from tying Brendan Shanahan for 14th all-time in NHL goals.
- Crosby (1,107) is two assists away from tying Joe Thornton for seventh all-time in NHL assists.
- Evgeni Malkin (1,407) is two points away from tying Dale Hawerchuk for 22nd in all-time NHL points.
- Kris Letang (806) starts the year five points away from Sergei Gonchar and Victor Hedman for 18th place among NHL career defenseman points.
