Flyers-Penguins Game 1 updates: Flyers take 1-0 series lead with 3-2 win

Playoff hockey doesn't return to the South Philly Sports Complex until Wednesday night, but Flyers fans weren't waiting around. On Saturday night, Stateside Live! held a Game 1 watch party, which, to nobody's surprise, was well attended. Here's how the fans celebrated the Flyers' big win.

And of course, the bar had to play the Flyers' new victory anthem: "Man I Need," after the final horn sounded. Owen Hewitt uncovered how an Olivia Dean song became the Flyers' answer to "Dancing on My Own."

The Flyers are back in the playoffs, and it's come as a bit of a surprise as they're still early on in the rebuilding process. So if you hadn't been paying attention for most of the season, we won't blame you — we're just happy you're along for the ride.

If you feel like you've got a lot to catch up on, that's OK too. We've got you covered. Here are five things you need to know about this team, courtesy of Flyers editor Gustav Elvin ...

1. 'Hungry dogs run faster'

With puck drop less than two hours away, the Flyers arrived at PPG Paints Arena a little while ago, and let's just say they did so in style.

The team's official X account posted photos of several of the players' walk-ins, including Owen Tippett, Matvei Michkov, Jamie Drysdale, and Trevor Zegras.

The fashion-forward Tippett made a statement with a black pinstriped double-breasted suit and some Nike mids. Bonus points go to Drysdale, who rocked a 76ers hat in support of the Flyers' roommates at Xfinity Mobile Arena, who will take on the Boston Celtics on Sunday.

With the Flyers back in the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 2020, everyone has their own way of showing how Flyer’d up they are. For Willie Aston of Kutztown, that meant getting a portrait of Gritty, the most maniacal mascot in all of sports, tattooed on the top of his head.

“I just thought of it a couple months ago, maybe,” Aston said. “I was just looking at a picture of Gritty. We got this piece of art from an artist at a cannabis festival, and I liked the way that Gritty looked, and I just thought about putting it on top of my head.”

Aston brought the idea to Mike Milburn, a tattoo artist at Electric Cheetah Tattoos in Bethlehem. Aston is a regular at the shop, and he and his wife Jodi go on frequent tattoo dates. Milburn estimates he’s given Aston at least 10 tattoos.

Dallas Eakins coaches in southwest Germany, approximately 4,000 miles away from Philadelphia, but still gets asked about Trevor Zegras.

It’s not hard to understand why. Zegras is known for his flash and finesse, executing “Michigan” goals and viral no-look passes, and has a big personality to match.

There are some who don’t approve. On Dec. 7, 2021, in a game against the Buffalo Sabres, Zegras’ elite skill produced one of the most memorable highlights of the year.

While the Flyers-Penguins rivalry began in 1967, the teams didn’t have many consequential games early on as both teams tried to find their footing after expansion. The rivalry became a rarer occurrence as the Pens and Flyers played in different divisions from 1975 to 1982. But during this period, the Flyers put together one of the most dominant — and frankly unfathomable — runs in NHL history. Between Feb. 7, 1974, and Feb. 2, 1989, the Flyers went 42 games unbeaten against the Penguins at the Spectrum. During that 15-year streak, the Flyers went 39-0-3 at home vs. their in-state rivals.

The Flyers and Penguins finally faced off in the playoffs for the first time in 1989, and the series didn’t disappoint, going seven games. They alternated wins through the first six contests. Mario Lemieux’s five-goal, eight-point Game 5 should have gotten all the headlines, but many fans will remember a different moment that proved a turning point in the series.

After Rob Brown celebrated a tap-in from Lemieux to make it 9-3, Flyers goalie Rob Hextall, who ran notoriously hot, took exception and started chasing Brown around the rink like a bull in Pamplona.

When Matvei Michkov walks into his Voorhees home, the first thing he smells is his mother’s cooking. It could be any dish on a given night; borscht soup, dumplings, or pasta and chicken, his favorite.

The 21-year-old winger doesn’t take it for granted. At every stop of his hockey career, his family had been by his side, from his earliest days in Perm, Russia, to his stints with Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, SKA St. Petersburg, and HC Sochi.

That changed in 2024, when he arrived in Philadelphia, young, unsure of his surroundings, and alone.

Back in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2020, the Flyers are hoping to celebrate some postseason victories with this season’s win song — “Man I Need” by Olivia Dean.

Owen Tippett took over as the Flyers’ designated DJ this year, and has put careful thought into the team’s music, but the inclusion of Dean’s track after a win came as a suggestion by fellow forward Trevor Zegras earlier this season.

“[Zegras] sits right beside me, and I just said, ‘Hey, what do you want to hear?’” Tippett said. “It was when it was popular, and he threw it up there, and I let it stick.”

Porter Martone grew up dreaming of being a Flyer, and getting the opportunity to play in a playoff series like this, against the Penguins.

The two teams haven’t met in the postseason since 2018, with a Flyers team that included Travis Konecny, Travis Sanheim, and Sean Couturier. Martone didn’t think the young version of himself could have imagined the position he’s in now.

“It’d be very surreal,” Martone said. “I’d be pretty amped up. I wouldn’t honestly believe it. Obviously, I always thought I could play in the NHL, but for me to get picked by the Flyers and come to this organization?”

No one has more experience in the Flyers-Penguins rivalry than head coach Rick Tocchet, who played for the Flyers from 1984-1992 before he was traded to the Penguins, and played there for three seasons. He also won two Stanley cups in 2016 and 2017 as a Penguins assistant coach.

He hasn’t taken much time to try and teach the young players what the playoffs will feel like in the moment. Tocchet prefers the quick coffee chat — a long conversation just “makes the guys nervous.”

“If we have a 15 minute conversation about pressure, I think that’s the worst thing to do,” Tocchet said. “Little tidbits here and there help, but these guys, [Denver Barkey] won the Memorial Cup. He’s been in pressure games. What’s the difference?”

Rasmus Ristolainen hasn’t pinched himself just yet, but you couldn’t blame him if he did.

After toiling through 820 NHL games across 13 NHL seasons — the third-longest drought in NHL history and the longest active one — the rugged blueliner will finally play in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

“Really had to earn [it],” he said Thursday. “It took a while, but obviously, I never won anything easy. So it’s been a grind, and feels good.”

There are many similarities between this year’s first-round matchup featuring the Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins and the last time the two met in the 2018 postseason. But there is one key difference, something that was missing from the that series but will leave furry orange fingerprints all over this one: Gritty.

The Flyers’ chaotic mascot was introduced on Sept. 24, 2018, just a few months after the Penguins eliminated the Flyers from those playoffs. And since his origin day, Gritty has had it out for his cross-state rival, Pittsburgh’s mascot Iceburgh the Penguin.

While fans were trying to figure out what Gritty was or where he came from, Gritty was busy already making threats toward the “bird.”

As the players filtered off the ice into the locker room right behind the visitors’ bench at PPG Paints Arena, the Flyers equipment staff was hard at work getting things prepared for Game 1 in some new duds.

They were sporting black shirts with a picture of Bernie Parent’s mask on the front, the word “Believe” underneath, and 3.8% on the sleeve.

Chambersburg, Pa., is a quiet borough, tucked away in south central Pennsylvania, not far from the Maryland border. It is best known for its Civil War history; in 1864, it garnered the unfortunate distinction of becoming the only Northern town to be completely destroyed in a fire by Confederate troops.

Every year, the Franklin County Visitors Bureau holds a ceremony to commemorate this event. Smoke fills the night air, as red lights beam out of the town’s historic courthouse to simulate a blaze. Actors, dressed in blue and gray military uniforms, abound.

Together, Chambersburg’s citizens celebrate their community’s resilience, in the face of an unthinkable tragedy. It’s meant to be a time of healing and mutual respect.

PITTSBURGH — So I went to the Flyers Training Center on Thursday with one goal in mind: report and write a column about Sean Couturier. Yes, it’s the Flyers’ young core who has powered the team’s run to its first playoff appearance since the (COVID-extended) 2019-2020 season. But Couturier is the guy who has been there the longest and been through the most. I wanted to get his perspective on his career and this moment in it.

I hadn’t spoken to him in person in a while, though, and, well, let’s just say I have a little history with the Flyers.

Back in 2021, I was involved in a rather memorable postgame interaction with Jake Voracek, one of the Flyers’ stars at the time. No need to go into great detail about it. I wrote a column Jake didn't like. I still stand by what I ended up writing. He ripped me. That's life in the big city. That incident was five years ago, and all this time later, and as Nicolas Cage would say, kind of a lot’s happened since then.

While the Daily News cover from this day in 2012 mocked Sidney Crosby ahead of Game 4 of the Flyers first-round matchup of the Penguins, the series ultimately lasted a few more games.

It ended in a 5-1 Flyers' win in Game 6, with Claude Giroux "knocking Crosby from his skates with a bone-crushing hit just five seconds in," as my colleague Gustav Elvin recently wrote.

Here's how Elvin summed up the series:

The Flyers will kick off their first playoff run since 2020 tonight against the Pittsburgh Penguins, and it won't be hard for Philadelphia fans to find the games on TV.

Every Flyers game in the first round of the playoffs will air live in and around Philly on NBC Sports Philadelphia, with longtime play-by-play voice Jim Jackson on the call. He'll be joined tonight by Brian Boucher, who will divide the first round between the Flyers and his role as an analyst on TNT.

Flyers Pregame Live will air at 7:30 p.m., featuring Ashlyn Sullivan, Scott Hartnell, and former 94.1 WIP host Al Morganti. The trio will also handle postgame coverage.

The best and biggest moments of Sean Couturier’s career came six years apart, at the same time of year, against the same team. They were high times for him, full of promise.

In mid-April 2012, in the Flyers’ six-game first-round victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins, Couturier had a hat trick in Game 2, bounced up from a vicious blindside hit from James Neal in Game 3, and frustrated Sidney Crosby for much of the series. He was 19, a rookie who had made it clear he could be more than a player whose primary responsibility was to shadow another team’s superstar.

In mid-April 2018, in the Flyers’ six-game first-round loss to the Penguins, he scored the winning goal in Game 5 and had a five-point game — including another hat trick — in Game 6, all after colliding with a teammate in practice and tearing the medial collateral ligament in his right knee. He took a great leap forward that season, becoming a No. 1 center, scoring 31 goals, and finishing as a finalist for the Selke Trophy as the NHL’s best defensive forward. He was 25. He would soon win the Selke, sign an eight-year contract, and his performance in that playoff series would feel like a torch-passing, as if he had shown himself to be the franchise’s new centerpiece.

The Flyers will lose Game 1, probably, because winning four straight — even if it’s crossing the regular season-playoff boundary — seems to be beyond this team.

But they thrive amid adversity, as evidenced by their eye-popping 18-7-1 record after a loss, including a 7-1 mark since hockey restarted in late February.

The Penguins? They limped into the playoffs — yes, they didn’t really play their regulars the last few games — but they went 12-10-4 in the same 26 games while averaging 3.81 goals and allowing 3.69.

The playoffs are officially back for the Flyers.

Beginning on Saturday, they will take on their Keystone State rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins, in the Eastern Conference first round. Game 1 will be played at 8 p.m. and broadcast on NBC Sports Philadelphia locally and ESPN nationally.

The series begins in Pittsburgh at PPG Paints Arena, with Game 2 on Monday, before shifting to Xfinity Mobile Arena for Games 3 and 4 on Wednesday and Saturday, respectively. It marks the first time the Flyers will host playoff games in front of fans since 2018, when they lost in six games to these same Penguins.