How can Flyers right the ship on season… and rebuild?

Heading into the 2026-27 season, there was a sense of optimism surrounding the Philadelphia Flyers. The team just made the Stanley Cup Playoffs, making it as far as the second round.

However, the way things have gone thus far, it seems as if the Flyers have gone backward.

The Flyers began the season with a miserable winless drought. Even after the team finally picked up a couple of wins, it has done little to move up the Eastern Conference standings. Philadelphia has won just five of its first 20 games, sitting near the bottom of the Metropolitan Division. Now, there’s wonderment about whether the Flyers will trade a young Matvei Michkov, who has reportedly expressed interest in a fresh start.

On Wednesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Anthony Di Marco joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Steve Peters to explain whether the Flyers’ season is salvageable and if the time is right to already start rebuilding.

Anthony Di Marco: Winning cures all, right? So, if they were winning like they were last season, [the Michkov saga] would probably fade into the background. … There is almost like a cult that follows Matvei Michkov, and I get it for a large portion. ‘We need this guy. We’ve lacked high-end talent for so long. You can’t screw this up.’ I understand all that. But it has gone to the point where you see it through blinders. I’ve had people in my mentions say, ‘like, ‘Do whatever you need to do to keep this guy. Fire the GM. Like Dan Hilferty needs to gut every roster, player or manager personnel to make this guy happy…i’s not Connor McDavid, it’s not Eric Lindros. Let’s take it easy a little bit, but we can’t evaluate things in a vacuum.

Unfortunately, Cutter Gauthier did happen. The Flyers are still set to miss the playoffs for the fifth time in the last six years. They do not look any farther along than they did two years ago at this time, maybe aside from a few improvements in the lineup here and there. .. You can’t just bend to the will of a player who, beyond just the Flyer-centric view of it, has been a problem, and a lot of other teams and executives have viewed him as a problem.

I think that we’re in a situation now that like two things can be true, but unfortunately, a lot of people are just not seeing the other side of it and aren’t giving the Flyers the benefit of the doubt. Honestly, even if it is borderline illogical at times, I completely get it.

You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…