Sunday's 4-1 loss to Carolina left the Philadelphia Flyers at 0-5-2. It is the first time in franchise history, back to the 1967-68 expansion season, that the Flyers have gone their first seven games without a win.
Records this early are noisy, so we wanted two answers before saying anything about the season: how rare is a start like this, and is the team actually playing like a 0-5-2 club, or just losing close games?
How rare it is
We rebuilt the first seven games of every team-season in NHL history from the league's game logs: 1,618 of them, from 1917-18 through 2025-26. Only 51 teams went winless through seven. The Flyers are the 52nd.
Measured by points, 27 teams in the league's history started worse than two points from seven games. Since the shootout arrived in 2005-06, and with it the end of ties, seven have:
| Season | Team | Record through 7 |
|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | Columbus Blue Jackets | 0-7-0 |
| 2009-10 | Toronto Maple Leafs | 0-6-1 |
| 2011-12 | Columbus Blue Jackets | 0-6-1 |
| 2013-14 | Buffalo Sabres | 0-6-1 |
| 2017-18 | Arizona Coyotes | 0-6-1 |
| 2021-22 | Arizona Coyotes | 0-6-1 |
| 2023-24 | San Jose Sharks | 0-6-1 |
Five more started exactly 0-5-2: Carolina in 2014-15, Detroit in 2018-19, Chicago in 2021-22, Vancouver in 2022-23 and San Jose in 2024-25.
What it usually means for April
Not good things. Of the 20 teams since 2005-06 with two points or fewer from their first seven games, two made the playoffs. One was the 2019-20 Minnesota Wild, who opened 1-6-0 and reached the expanded 24-team qualifying round. The other was the 2013-14 Flyers, who opened 1-6-0 and finished with 94 points.
All 14 teams in that span that were still winless after seven games missed the playoffs.
Then and now
The 2013-14 comeback is the obvious hope, so we put both starts through the same test. We scored every unblocked shot of the first seven games of each season with our expected goals model, five on five, the same way the numbers on our team pages are built.
| First 7 games, 5-on-5 | 2013-14 (1-6-0) | 2026-27 (0-5-2) |
|---|---|---|
| Expected-goals share | 48.9% | 31.2% |
| Expected goals for / against | 10.8 / 11.3 | 9.1 / 19.9 |
| Shot-attempt share (Corsi) | 48.2% | 38.0% |
| Goals for / against | 8 / 12 | 5 / 20 |
The 2013-14 team was an even team having a bad fortnight. It won the expected-goals battle in three of its first seven games, including a 5-2 loss in Detroit where it had 64% of the five-on-five chances, and finished the season at 48.7% for the year, close to the league middle.
This year's team is being outplayed. Here is every game so far:
| Date | Opponent | Score | 5v5 xG share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 30 | vs Pittsburgh | L 0-7 | 19.9% |
| Oct 1 | at New Jersey | OTL 2-3 | 27.4% |
| Oct 3 | vs Carolina | OTL 2-3 | 32.1% |
| Oct 5 | at Tampa Bay | L 1-4 | 25.1% |
| Oct 8 | at Ottawa | L 1-2 | 59.7% |
| Oct 10 | at Boston | L 1-5 | 23.3% |
| Oct 11 | vs Carolina | L 1-4 | 35.1% |
One game out of seven above 50%, five below 35%. They have allowed more than twice the expected goals they have created at five on five.
It is not the goaltending
The easy explanation for a winless start is a goalie who cannot stop anything, and that is not this. Through their first six games the Flyers' five-on-five save percentage was .909, 15th in the league. Shooting has been unkind, at 4.5% (31st), and some of the 5-20 goal difference will even out. But the shot shares are the bigger story: last in the league in five-on-five expected-goals share, in shot attempts and in high-danger chances, and by a wide margin. San Jose was 31st in expected-goals share at 33.4%, and the worst full season in our records since 2009-10, the 2014-15 Sabres, finished at 37.8%.
What to watch
Seven games is a small sample, and an expected-goals share this extreme will drift back toward the pack. The question is how far. A team that settles in the mid-40s can fight its way back toward the playoff line, as the 2013-14 Flyers did from a better starting point. A team that stays in the 30s does not. The Flyers' team page updates every night with their ranks in each of these numbers.
How we counted: records from the NHL's game logs for every team's first seven regular-season games. Expected goals from our live model on every unblocked attempt, five on five with both goalies in, empty nets excluded and each rink's scorekeeping corrected at half strength. Playoff outcomes from the NHL's postseason records.