The Flyers Hot Start: Should bettors believe in Philadelphia?

The Philadelphia Flyers endured a gut-punch loss against the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday night. The surprising Flyers took a 2-1 lead into the third period but weren’t able to hold on long enough to even earn a point against the undefeated defending Stanley Cup champions.

Philadelphia’s loss in Vegas was the type of result that was both encouraging and discouraging for a young, rebuilding team off to a head-turning start. In the big picture, you can take plenty of positives from a hard-fought loss to the Knights on the road, but at the same time it does feel like a missed opportunity for the Flyers to put another point in their pocket and continue their promising run of form.

Nonetheless, a 3-2-1 start to the season for Philadelphia is quite impressive, especially considering they’ve played a pretty tough schedule out of the gates.

One of the useful things about sports betting is it can help give us insight into what the market thinks about surprising teams. It’s natural for fans to get caught up in the optimism when a longshot like Philadelphia comes off the blocks hot, but it’s also natural for those on the outside to be skeptical. The betting market, for the most part, will strip those biases out of the equation and help give us an idea if we should believe that Philadelphia has a legitimate chance to gatecrash its way into the playoff picture.

As you can see, the betting market is still pretty sure that the Flyers will end up falling off the pace. That should be no surprise to anybody as John Tortorella’s team was projected to be one of the worst teams in the NHL before Opening Night. Their 3-2-1 start is impressive, but the season is so long and Philadelphia is not very deep, so it seems very likely that the Flyers will end up tumbling towards the bottom of the table as we make our way into the dog days of the calendar.

That said, there’s plenty to like about how Philadelphia is playing right now and the immediate signals point to the Flyers continuing to surprise in the short-term. You don’t want to read too much into underlying data this early in the season, but Philadelphia’s statistical portfolio suggests that this hot start is well deserved. The Flyers rank sixth in the NHL in expected goals rate, 11th in high-danger scoring chance percentage and 14th in shot attempt differential at 5-on-5. Those numbers will play, especially with goaltender Carter Hart in good form.

One thing that is clear is that this Flyers team, at least for now, are going to be a dangerous underdog. Not only is Philadelphia pushing play in the right direction, but the Flyers have a clear identity and they’re working hard to make life very tough on their opponent. That goes a long way in raising the floor of a roster that may not boast much talent compared to the rest of the league.

They’ve already upset the Edmonton Oilers as a big pooch and they gave two Stanley Cup contenders (Dallas and Vegas) everything they could handle in one-goal losses.

So while there may not be any betting value on the Flyers in the futures market, it does seem like Philadelphia is a play-on team at the current moment.

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