How Penguins, Flyers have turned the East upside down

When just two teams in the entire NHL are more than a single victory away from having a .500 points percentage, it can be hard to know what to make of the standings. Both those squads — the Vancouver Canucks and Winnipeg Jets — reside in the Western Conference. In the East, every single club could lose its next game and still be over .500. 

That kind of levelled landscape can really make you question what the table is trying to tell you. The indisputable fact, though, is the 2025-26 NHL campaign passed its halfway point on the weekend and two Pennsylvania-based teams pegged by many in October for the bottom of the conference are top-six squads in the East.

The Pittsburgh Penguins scored two third-period goals — including one with 14 seconds left — and got an overtime winner from, who else, Sidney Crosby to down the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-4 in Ohio for their fifth straight victory on Sunday afternoon.

The Philadelphia Flyers, meanwhile, dumped the Edmonton Oilers 5-2 in northern Alberta on Saturday, and their .613 points percentage makes Philadelphia one of five clubs in the East to be above .600.

The Penguins are right behind, at .598.

Pittsburgh appeared to be crashing out before Christmas, when the Pens lost eight straight games in December. All that pre-season talk of nailing another first-overall pick was suddenly a conversation again. 

Crosby and Co. got it back on the rails, though, outscoring opponents 25-12 during their five-game winning streak. All this is happening with Evgeni Malkin — who had 29 points in 26 contests this season — on the shelf since the beginning of December.

As for Crosby, he’s now on pace for 48 goals at age 38. 

The Penguins might not be a perfect team, but they’ve got a deadly power play (second in the NHL, at 29.7 per cent) and, with exactly 41 games in the books, an expected goals percentage on Moneypuck of 50.04 per cent — which ranks right in the middle of the league, at 16th — that suggests they can hang around.

As for Philly, when is the last time four newcomers have had such a positive impact on a team? Dan Vladar got the win over Edmonton and the 28-year-old goalie has a .910 save percentage in 24 games this year. Up front, Trevor Zegras leads the team in scoring with 39 points in 40 contests and has been every bit the offensive catalyst they hoped for when the Flyers acquired him via trade from Anaheim. Like Vladar, Christian Dvorak was a low-key UFA signing and the responsible, two-way pivot is on pace for 50 points this year while playing a steadying brand up hockey up the middle.

And overseeing it all, of course, is first-year Flyer coach Rick Tocchet. The tough guy turned teacher is clearly pushing all the right buttons while getting this squad to a place nobody had it slotted for. 

Again, you can poke holes in the Flyers, but this team has been remarkably consistent. Philadelphia was seventh in the East based on points percentage on Nov. 1, fifth on Dec. 1 and sits fourth in the conference five days into 2026. 

In fact, the Flyers have lost consecutive games in regulation time just once this year.

The other surprising teams in the Metropolitan Division — Pittsburgh, the New York Islanders — have received their fair share of attention because we were all watching the Penguins thinking Crosby could be traded if they fall flat, while rookie sensation Matthew Schaefer has made the Isles relevant in a way they have not been since their playoff success under coach Barry Trotz at the beginning of the decade.

The Flyers, though, have just kept chugging along under the radar, building a case for themselves as a playoff squad. 

We’ll see what the second half brings in Pennsylvania. But, with a huge chunk of season already in the books, the Penguins and Flyers deserve some love.

Weekend Takeaways

• Make it five straight Ls and eight defeats in their past nine outings for Vegas after the Knights fell 3-2 in overtime to the Blackhawks in Chicago on Sunday. Vegas now has three losing streaks of at least four games on the season. That doesn’t seem great for a team with Cup aspirations. The Golden Knights remain the top team in the Pacific by points percentage (.575), but that’s not saying a whole lot, given every other squad in that group has a negative goal differential this year, while Vegas sits at a modest plus-2.

• A quick Olympic snub watch: Canadian Matthew Schaefer scored two goals, including the OT winer, versus the Leafs on Saturday; and fellow Canuck Sam Bennett scored the game-opening goal in Florida’s 2-1 win that ended Colorado’s 10-game winning streak on Sunday. Meanwhile, American Lane Hutson netted the overtime winner Sunday afternoon for the Canadiens in Dallas. 

Red and White Power Rankings

1. Montreal Canadiens (23-13-6) Their extra-time victory in Texas on Sunday meant the Canadiens grabbed 10 of a possible 14 points during a seven-game road trip that was broken up by the holiday break. That’s great work from a team trying to get at least some separation in the playoff chase. 

2. Toronto Maple Leafs (19-15-7) Next up for Auston Matthews is passing Swedish legend Borje Salming for fourth on the Leafs’ all-time scoring list. Matthews — who passed another Swede, Mats Sundin, to become the all-time goals leader in Toronto with Nos. 420 and 421 on Saturday on Long Island — has 760 career points, eight behind Salming’s 768. The way he’s going — Matthews has 10 points in his past four outings — the Leafs captain could leap Salming very soon. 

3. Ottawa Senators (20-15-5) Thomas Chabot’s two-goal effort in a 4-2 home-ice win over the Jets on Saturday had to feel fantastic, as the D-man who has battled injuries this year doubled his season output from two to four goals. 

4. Edmonton Oilers (20-16-6) This season feels like an endless exercise in one step forward, two back for Edmonton. Coming off a 6-2 home loss, the Oilers were trailing Philly 3-0 on home ice 15 minutes into the game on Saturday. That just can’t happen. 

5. Calgary Flames (18-19-4) After hosting Seattle on Monday, the Flames will embark on a critical roadie through Montreal, Boston, Pittsburgh, Columbus and Chicago. And while all of Canada was disappointed to see its squad fall short in the World Junior Championship semifinal on Sunday night, two Flames prospects — defenceman Zayne Parekh and centre Cole Reschny — had strong tournaments. 

6. Vancouver Canucks (16-20-5) After losing a pair of extra-time games to Seattle on Friday and Boston 24 hours later, the Canucks have an unsightly .289 points percentage on home ice. Maybe it’s a good thing Vancouver is about to play six straight on the road, including a swing through Eastern Canada that starts with a Saturday-night tilt in Toronto. 

7. Winnipeg Jets (15-21-4) Last call to save the season; the Jets begin a stretch where they play nine of 11 at home beginning Tuesday night versus Vegas. 

The Week Ahead

• Team Sweden, captained by Flyers prospect Jack Berglund, will go for its second gold medal since 1981 on Monday when it faces plucky Czechia in the final showdown at the Minnesota-based 2026 WJC. It’s wild a country as consistently good as Sweden has so few first-place finishes at this event. Sweden’s most recent gold came in 2012, when Mika Zibanejad scored an overtime winner to beat Russia 1-0. 

That same night in Ottawa — where last year’s WJC was played — the Wings will visit the Sens with Patrick Kane still two goals shy of 500 for his career and seven points back of Mike Modano for the most career NHL points by an American-born player. Modano racked up 1,374, while Kane sits at 1,367.

• The Avalanche will try to start a new winning streak on Tuesday when they visit a Bolts team in Tampa that just happens to have strung together seven straight Ws of its own. 

• Corey Perry — who had 10 goals in 22 playoff games with the Edmonton Oilers last spring — returns to Edmonton as a member of the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday. 

• The U-18 Women’s World Championship kicks off on Saturday in Sydney and Membertou, N.S.