Three Straight Wins Later, the Stanley Cup Board Has the Flyers Lower Than During Their Losing Streak

The Philadelphia Flyers have won three straight games since their record winless start, and the Flyers' Stanley Cup odds have not given them credit for any of it. Rookie Cole Knuble scored his first two NHL goals in a 3-1 win at Buffalo on October 21, 2026, the Flyers' third victory in five days after nine losses to open the season, and as of October 23, 2026 the market still priced Philadelphia as a deeper long shot than it did during the losing streak: Polymarket had the Flyers at 0.5% to win the 2026-27 Stanley Cup, against Kalshi's 1%.

The run is on the record in three Associated Press game stories carried by ESPN. The Flyers beat the Ottawa Senators 3-1 at Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia on October 17, then the Colorado Avalanche 3-2 at home on October 19, then the Sabres at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York, on October 21. That took them from 0-6-3 to 3-6-3, and it matters here because the Cup board is the one place the season's turn would show up as a number. It has not.

What the Stanley Cup Board Says About the Flyers

On October 23, 2026, Polymarket had the Flyers at 0.5% to win the Stanley Cup, the cheapest Yes on the board for them, and Kalshi had them at 1%. On October 16, the day after the ninth straight loss, Polymarket had them at 0.9%; on the afternoon of October 20, the day after the win over Colorado, it had them at 0.4%. Three wins in, Polymarket's figure for the Flyers is lower than it was while they were losing. Only three of the 32 clubs on Polymarket, Calgary, Vancouver and Chicago, were priced below them on October 23, and three others were level at 0.5%, including the New York Islanders and the Detroit Red Wings, who both sat inside or close to the Eastern playoff places that day. As of the same date the Flyers' contract had drawn about $32.7K on Polymarket and matched about 98,700 contracts on Kalshi.

That is the market's verdict on three wins: noise, not a change in the team's ceiling. The board is pricing the Flyers' distance from the playoff line and the size of the field ahead of them, and a three-game streak does not move either far enough to matter at these odds. A Cup contract on a club this deep in the field pays only if it survives four best-of-seven rounds, and the price says the first step, reaching the playoffs, is still the open question.

The comparison with the club the Flyers beat on October 19 makes the point. Kalshi and Polymarket both had the Avalanche at 12% on October 23, 2026, the top price on the board, so a loss in Philadelphia did nothing to Colorado's standing as the favorite. The market reads the Flyers' side of that game the same way: one result in a long regular season, which is a consistent reading even if it is not a generous one. The Pittsburgh Penguins, level with the Flyers on 9 points, were at 2% on both venues the same day, which shows the board separating the two Pennsylvania clubs by something other than the standings.

How the Flyers Turned the Start Around

The wins came from the same few players. Matvei Michkov had a goal and an assist against Ottawa, the 50th goal of his career in his 171st game, the fastest a Flyers player has reached that mark since Matt Read in 2014, according to the AP. Porter Martone also had a goal and an assist, and Trevor Zegras sealed it with an empty-net goal with 14 seconds left. Philadelphia had scored 11 goals in its first nine games; it scored three that night for the first time all season.

Against Colorado, Michkov scored twice, once on a power play in the first period and once on a long wrist shot in the second, and Noel Acciari added his first goal as a Flyer. Joseph Woll made 24 saves for his first win with the club after five seasons in Toronto. Cole Knuble, a 22-year-old right wing whose father Mike played for the Flyers, made his NHL debut in that game.

At Buffalo two nights later, Knuble scored at 14:49 of the first period and again 3:03 into the third, banking the second off goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen's skate. Zegras scored on a power play late in the first, and Dan Vladar made 27 saves. Tyson Foerster returned after missing a game with an undisclosed injury.

Three games is a small sample, but the pattern in it is a different one from the start: the Flyers scored three goals in each, after averaging just over one a game through the first nine.

Where the Flyers Stand in the East

The standings explain why the market is unmoved. In the NHL's standings as of October 23, 2026, the Flyers have 9 points from 12 games and sit 15th of 16 clubs in the Eastern Conference, tied on points with the Pittsburgh Penguins and ahead only of Columbus. The New Jersey Devils hold the second wild-card place with 12 points from 10 games, so Philadelphia is three points out with two more games played. The Carolina Hurricanes lead the Metropolitan Division with 18 points.

That is a gap a team can close in October. It is also a gap that six other Eastern clubs are trying to close at the same time: Florida, Detroit, Washington, Montreal, Buffalo and Pittsburgh sat between 9 and 12 points on October 23, alongside Philadelphia. The board is pricing a crowded race for two places, not a straight chase of one leader.

The Case Against the Market's Read

The strongest case against the price is that it may be reading the start more than the team. The Flyers lost three of their first nine games in overtime or a shootout, the AP noted after the Colorado game, so the 0-6-3 record overstated how far they were from winning. A club that then beats the Avalanche, the previous season's Presidents' Trophy winners according to the AP, is not obviously one of the weakest in the league.

The answer the price gives is that the Cup is a long road from 15th in the conference, and that a long shot can win three games in a row without becoming anything else.

What Would Change the Read

The Flyers play three of their next four games at Xfinity Mobile Arena: the Anaheim Ducks at 1 p.m. on Saturday, October 24, then Columbus on October 27, a trip to Washington on October 28 and the Utah Mammoth at home on November 1, according to the team's ESPN schedule. If the Flyers are inside the Eastern Conference's top eight by the end of that stretch and the Cup price is still where it stood on October 23, 2026, the market will be pricing the start rather than the team. A single loss on Saturday would cost the price little, because at 0.5% on Polymarket there is almost nothing left to give back; what the board is waiting to see is whether a three-game run becomes a month. The Pennsylvania Stanley Cup odds page tracks both Pennsylvania clubs on the same board, and the earlier story on the Flyers' record ninth loss has the full history of the start.