History, bad blood, and fireworks: How the Ducks sadly kept the slide alive against the Flyers

While the Anaheim Ducks may have lost to the Philadelphia Flyers by a final score of 5-2, the focus was squarely on how traded players would fare against their former teams, which has helped fuel a rivalry between the two franchises.

History

While not an entirely an apples-to-apples comparison and with the acknowledgement that both the Ducks and Flyers have different organizational needs, the two separate trades between the teams have helped shape their respective 2025-26 seasons.

Almost two years ago, the Ducks essentially traded Jamie Drysdale for Cutter Gauthier. From a surface level comparison, here is what the matchup looked like prior to last night's game.

Gauthier has provided the offensive punch that Ducks hoped they were acquiring, when they made the trade for the disgruntled Philadelphia winger. And while dealing Drysdale at the time stung, the Ducks still have enough young talent on the blue line and in the organization, to make up for the loss.

The Zegras for Poehling trade has been a more difficult pill to swallow for Ducks fans, however. Here too are the stats, prior to last night's game.

While Poehling has been a very serviceable fourth line center, Zegras adds a different dimension of offense and playmaking ability, that the Ducks could desperately use.

Bad blood

From his first shift, till the end of the game, Gauthier was expectedly and relentlessly booed by the Flyers fans. But the bad blood did not end there.

In the first period, Jansen Harkins hit Bobby Brink, sending the Flyers winger to the locker room, which resulted in a fight with Noah Cates.

In the second period, Garnet Hathaway crushed Olen Zellweger along the boards in the defensive zone. Not soon after, Ross Johnston hit Jamie Drysdale near the Philadelphia blue line, knocking the defenseman out of the game with an undisclosed injury. Johnston was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct for the hit.

In the third period, Hathaway hit another Ducks defenseman again, this time Ian Moore was his target, and Moore had to leave the game with an injury. Radko Gudas, the Ducks captain, responded by fighting Hathaway immediately after the hit.

Fireworks

Gauthier embraced the love (hate) from the Flyers fans and scored the first goal of the night, off of a one-timer on the power play.

Not to be outdone, Zegras responded with a goal of his own, off of a sharp angle shot near the goal line.

And again.

The goals kept on rolling in for the Flyers and by the time they potted an empty net goal, the Ducks were sent out beaten and bruised with another loss.

The Ducks keep sliding

The Ducks have now lost seven games in a row, with only one win in their last ten games, and have slide down the Pacific Division standings. The Ducks were largely undone by the excessive number of penalties they took against the Flyers (11 to 6) and could never establish a five-on-five game. The road does not get any easier however, as the Carolina Hurricanes are on deck next, a game in which the Ducks could desperately use a win.