The NHL and the NHL Players' Association recently reached agreement on a shortened 56-game season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The league has been temporarily realigned for this season into geographical groups, with the Flyers placed in the East Division along with seven other teams - Boston, Buffalo, New Jersey, NY Islanders, NY Rangers, Pittsburgh and Washington.
The 2020-21 schedule matrix will see the Flyers play each of those teams a total of eight times - four at home and four on the road. They will not play any regular season games against any other NHL teams. As a further health safeguard, the schedule is constructed generally in pairs of games against teams in the same city. Pittsburgh's season-opening trip to Philadelphia also includes a second game on Friday, January 15, after which the Buffalo Sabres come to town for two games on the 18th and 19th. The Flyers then hit the road for pairs of games in Boston and New Jersey. This scheduling technique is predominant over most of the season, and is exclusive over its first month through mid-February.
The Flyers will play eight sets of back-to-back games over the course of the season, all of which will take place in the same city with no travel in between. Five of these eight situations will see both games played in Philadelphia. There are two road back-to-backs in March - the Flyers will visit the Rangers on the 17th and Islanders on the 18th, and will play a pair of games in Buffalo on the 29th and 30th. The season then ends with a back-to-back set at Washington.
The schedule is fairly consistent from month to month, with 10 games over the final 18 games of January, 12 in February, 15 in March, 14 in April and five in the first eight days of May. At no point in the campaign will the Flyers have more than two days off between games; their lightest stretch will come during the third week of February, when they will play just once from February 19-23.
Due to current local and state restrictions, the Flyers anticipate beginning the season with no fans inside Wells Fargo Center. As the season progresses, the Flyers and Wells Fargo Center will continue to work closely with government and health officials to execute a plan that will safely allow patrons to return when it is appropriate to do so.
Television and radio broadcast schedules will be released at a later date.
