The Philadelphia Flyers are halfway through the 2025-26 season. They have 22 wins through the first 41 games. Last season it took them 48 games to get their twenty-second win. So far, they’ve probably exceeded the expectations of even the most hopeful fan, despite having a terrible power play, giving up the first goal far more often than not, and relying on a goaltender who played all of 30 games last year. Having said all that, there have been some surprises over the first half. And there’s been some disappointments. So let’s have a look at three of each. Some are surprising for a variety of reasons.
Biggest surprises
Trevor Zegras
With a possible season-defining performance Tuesday night against his former club, Flyers winger Trevor Zegras exorcised some demons over the summer. A new team has done wonders for his confidence, and, as a result, Philadelphia. Zegras has 41 points through 41 games and has been one of the most consistent and valuable players the Flyers have. More importantly, there was no adjustment period for the forward. He hit the ground running and hasn’t stopped on a line with Travis Konecny and newly extended Christian Dvorak. Considering just how ridiculously bad the power play has been, it’s conceivable a middle-of-the-road efficiency would have him closer to 50 points this year.
Losing Ryan Poehling and a draft pick to acquire him seems almost criminal. And with an extension looking more and more like Zegras will be filling in a blank check in front of a grinning Flyers general manager Danny Briere, “Ziggy” and the Flyers have become a perfect pairing. You couldn’t write it up any better! Here’s hoping the second half is just as productive for the team’s top point-getter and the Flyers.
Emil Andrae
Defenseman Emil Andrae might become one of the key cogs the from now until the Olympic break, especially if his partner Jamie Drysdale is out for a substantial period of time after the headshot he took against Anaheim Tuesday night. Andrae has found a place on the second pair and, unless the Flyers make an unlikely trade to address Drysdale’s potential absence, he will be the top banana on that pairing. He’s been fantastic since getting the call up. More importantly he wasn’t lost in the shuffle when Rasmus Ristolainen returned to action. Ristolainen looks right at home on the third pair while Andrae is settling in perfectly on the middle pairing.
Andrae is a +13 so far in 30 games with a goal and nine helpers. He’s rarely found himself caught out of position. Nor has he been the target of a huge, heavy hit simply by hesitating or making the wrong decision. The blueliner has wheeled the puck out of the zone quickly, making high-percentage outlet passes or simply skating the puck out himself. Considering just how low on the pecking order he was when training camp commenced in September, the defenseman has opened up a lot of eyes with his consistently solid play and quick thinking. Barring injuries, Andrae looks to be another important piece on a backend that has everyone pulling in the right direction.
Wanted to say how happy I am for Emil Andrae.
— Flyers Clips (@Flyers_Clips) November 27, 2025
In only a month he's gone from an AHLer who was heading towards a change of scenery trade, to playing quality top 4 minutes every night.
Been awesome with Jamie, and tonight he was one of the biggest reasons they won.#LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/vpQC8ANRdp
Dan Vladar
You can count on one hand the number of iffy goals or appearances goaltender Dan Vladar has had through this season. One of the more concerning games was Tuesday night when he looked a bit out of sorts and leaky. We’ll call it a one-off and leave it at that. Otherwise, since arriving this summer Vladar has taken control of Philadelphia’s tandem by playing extremely well. It might not seem like a surprise to the goalie from Czechia (and also on his nation’s roster for the Winter Olympics), but Vladar has turned some heads with solid, consistent play. And big time saves when they were needed. For a team that dreamed of a goalie playing with a .900 save percentage or higher, it has been a huge surprise to see him find a new home so quickly. And the forwards in front of him having that confidence they might not have had in previous seasons.
Nothing against Sam Ersson, but Vladar is making that contract he signed in the summer (and the short-term nature of it) like another huge victory for Briere despite it being rather low risk. If Vladar remains this good the rest of the way, the Flyers should have a very legitimate shot at the playoffs down the stretch. Like Zegras, nobody knew what to expect with Vladar when he arrived. But his arrival has helped Philadelphia immensely.
Honorable mentions: Denver Barkey and Carl Grundstrom
It’s only been a few weeks, yet Denver Barkey has been a huge sparkplug to the line with Sean Couturier and Owen Tippett. He (like Bobby Brink and Drysdale) received a cheap shot during the Anaheim game when Jacob Trouba’s forearm was viciously attacked by Barkey’s face. Fortunately, he just got a cut lip and nothing else. The winger, who was called up just before Christmas, has a goal and two assists but has been stellar in his games thus far. He hasn’t replaced the injured Tyson Foerster from a production standpoint. What he has done is given that line some stability and fresh air.
Grundstrom has been the Flyers’ fourth line all season in terms of production. He has seven goals thus far and has made the bottom trio of forwards far more dangerous than the combinations were the first two months of the year. He’s been an offensive dynamo going by fourth line statistics. And if he continues scoring at a rate that he has been the remaining 41 games, is a 15-goal to 18-goal season out of the question?
Biggest disappointments
Matvei Michkov
We’re not kicking a guy when he’s down. Just the facts. After a fine rookie year, and promises that he’d be motivated to enter training camp essentially breathing fire, Michkov took the off-season off. Whether it was the ankle injury or just trying to get away from training after a hectic rookie year, Michkov entered camp not in optimal shape. And although he had a defender initially in Rick Tocchet, it had to be disappointing to the players around him and the coaching staff to see Michkov laboring as much as he did to start the season.
Sophomore seasons are never great for a lot of players. But nobody might have expected to see Michkov needing to go on a tear to simply hit 45 to 50 points the rest of the year. With 23 points thus far, and missing Tuesday’s game to a foot injury, the winger is going to have a few more bumps in the road it seems this year. Ideally, they are fewer and farther between. He’s been much better of late, and seems to be taking longer shifts which should provide more offensive chances. Overall, Michkov probably wants to put the first half behind him quicker than anybody else. The Mad Russian can still redeem himself with a better second half. But notions of matching his point total from last season, or coming remotely close to those numbers, are a pipe dream.
Garnet Hathaway
We love what we saw from Hathaway on Tuesday night. In a game where the Flyers were trying to be intimidated, the fourth-line grinder blew up a few Ducks with vicious but clean hits: once in the second against defenseman Olen Zellweger (and seconds before Jamie Drysdale was given a dirty hit), and once in the third against Ian Moore which caused a fight with former Flyer Radko Gudas. Hathaway is a guy, like Tocchet said post-game, who can drag players into the fight. So full marks for him in game 41.
The previous games? Well, it’s been extremely trying. Hathaway looked slow, out of sorts and perhaps over-thinking his game. Mired in a slump that has him with no points thus far, he created no offense at all after scoring 10 goals and earning 21 points in 67 games last year. It got so bad he was scratched for a handful of games as Carl Grundstrom and Nikita Grebenkin served as Rodrigo Abols’s wingers.
In recent games, particularly in the pair since the scratching, Hathaway has looked much more like himself. Should be fluke a secondary assist or score an empty-net goal sometime in the next few games, that might be the huge monkey off his back that will see him deliver a decent 41 games.
Nikita Grebenkin
First off, nobody is accusing Grebenkin of being a huge bust. The guy is still young and still finding his way with a new team and a new head coach. But it appears that Grebenkin still has some growing pains he needs to work out of. He, like Hathaway, was full marks for the effort against Anaheim, particularly eliminating an icing late in the game and drawing a penalty seconds later from a pissed off Radko Gudas. Yet, that often hasn’t been the norm with Grebenkin. Often he looks a bit lost, particularly when he’s not engaged or throwing some of his weight around.
It’s probably surprising that you see Grebenkin with 10 points in just 21 games, which works out to roughly half-a-point per game. At this rate he should end up with between 20 to 25 points if healthy at year’s end. The winger needs to establish himself a bit more, and show off more of that determination in the corners and behind the net where it’s next to impossible to separate him from the puck. Grebenkin is still developing, but it would’ve been great had he hit the ground running like a few other players have this season.
(Dis)Honorable mentions: A tie between the power play and giving up the first goal.
We won’t amble over ground that has been well worked over. The power play started fine and has been going in reverse ever since. Heck, when you can score a power play goal and still see your effectiveness decline, as the Flyers did last night going one for eight, you know things aren’t great. The notion the Flyers are where they are in the standings with such a trying power play is noteworthy. Whether they can overcome such a poor special team the rest of the way will be huge in determining if they’re playoff-bound or not. The players know it’s bad, the coaching staff knows it’s bad, the fans know it’s bad. At some point it gets good, right?
Just as head-scratching is the first goal, and namely playing from behind roughly two-thirds of the season. The Flyers have held their own in overcoming a goal deficit, but that’s a strategy that is sure to prove lethal in the coming months if it continues. Especially when teams start clamping down and playoff-like hockey becomes the norm. Philadelphia aren’t shaking in their boots when they’re behind. It would just be so much easier to see them play with a lead at least close to 20 (or ideally more) of the last 41 games.
