The Philadelphia Flyers are entering a pivotal season in their rebuild. After unexpectedly making the playoffs — and winning a round — last year, the team is largely relying on internal improvements to keep the train chugging along this season.
While Danny Briere did make a few key moves to raise the Flyers’ floor, it’s going to be on the players who tasted playoff hockey last year to get Philadelphia back there again and raise the ceiling.
But how will the lineup look?
If you sit down and try to put the Flyers’ forward lines together for this season, there are countless combinations that make sense. They have a handful of centers and even more wingers that can fill several holes in the lineup.
Let’s take a look at three important questions for the Flyers’ lineup construction this season.
Will Trevor Zegras play center or wing?
This one of the big questions not only for training camp and this season, but really for the entire rebuild.
It’s fair to say that Trevor Zegras exceeded expectations last season, setting career-highs with 26 goals and 67 points. But we still don’t really know exactly where he best fits in the Flyers lineup.
Zegras spent the majority of the season on the wing, playing in a hybrid-type role alongside fellow newcomer Christian Dvorak. They became quite the duo, helping the veteran center to a career year, and a five-year contract extension.
That was until around the Olympic break, and Zegras didn’t look too out of place when playing at center in the final months of the season. In fact, he showed that he’s capable of being a first-line center.
Although it was a smaller sample size, Zegras lining up down the middle continued into the playoffs. There are still questions about Zegras’ two-way play, though, and his faceoff struggles will be magnified in crucial situations.
It’d be easy to line up Zegras at center and call it a day. You’d then have Dvorak, Cates, and Couturier as the likely three centers behind him, with Denver Barkey and Noel Acciari able to slide over in a pinch. And ultimately, playing center is what the Flyers need from Zegras.
However, given how Zegras and Dvorak fed off each other, you could easily see them together early on in the season as well. That, of course, would depend on how the depth centers are performing. If Couturier can build on a great second half in a fourth-line role, perhaps he starts the season as the third-line center, with Acciari anchoring the fourth line.
But it all comes back to Zegras at either center or wing. If he is at wing, that adds even more questions down the depth chart on a team that already has a logjam at the position — it’s not exactly set in stone even if he is at center.
Will Matvei Michkov play his natural position?
Originally we had this question more general in asking which right winger will play on the left side, but where Matvei Michkov lines up is going to be a storyline throughout the season — hell, his offseason activities are practically being tracked like Santa on Christmas Eve.
The Flyers only really have a few natural left wingers. Tyson Foerster plays on the left side, as does Zegras when he’s not at center, but Travis Konecny, Owen Tippett, Porter Martone, and Michkov would all prefer to play on their natural side. While it doesn’t matter for some players, as we’ve seen all of those wingers on both sides of the ice, it can have an impact.
And it seems to have an impact for Michkov.
After the Flyers traded away right winger Bobby Brink, Rick Tocchet and the Flyers gave Michkov a chance to “try” the right side. This coincided with a hot streak for the team and Michkov himself. He finished the season with 18 points (4 goals, 14 assists) in his final 16 games.
Ultimately, as long as Michkov produces it doesn’t really matter where he plays, but giving him a chance to play the position he’s grown up playing sure does seem sensicle for the Flyers.
Will Denver Barkey and Alex Bump make the roster?
Denver Barkey and Alex Bump can be added into that group of wingers above, and they do both play on the left side, which could give them a leg up. They’re brought up together in conversation as they’ve risen through the prospect ranks on a similar timeline, and they’ll be competing for a roster spot in training camp.
It’s not the same role, though.
The Flyers would likely be willing to keep Barkey in the NHL to play in a bottom-six role, even if that means starting on the fourth line. He plays a responsible game in all three zones and can chip in some offense as well.
Barkey is more of a Swiss Army Knife that the Flyers can use in a variety of areas, including at center if needed, as shown in the playoffs. He is also one of the smartest prospects in the system, and quite possibly has one of the highest hockey IQs in the locker room.
Barkey has already shown chemistry with Couturier at center and Tippett on the other wing, so perhaps you could see a Barkey – Couturier – Acciari line wreak havoc as a checking line.
Bump, on the other hand, seems like a player that the Flyers would want to be playing either on the third line (or higher) in the NHL or in the top six in the AHL. While he could hold his own in a fourth-line role and give that unit an offensive weapon, that may not be best for his development or the team as a whole.
The shoot-first winger primarily played on a line with Dvorak and Konecny with lackluster results, but did have a better showing in a smaller sample size with Cates and Michkov. That trio could very well be a Flyers line at some point this season — maybe as early as opening night?
Of course, both Barkey and Bump will have to show that they’re able to bring more to the table than some other legitimate depth options. If either of these youngsters spin their wheels in camp, they could start the season in Lehigh Valley with a more seasoned player like Carl Grundstrom earning a spot with the Flyers.
