It’s been a heck of a calendar year for the Philadelphia Flyers. One that’s been filled with some acrimony, some controversy, and some hope. But through the last 12 months there have been a handful of things that have shaped how the Flyers started the second half of the 2024-25 season back in January. And how they are currently wrapping up the proverbial first half of the 2025-26 season in better position than many anticipated. Here then, in no particular order, are seven things which defined the Flyers in the last 12 months.
Out with the old, in with the new
After a lackluster performance against the Maple Leafs on the road, then head coach John Tortorella said out loud what he had probably been thinking for some time: he was essentially done coaching a team that wasn’t yet close to contention. A rumored rift with defenseman Cam York was the death knell, resulting in Tortorella getting the axe with nine regular season games left in the schedule. Many believed a move like that would be made after game 82. But the alleged confrontation between coach and player was the final straw. Interim coach Brad Shaw coached the rest of the way. And while he looked to have a shot at the job for 2025-26, Flyers general manager Danny Briere had other ideas.
In the middle of May (and with Shaw one of the candidates the Flyers looked at), Philadelphia sealed the deal with former Flyer (and former Jack Adams winner) Rick Tocchet. The coach, who parted company with Vancouver after the 2024-25 season, joined the Flyers to take them into the next phase of their rebuild. Thus far, the Flyers are faring better than expected. On returning from the Christmas break they’re in second place in the Metropolitan Division despite the absence of one key forward and with a power play that is still nowhere near being a game-changer. While some might loathe how Tocchet has approached some players and his style of coaching, the proof is in the pudding. The Flyers are faring better overall under Tocchet than Torts.
A tale of two Matveis
When Matvei Michkov finished his rookie season, Flyers fans felt snubbed and shunned that he wasn’t among the Calder Trophy nominees. With 26 goals and 37 assists, a 63-point rookie year was great. But Michkov wasn’t happy with his season. In an exit interview with Briere, he reportedly was a bit pissed off at how his season went. And vowed to be better in his sophomore year. The interview surprised Briere who saw a player that was anything but content. Instead he saw a guy who was going to come into training camp ready to take on the world. At least that was the idea.
Yet come September, Michkov didn’t quite look to be in fine form. Tocchet revealed the youngster injured his ankle in the offseason, which severely hampered any training or fitness program Michkov attempted this past summer. Michkov later revealed he hadn’t done much of anything in the four months since April when the season concluded. As a result, Michkov got off to a slow start. Tocchet, wanting to implement a sound defensive structure, began correcting Michkov on his defensive miscues and the occasional cheating, blowing the zone too early. The ice time decreased, the scoring seemingly dried up. Despite the controversy (including a bench conversation some blew entirely out of proportion), Michkov had 20 points after 36 games, and broke a lengthy scoring slump with an empty netter against Vancouver Dec. 22.
If Michkov can start looking better, and also elongating his shifts from what seems to be rather brief ones, he can certainly start producing like he did in his first year. As it stands now, a productive Michkov might be better than any possible acquisition the Flyers could land at the trade deadline. The last few months have been a bit bumpy for the Mad Russian. Here’s hoping he’s turned a corner heading into January.
Ziggy has been stardust
The Flyers parted with a few pieces at the trade deadline, and were looking forward to the 2025 NHL Draft. But one of the biggest, team-altering moves Philadelphia made since the parting of Claude Giroux was landing Anaheim Ducks winger Trevor Zegras. Zegras arrived while the Flyers parted with Ryan Poehling, a second-round pick in the 2025 draft, and a fourth-rounder in 2026. At the time it was seen as the Flyers taking a low-risk gamble on a forward with high-end talent. Zegras, who seemingly wasn’t in the mix with Anaheim moving forward, was looking for a fresh start somewhere. And Philadelphia — with his buddies Jamie Drysdale and Cam York in the mix — seemed to be a good place to start the next chapter.
Well, the season is roughly half over in the 2025-26 season, and “Ziggy” has been gold. He had 32 points in 57 games last year. This year through 36 games he amassed 37 points. Just over a point-a-game average. At this rate 80 to 85 points in a healthy season seems a legitimate possibility. He was ideally going to be slated into the center position, beefing up the middle alongside Sean Couturier, Noah Cates, and Rodrigo Abols. So far, Zegras has been slated on the wing, with the “hybrid” idea rarely put to work as Christian Dvorak has done a very good job. Zegras has also been solely responsible for whatever success the power play has had. It is still heading towards no man’s land as the campaign continues. Yet he is one of the Flyers who, if they lost him for an extended period of time, would be almost impossible to replace. He’s just that good!
Perhaps the biggest silver lining is that the Flyers still retain his rights after this current year ends. So a contract extension looks to be in the cards with each passing game. It’s all a question of how much he’ll earn for the next eight seasons as a Flyer. What’s clear thus far is that Zegras has been a grand slam for both Briere and the Flyers. And fans can’t possibly imagine the team without him now!
System change and a godsend in goal
The 2025-26 season has seen a change in systems. Tortorella’s system of blocking every shot possible in the defensive zone is out the window. Instead, a system has been implemented that has made life easier for the goaltenders. Namely, Tocchet’s system lets the goaltenders see the puck but generally allowing low-percentage scoring chances, keeping things to the outside. That notion might have been a horrible decision considering how poor the Flyers’ goaltending woes were last year. However, the system was implemented, and so far it’s been a surprisingly successful development.
What is most vital with this new change has been acquiring former Flames goalie Dan Vladar. Vladar has arguably been as important as Zegras so far this season. He’s played 21 games heading into the Christmas break, compared to 30 all of 2024-25. His goals-against average is almost down half a goal as well (2.80 compared to 2.39 at the break). As well, he has one more victory now than he did all of last year (13 versus 12). And finally, his save percentage is at .910, which seems like a number that would make many Flyer fans tear up at, namely being north of .900.
Nobody knows how Vladar will fare in 2026. But considering Briere has been able to give Kolosov a role in Lehigh Valley, see Carson Bjarnason excel with the Phantoms, ship off Ivan Fedotov and land Vladar, the goaltending issue has been almost a non-issue this year. That’s something few would’ve envisioned in September.
Power play peril
It was dead in the water. It probably ended up sending Rocky Thompson to the American Hockey League. And indirectly led to Tortorella’s firing. The power play for the Flyers was a complete outage or rolling blackout most of 2024-25, particularly in the second half where it went in the toilet. Just comically inept. The Flyers knew they needed to improve this special team if they wanted to improve as a team. Enter Tocchet and his coaching staff. Add in Zegras and a fresh outlook, and things might be different for the first three months of 2025-26. At least that was the plan.
Well, the Flyers looked better in the opening weeks of the season, being in the middle of the pack. It seemingly was going to be fixed. But with each passing week, the Flyers didn’t execute. Either inaction, poor decisions or just simply not making quick passes to find an open Flyer (or set up a backdoor opportunity) has continued to plague Philadelphia. And the bumper remains something most Flyer players think is part of a car, not part of a power play. At the Christmas break the Flyers are ranked twenty-third at 16.8 per cent. That’s a slight improvement compared to last year but it still needs a lot of work. One can sense the frustration in Tocchet with each failure. One unit (generally quarterbacked by Zegras) has been very effective while the other seems stuck in quicksand at times. Considering Philadelphia have the sixth best points percentage (.625) in the league with such an anemic special team is quite remarkable. The team has room to grow with the power play, and Tocchet and his coach staff aren’t going to give up. It appears the power play could be something the Flyers get into the playoffs in spite of, not from.
Tyson Foerster’s rollercoaster
Tyson Foerster went on a scoring spree late in the season, ending up with 25 goals and essentially tossing any notion of a sophomore slump on the ground. Foerster’s strong play also got him into the World Hockey Championship, playing alongside fellow Flyers Travis Konecny and Travis Sanheim. But during the tournament, he was injured. The injury devolved into a bacterial infection that required specialists to see if he needed surgery to resolve the issue. Briere said that it looked like surgery wasn’t required and he’d be good to go when training camp started.
Foerster started the season with a bang, hitting double digits with a goal against the Penguins early in December. Then minutes later a slap shot left him in agony and with a shoulder or something in his arm that looked shot. Foerster was originally though to be out two to three months. However, surgery weeks later put that return date at five months. Barring a deep playoff run from the Flyers — and everything going right in terms of his recovery — the 2025-26 season for Foerster will end at 10 goals and three assists for 13 points.
Outside of Michkov, there was probably nobody on the Flyers who was being relied on more to score somewhere in the 30-goal range while being an important cog in Philadelphia’s playoff wheel. Now, the earliest Foerster will be in a Flyers uniform is in September when the 2026-27 training camp gets rolling. The injury couldn’t have come at a worse time for the team and the player. Both hoped to see Foerster thrive this season and next, thus making a huge contract extension for the winger more of a certainty. Now, with this season washed out, Foerster enters the latter year of his two-year deal with a lot of questions. Will the shoulder be fully healed? Will this be an ongoing nagging injury Foerster will have to deal with the rest of his career? Or will the addition of a few younger Flyers next season make Foerster’s spot not quite as crystal clear as it was this year? It’s a huge loss for Philadelphia, particularly for a team that was hoping to see him thrive.
The 2025 NHL Draft
When Philadelphia ended up with the sixth pick in the June draft, most suspected they’d take a center. After all, they needed centers. Desperately needed centers. What few anticipated with their first-round selection was taking a winger. But Briere and the scouting staff took who they felt was the best player available. And like Matvei Michkov somewhat falling into their lap in 2023 with their seventh-overall pick, winger Porter Martone left a few irked for a few minutes before realizing just what the Flyers may have landed on. Martone has been a stud this season for Michigan State with 11 goals and nine assists in 16 games. He is also prone to mix things up if his 58 penalty minutes is any indication. As if that wasn’t enough, he was named Canada’s captain at the World Junior Hockey Championships taking place during the holidays. He’s been all that and a box of chocolates!
The Flyers could’ve rested on Martone alone. Yet they landed another possible gem when they traded up to the twelfth spot and selected Jack Nesbitt, a talented (and sizeable) center from the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires. Nesbitt averaged roughly a point-a-game in just his second season in junior. On top of that, Philadelphia beefed up on the back end with a giant of a defender (6’6″, 234 lbs) in Carter Amico that should be a guy to watch in a few seasons. And finally, the fourth pick of the first two rounds went to select Jack Murtagh who looks like he could also develop into a solid find.
Depending on where the Flyers are in the spring, and when Martone’s season ends at Michigan State, Philadelphia could see the imposing winger dressing for Philadelphia down the stretch. While there’s no guarantee his addition would lead to a playoff spot (or a deep playoff run), it would probably have Flyers fans salivating at seeing Martone, Michkov and Zegras dressed at the same time. The 2025 NHL Draft may not be the turning point in the Flyers rebuild. But it looks from the early returns like the Flyers have discovered a few precious jewels.
