The Philadelphia Flyers might have played one of the most visually off-putting games of hockey as they lost 5-2 against the Winnipeg Jets Thursday night, but there was a small glimmer of hope for some excitement in the future.
For a brief 58 seconds, Rick Tocchet threw out a forward line combination that could be seen as putting all his eggs in one basket but it went beyond that. The trio was dominating possession — doing everything that Tocchet has preached all preseason long about what he wants this Flyers team to look like, and actually provided a potential line other than Noah Cates, Bobby Brink, and Tyson Foerster, that can control play.
After the Jets’ fourth goal of the game, causing the score to be an abysmal 4-1 lead for the visitors, with the faceoff in the neutral zone, Tocchet deployed a line of Travis Konecny, Trevor Zegras, and Matvei Michkov. The three most offensively gifted players on this Flyers roster, all playing together at 5-on-5 and with an opportunity to work some magic while down by a few goals.
With this chance to possibly show that they could deserve more of the head coach’s trust, those three put Winnipeg on its back foot.
Konecny-Zegras-Michkov got one full 5v5 shift together right after the 4th Jets goal and were able to get the cycle game going better than anyone else had all night, ending with a drawn penalty. Serious crime that Zegras isn't with at least one of Mich/TK at 5v5.#LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/BGAV5ijdBu
— Flyers Clips (@Flyers_Clips) October 17, 2025
After unfortunately losing the draw, Konecny is on the immediate forecheck and pressures the Jets into making it an easy giveaway as the defender tries to make a breakout pass and Nick Seeler is right there to bat the puck forward to the aforementioned Flyers winger. Konecny swings back across the red line, lays it off to Michkov, who then makes a wonderful backhand pass along the boards as his more senior winger continues his route into the offensive zone. That alone is just a great way to turn a lost faceoff draw into a zone entry.
And more work starts from there. The puck goes back to a Jets defenseman but Konecny is absolutely hounding him for possession — it dribbles out to Seeler once again, but he’s on the other side of the blue line now and he’s able to send it to Michkov along the halfboards and the Russian and Zegras are able to connect to start the more controlled section of the possession. Seeler and Drysdale play along the point, Konecny comes in support as the defensive pair shifts to the left side of the zone, and after a couple blocked attempts by Drysdale to get it to the forwards, the puck goes the other way.
It’s not the most perfect setup and it didn’t end up in a scoring chance, but it was a showcase of another line that can truly do all the work to sustain offensive pressure. While the Cates-Foerster-Brink combination do it through hard forechecking and board work, this trio played more into their skill and ability to draw defenders in, to allow space for someone like Drysdale to then weaponize his own offensive potential.
The only pushback we could even make on this sequence is that the Jets were already up by so many goals and could see the end of the game in front of them with two points earned. Score effects could have played a massive role in letting the defensemen on this play have that extra time and space, instead of being hard-headed and stoic defenders of the zone to really try to prevent a scoring chance. We will have to see this line in a different situation to see if they can truly be a regular trio at 5-on-5.
When Tocchet can use this line
Perhaps the best part of this single moment of 58 seconds is that it didn’t go completely wrong. Konecny and Michkov linked up to enter the zone cleanly and start the process, and then the sophomore winger connected with Zegras once again to keep the puck on the stick of Flyers. It could have easily ended up with a couple giveaways and a goal against, and we would never see this combination ever again for the remaining 78 games of the regular season.
Instead, it gave us the ability to potentially see this combination down the road. We don’t fully expect this to be a regular line and it to be part of the starting lineup (yet), but it is another weapon that Tocchet can pull out in certain situations. Especially considering that Zegras has been connected to Christian Dvorak’s hip to provide him with a defensive base down the middle and someone who can take the necessary faceoffs when they’re out there, suddenly putting him with two natural wingers isn’t something we can see anytime soon.
But, in situations like Thursday night, down by more than two goals and still enough time on the clock to potentially force overtime, Tocchet can throw these three over the boards and give the Flyers some jump.
While it wasn’t a perfect segue into scoring, Michkov did eventually score his first goal of the season a few minutes after this line was out there. It was in garbage time and Noah Juulsen of all Flyers skaters earned the primary assist on it, but having established some sort of offensive juice in the all-skill trio, could have at least inspired Michkov to take advantage of the opportunity.
We’re just hoping that there is some semblance of an offensively minded forward line like this (and to see Michkov and Zegras establish some sort of chemistry throughout this season) and this combination could be just the trick.
