The Flyers closed out their slate of preseason games Saturday evening with a matchup against Capitals, a game which ended in a lopsided loss, and left the Flyers with some areas of their game to address as they approach Wednesday’s regular season opener.
There’s some on-ice work that needs to be done, to be sure, but as Flyers General Manager Danny Briere alluded to in his media availability during the game, there’s some logistical work that the front office was going to need to do to shape their lineup and work around some of the injuries that have cropped up throughout camp. One bit of that related business, it would seem, was finalized on Sunday, as the Flyers announced that they’ve signed forward Garrett Wilson to a one-year, two-way contract, carrying an average annual value of $850,000 at the NHL level.
OFFICIAL: We have signed forward Garrett Wilson to a one-year, two-way contract. #LetsGoFlyers
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) September 27, 2026
Wilson has been a fixture within the organization for the last six seasons, joining the Phantoms on an AHL contract beginning in the 2020-21 season and quickly establishing himself as an important presence in the team’s leadership group, work for which he would eventually be awarded the team’s captaincy, which he’s held for the past four seasons. His role in the lineup may have changed as the years have gone on, but he’s brought a continued physical presence to run alongside the leadership elements, and that’s been really valuable to have
He’s been a good soldier in the organization, and that work was rewarded with an initial NHL contract to close out the last season (when he would get in for three games at the end of the year, but mostly just hang around with some of the kids as an extra veteran to lean on through the stretch run). His next place in the organization was a bit of a question mark heading into the summer — he is 35 years old and had just wrapped up his 15th season of professional hockey, after all — but his return to Lehigh Valley on another AHL deal was made official in July, but it seems he’s shown enough through the preseason that the Flyers want to keep him around with the big club a little longer.
Of course, the bigger question here is the simple why of this move. Perhaps there’s a chance that the Flyers could foresee him sticking around over the longer term in something of a veteran enforcer role, to be used somewhat sparingly in the lineup but to hang around and offer leadership to the growing young core of this team. Also possible, though, is that the Flyers aim to keep him around as more of a just-in-case extra, in the event that either of Denver Barkey or Nikita Grebenkin — who are officially day-to-day — aren’t well enough to go for Game 1, and this would allow them to send Carl Grundstrom down and not have to risk trying to sneak him through waivers a second time, and to do it particularly during a less busy waiver wire period.
Whatever the reasoning, it all makes for a nice moment for Wilson, who’s certainly put in the work to earn a good deal of favor within the organization. And we’ll see how all of the pieces officially fall before too long.
