Each year, most teams enter training camp and regular season relatively healthy. There are some exceptions, as Chicago’s Connor Bedard will be still recovering from surgery by the time mid-September rolls around. However, generally, everyone has a clean slate. Last season the Flyers were relatively healthy. There were some lengthy injuries to Rasmus Ristolainen, Tyson Foerster, and Rodrigo Abols, but the majority of the go-to guys on the club were fit as a fiddle from October through May.
As the 2026-27 season approaches, and with the schedule increased to 84 games, it’s vital Philadelphia doesn’t run into the injury bug off the hop. Nor run into a rash of long-term or possibly season-ending injuries that could wreak havoc on any return to the playoffs. Nobody wants any bumps or bruises, but there are a handful of Flyers whose health will be a determining factor in how things pan out. Here then are the three Flyers the team could temporarily keep afloat without, but would sink like a stone if they were out for a considerable portion of the season.
Trevor Zegras
Acquiring Trevor Zegras might be the huge addition Flyers general manager Danny Briere can hang his hat on for now. Zegras lived up to his expectations most of the season, moving to the middle, and picking up some of the ample slack the team still has at the center position compared to a myriad of other clubs. Still quite raw on the faceoff dot, Zegras had 67 points, 23 of them on the horrid power play, and neared a career high in average ice time with 18:43 (he had 18:49 back in Anaheim in 2022-23). More importantly, the closing weeks of the season saw Zegras looking more and more like a dependable center. It wasn’t some bizarre experiment head coach Rick Tocchet was trying, but instead looked like something that could work down the road. Or, at the very least, look far better than what they had in terms of center depth back in October.
It’s for those reasons that Zegras — who played just 88 games the previous two seasons before 2025-26 — needs to remain healthy for most of the 84 games. Sure, there are some nagging injuries or bumps and bruises that could put him out of the lineup for a few days. That’s not a disaster, and something the team should be able to handle without widespread panic. Should Zegras end up with something far greater, or a mishap that requires surgery and rehab, then Philadelphia’s playoff chances are going to take a severe hit. He’s one of the few high-end talents Philadelphia has. And one of the fewer capable of delivering play-driving, quality minutes at the center position. An injury to Zegras would take a lot of the centermen out of their wheelhouse, as Couturier looks quite comfortable on the fourth line, and Noah Cates seems destined to remain in the third C slot for the time being.
The whole “next man up” mentality is a mindset most clubs have. With Zegras out of the lineup for a large amount of time, or dealing with a lingering injury that requires rest he won’t get over 84 games, Philadelphia are going to be a bubble team at the very best to just stay in the wildcard chase. In short, Zegras is a guy you can’t really do without. The price tag now attached to him would definitely suggest that also.
Travis Sanheim
Travis Sanheim should thank Briere for dealing Ivan Provorov elsewhere. Sanheim was always going to be the second best defenseman the Flyers had while the Russian was around. But he probably knew he had a lot more to offer. With Provorov now a few seasons in the rearview mirror. Sanheim’s emergence as not just the team’s top defensemen but one of the better all-around defenders in the league has been a welcomed surprise.
For a guy who eats up roughly 24-plus minutes a night against the best the opposition has to offer, it’s incredible that Sanheim has never missed more than one or two games a season in each 82-game campaign dating back to when he first entered the league for good in 2018-19. He set a high for goals (11) and his 37 points were the second-best. He scored a game-winner, a power play goal, and a short-handed goal among those 11. He was also tops when it came to expected goals for percentage (53 per cent) among regular Flyer blueliners. And he logged nearly 2000 minutes in all situations. At $6.25 million average annual value for the next little while, Sanheim’s contract is one of the best in the Metropolitan Division, if not the entire league.
The Flyers aren’t going too, too far without Sanheim healthy and contributing. And there’s nothing to suggest that the defenseman is going to do anything out of the ordinary when it comes to preparing himself for another season. Any injury to Sanheim for a few weeks to a month (or longer) is a chasm the Flyers can’t really offset by tossing Oliver Bonk or Hunter McDonald into the mix. At least not over the long haul. Rarely do teams who lose their top defender for the season carry on as if nothing happened. Sanheim means as much to the Flyers now as guys like Eric Desjardins or Kimmo Timonen did in their primes. You could possibly win without them, but it’s almost impossible to do it consistently. Nothing against the other five defensemen (along with the youngsters) Philadelphia have. But none of them come close to what Travis Sanheim can deliver night in and night out.
Dan Vladar
Yes, nobody is suggesting this isn’t a no-brainer! One only has to look at how badly the Flyers fared in January when Vladar was out for roughly two weeks. Sam Ersson won two games in that time. One of them an incredible 7-3 thumping of the Avalanche on the road. But outside of a win against Vegas, Ersson was showing why he was at best a backup and, at worst, somebody that couldn’t be relied on. Without beating him up completely, Ersson won 14 games despite having quality starts just over 40 per cent of the time. Vladar was sensational down the stretch and in the playoffs, with his underrated “wake up!” howl in Game 6 against Pittsburgh the rallying cry the Flyers needed to sew things up.
Vladar’s first full season anywhere as the guy resulted in him entering this season knowing he might be here another six seasons. Or at the very worst three given the terms of his next contract he signed on July 1. Vladar’s performance almost meshed perfectly with Tocchet’s defensive-oriented blueprint and framework. He had to make the saves when called upon, but it wasn’t like the Flyers were making Vladar’s life a living hell most of the season. A shooting gallery it was not! The shot totals were kept low, he wasn’t given a lot of work most nights, and he looked quite fresh and focused heading into the most important part of the year. Vladar’s stress levels entering this season should be offset to some degree thanks to the Flyers sending Ersson out and getting Joseph Woll in. Woll, on paper, looks to be an improvement on Ersson. And that should be music to Vladar’s ears, knowing he doesn’t have to be near perfect all season for the Flyers to end up in the postseason.
However, should Vladar suffer any injury, or have any lingering effects from the mishap against Pittsburgh that looked like an hyperextension, then the Flyers are going to have to hope like hell Woll morphs into Vladar from last season. It’s possible, but highly unlikely, even with Tocchet’s tight-checking mindset, that Woll could carry the load all year with Vladar hurt. Vladar should come into this season knowing what he’s capable of, and simply continue to look at each game in front of him, and not the long road that’s ahead. If he remains healthy, the Flyers have a good chance at returning to the playoffs. If he’s injured at any point for any length of time, then Philadelphia will need to mount some monumental offensive output to offset losing their most valuable player. And there was no evidence of such an output at the ready looking at year one under Tocchet.
The Flyers could probably withstand Vladar out for 10 days to two weeks at the very best. It’s just not a thought anyone wants to entertain, not even an eternal optimist.
Stats courtesy of ESPN.com, Hockey-reference.com, and Puckpedia.com.
