The Philadelphia Flyers are having an up-and-down start to the month of November and with mixed results, sometimes some creativity in the lineup is needed. Head coach Rick Tocchet unveiled a new forward line that certainly raised a whole lot of eyebrows amongst the Flyers fan base on practice Tuesday morning.
Matvei Michkov has been at the center of attention for not the right reasons through the start of this season — it’s been the focus of a whole lot of people to try and find a way to get the 20-year-old winger back to dominating hockey games like we saw last season. He’s been placed on numerous different lines with different combinations of players. But after now scoring in back-to-back contests, he might have finally shown enough juice to be placed on a line that could certainly carry the Flyers’ offense.
Sean Couturier centering Matvei Michkov and Trevor Zegras at practice.
— Jordan Hall (@JHallNBCS) November 11, 2025
At practice, a line of Sean Couturier centering Trevor Zegras and Michkov was put out there on the ice and it personally has us very excited.
Michkov with Couturier and Zegras at Flyers practice
We all know that Couturier and Michkov together is adequate enough to have something happen. A good portion of last season, when the Russian phenom was having a lot of his success, was with the Flyers captain and Travis Konecny on the other side. But with Konecny being needed elsewhere, it’s the red-hot Zegras that gets added to this trio and it provides an even more interesting wrinkle.
Through the start of his Flyers career, Zegras has been trying to make it work at center. He started down the middle with Christian Dvorak helping out on some faceoffs, but the 24-year-old was mainly doing everything else a center typically does. And then, still partnered with Dvorak, Zegras’s responsibilities shifted to a hybrid role that had him sometimes being the man down low (like a center normally would be in free play) but not really being in the faceoff dot or in the center role elsewhere.
But now, it seems like the idea of Zegras making it work as a pivot as been put on pause. Couturier is the most stable centerman on this roster; he’s not shifting to wing at all and has rarely ever shifted away from there in his entire career. That is probably why there was some hesitancy to put Zegras and Couturier together — to keep up the notion that they’re trying to have the former Anaheim Duck be an option at center. Now that’s done and they put the talent of Michkov to round this out.
In addition to his work with Couturier, we know that Michkov has been able to work some magic with Zegras as well. So now there’s just this big happy trio of the young star that the entire Flyers organization is depending on, with two players who he has built-in chemistry with. It is going to be very interesting to see how this plays out.
According to Natural Stat Trick, this combination of Michkov, Couturier, and Zegras has been on the ice this season for exactly two minutes and two seconds. During that overlap of forward lines, the Flyers have two shot attempts and one shot on goal, but didn’t even allow an opposing shot attempt whatsoever. So, should we say that this line is already elite? Probably.
How the rest of the Flyers lineup looks
With this new forward line being formed, the rest of the Flyers lineup trickles down to have some interesting combinations.
Maybe we’re burying the lede here but Tyson Foerster is back (oops, probably should’ve mentioned that). And with that, Tocchet has reunited the ever dependable trio of Noah Cates, Bobby Brink, and Tyson Foerster so that the Flyers have a weapon to throw out there against the best players in the world and suffocate any scoring chances they have. It should also be noted that Carl Grundstrom was rotating in with Foerster, just in case he’s not good to return from his injury Wednesday against the Edmonton Oilers.
Going down the line, that means that Owen Tippett, Christian Dvorak, and Travis Konecny are in lockstep and the typical fourth line of Nikita Grebenkin, Rodrigo Abols, and Garnet Hathaway round out the rest of the lineup. It paints a pretty interesting picture.
Trevor Zegras — Sean Couturier — Matvei Michkov
Tyson Foerster — Noah Cates — Bobby Brink
Owen Tippett — Christian Dvorak — Travis Konecny
Nikita Grebenkin — Rodrigo Abols — Garnet Hathaway
That is an intriguing lineup, at the very least. There could be some real juice here and up against the desperate Oilers, the Flyers might need to make sure that those combinations work.
