This might be where the Philadelphia Flyers season changes. Or, well, at least they get a little bit tougher to play against.
Announced by the team before puck drop on Tuesday night, the Flyers have activated defenseman Nick Seeler off of the injured reserve list and he will be making his season debut against the Washington Capitals.
Seeler has not seen action due to an injury previously reported to be an issue with his foot. During preseason action, the 31-year-old blueliner blocked a pass and it hit just the perfect spot to cause a problem. During that match against the Boston Bruins on Oct. 1, he tried to skate for a couple shifts but had to sit out for the remainder of the game. And since then, he has been dealing with some numbness in his foot — and of course, if you can’t feel your foot you cannot play professional hockey.
The defenseman has been slowly making his way back, through practices wearing non-contact jerseys and then participating in his first full practice a couple days ago. Now, he is back to full health and it will be a very welcome sign for the Flyers.
While we cannot blame the Flyers’ 1-3-1 start to their 2024-25 season all on the absence of Seeler, he certainly helps stabilize the blue line and the overall team defense has been a prevailing issue through the first five games. And all through last season, Seeler was arguably the best defensive defenseman the team had on the roster.
Seeler will start his season right where he ended it: next to Jamie Drysdale. This Seeler-Drysdale pairing has not been together for all that long, for just over 100 total minutes at 5-on-5, but they provided a little bit of a stable base but it’s all theory right now. That being that Drysdale can go and do his wondrous offensive moves as the gritty veteran can stay back and block a ton of shots. We will see where that goes — unfortunately they did not see a whole lot of success together last season, as they were outscored 1-to-7 while on the ice as a pairing and just broke even in most underlying metrics.
We will see where it goes from here but at least the Flyers’ lineup is healthy again. Hey, if Seeler isn’t all that good to start, at least he can throw some punches.
And with the inclusion of Seeler, someone good and worthy of a spot upfront had to leave; just to give us more to talk about, of course.
Tyson Foerster is, as far as we know, going to be a healthy scratch Tuesday against the Capitals.
Foerster is, according to our pal Charlie O’Connor who is citing Flyers PR, fully healthy and this removal from the lineup is based on performance.
The 22-year-old winger scored the first goal of the Flyers’ season in Vancouver but has been completely silent since then. Zero points in the following four games and minimal shots on goal, has led to him really just being a passenger.
One has to imagine that this means Joel Farabee will be inserted into the top six, as the remainder of the Flyers forward lines gets made up of an incoming Noah Cates and the other regular folk down there in the depth. We’re sure John Tortorella will have to answer why he made this decision, but seeing a bunch of goose eggs next to Foerster’s name might be reason enough.
