Philadelphia Flyers 2025 Top 25 Under 25, No. 4: Trevor Zegras

Welcome to Broad Street Hockey’s Summer 2025 Top Under 25! The series is back and with the Philadelphia Flyers focusing so much on the future, it’s more important than ever. Join us as we rank the 25 best players under the age of 25 for the next few weeks.

No. 4: Trevor Zegras (C)

2024-25 Primary League/Team: Anaheim Ducks (NHL)
2024-25 Statistics: 12 G, 20 A in 57 GP
Age as of 9/15/2025: 24 (03/20/2001)
Acquired Via: Trade with the Anaheim Ducks

Before we get into this: can you believe Trevor Zegras is a Flyer? And all it cost was Ryan Poehling (objectively a good–though limited–player) and a couple draft picks? To paraphrase Marge Simpson, “I just think that’s neat.“

It has been a rough couple of years for a player who was on track to become a face of the league, from wowing at All Star games and appearing on the cover of video games, to looking absolutely miserable after scoring a goal. Here’s hoping a change of scenery (and reunion with his buds Jamie Drysdale and Cam York) gets Zegras back on track.

How did Zegras’s 2024-25 season go? Is his stock trending up or down from where it was entering the year?

Not great, Bob! There’s a reason the Flyers “only” had to give up Poehling and a pair of picks: Trevor Zegras’s value has not been lower. In 57 games last year, Zegras only scored 12 goals and 32 points–and he was mostly doing it on the left wing, because Anaheim’s then-head coach Greg Cronin didn’t trust him as a center.

Normally, we look at just the one prior season for these articles but, considering how new Zegras is to the Flyers organization, it’s important to divide his career into two parts: the star-making 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons, and the disastrous 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons. In Part One of his career, Zegras put up 126 points in 156 games as a rookie and sophomore NHL player–that’s outstanding production and had him on a star level trajectory. In Part Two of his career, Zegras only played 88 games due to injury, and scored 47 points in that time. When you see his career split up like that, it’s clear as day why Zegras’s stock has fallen so much.

The fancy stats don’t paint a pretty picture, either. Last season, Zegras had a 45.83 Corsi-for percentage (CF%) and a 43.93 expected Goals-for percentage (xGF%) at 5-on-5, per Natural Stat Trick. Of regular forwards, Zegras ranked seventh and eighth in those categories on a bad Ducks team–unacceptable from a player who’s meant to be a top-six offensive wizard. Zegras’s abysmal 36.6 faceoff percentage in 2024-25 certainly didn’t help his case to stick at center, either.

It’s difficult to describe Zegras’s stock as “trending down” when we’re not sure it could go any lower. There’s a reason the Flyers were able to acquire him while giving up relatively little; chalk it up to a poor coaching fit, a “new” general manager in Pat Verbeek who likely didn’t view Zegras as one of “his guys,” injury, and serious regression on the ice, but it all leads to the same conclusion: Zegras can only go up from here.

What are we expecting from Zegras this season? What should we be looking for from him?

First and foremost, we want to see Zegras prove he can stick at center, and that’s going to take work in two areas: faceoffs and defensive play. Funny enough, the faceoffs will probably be more difficult to improve upon than the defensive play. Thanks to the All Three Zones project, we can see that–despite being on the wing and on the outs with the coach–Zegras actually did, for the most part, succeed in his own end last year:

Why there was such a disconnect between the perception of Zegras by his coach and outside observers versus the data, we can’t say for sure–but he was clearly making a conscious effort to play a more defensive game at the behest of his coach. With Rick Tocchet at the helm, we’re hopeful Zegras can build on those improvements and get back to the offensive magic that made him so exciting a few years ago. He doesn’t need to be a Selke contender to be effective, but those own-zone improvements have got to hold steady.

As far as goals and points go, we just want to see Zegras approach what he did his first two years in the league: 20-plus goals and 60-ish points. If his addition to the woeful Flyers power play does take them into middle-of-the-road man advantage territory, those kinds of box scores should absolutely be within reach.

Zegras doesn’t have to be an all-situations true No. 1 center on a new team right out the gate; to do that, he has to get back on track first. He’ll have to do it quickly, though–it is a contract year for Zegras so, if he wants a raise and some term on his next deal, he’ll have to demonstrate he’s earned it.

How does Zegras fit in the Flyers’ rebuild? Is it likely he’s going to be part of the next good Flyers team?

Here’s hoping! The Flyers are desperate for a high-end center to play in their top-six and Zegras, at his best, is exactly that sort of player. He has the talent and the vision, and a rebound season would make him a lineup lock for the foreseeable future. It’s a match made in hockey heaven.

Zegras has to prove he can be that guy, though. As much as we want him to be a center solution for the long term, a lot of that is projection based on how he played two years ago. He’ll be an arbitration eligible RFA next summer, and a dud season could make his time in Philadelphia a one-year-and-done situation. As you can see how we voted, however, we here at Broad Street Hockey are believers in his upside and, by extension, ability to remain with the Flyers long term.

What do we think Zegras’s ultimate NHL upside is, and how likely is it that he gets to something approaching that?

If Zegras is able to pick up where he left off two years ago–before the shift to wing, before Greg Cronin, before the injuries–and continue his upward trajectory, he could become a star-level, first-line center with borderline one-of-one puck skills. A top line of Zegras, Matvei Michkov, and Porter Martone? Boy, that would be a treat to watch.

The thing about upside, though, is that it can sometimes be a distant dream. Two down years have lowered a lot of the buzz around Zegras, where now he might just a be a high-skill/scoring second-line center. That’s a useful player, too, but leaves a hole at the top of the lineup the Flyers would still have to fill. There’s also the possibility that Zegras is, ultimately, a winger–though the fact that his most productive years were down the middle makes us think he’s best suited as a center anyway.

There are a lot of reasons to believe Zegras can rediscover his game, too: fresh start, new coach, some close friends already on the team in Cam York and Jamie Drysdale, and a front office that seems to want to treat its young players well in a way the Ducks seemingly struggle with, be it contract negotiations or coaching decisions. We can’t predict the future, of course, but all of us ranked Zegras in the top five on our ballots (two of us as high as No. 2!), which reflects a level of faith that he can reach those lofty expectations he set for himself a few seasons ago. He may not end up an MVP-level center, but there’s a good chance Zegras will turn things around and become a critical member of the Flyers in some capacity.

Previously in Philadelphia Flyers Summer 2025 Top 25 Under 25:

Talking Points