The tidal wave of the 2025 NHL trade deadline has crashed onto the shore and its impact will be felt for several years. Homegrown talent has been moved to a whole new team with a greater pursuit of the playoffs and draft picks and prospects were shuffled across North America in return. But how will the rest of the season fare for some teams? What is there to look out for?
Well, specifically for the Philadelphia Flyers, there are several little storylines that should play out in the remaining handful of games this team has. There is always something to look for or to reel you in to a specific game or to narrow your interest on one specific player.
So, let’s cut to the chase and go through some of the very specific things to look out for through the remainder of the 2024-25 Flyers season.
Youth having more of a role
This is a rebuild after all. With the trades of Scott Laughton, Erik Johnson, and Andrei Kuzmenko all within hours of each other, the Flyers suddenly opened up their lineup to much more flexibility and left some holes for younger players to strive to fill. Who will take all of Laughton’s penalty killing time? Erik Johnson was a serviceable seventh defenseman — now Emil Andrae is up and there might be some more rotation on the blue line. Andrei Kuzmenko was next to Travis Konecny and as we saw on Saturday afternoon, now Ryan Poehling and Olle Lycksell is on that line but that is nowhere near anything cemented.
There are now so many opportunities for young players to take and run with. And it’s not just players coming up from AHL Lehigh Valley to literally replace these departed players on the roster. It’s players who have already been on the roster all season long but now without these veterans doing what they did for the team, these younger full-time Flyers have to be the ones to do it.
Noah Cates could be the new answer to everything that Laughton did and then some. We’ll see how John Tortorella deals with a blue line that features Andrae, Egor Zamula, Cam York, and Jamie Drysdale. And just someone has to play with Konecny.
Potential newcomers
While we can certainly look forward to young players playing more important minutes on the Flyers, there could be some new guys making their debuts or re-joining the team after their junior season.
Jett Luchanko’s Guelph Storm are not making the playoffs and his OHL season will end on March 23. And almost certainly he will quickly make the trip down to Pennsylvania to play even more hockey. The Flyers have 10 remaining games that Luchanko could feature in — ideally, he would play in just five more to not burn a year of his entry-level contract — but he almost certainly is going to be suiting up for the Phantoms for their playoff push and to make his AHL debut down there.
Alex Bump is a winger who the Flyers love and the writing is on the wall for him to turn pro after Western Michigan’s season is over. Now when will that be? That team is fairly good so the timing might not line up, but we could at least see him play for the Phantoms in a worst-case scenario. Best-case scenario, we see what he has and he is on Konecny’s left wing to close out the season. Again, just to see.
While the Phantoms could use all the help they can get for this push into the postseason, could we see someone play one single game to make their Flyers debut before the NHL season closes? Samu Tuomaala, Hunter McDonald, or even newcomer Nikita Grebenkin are possible call-ups to just get out of Allentown for a couple days.
Can Sam Ersson do enough to not be replaced?
If someone told us that they think the only two reasons the Flyers are not a playoff team are two things: That the power play stinks and they have terrible goaltending. We couldn’t really argue with them. The whole power play thing is A Thing, but when it comes to goaltending it’s pretty simple to pin it on just a couple people.
Sam Ersson was given the starting role immediately from the start of the season and Ivan Fedotov was going to be this giant question mark of a backup. It turns out that neither of them should be in the role that they are currently in. Fedotov is fun but not an NHL-caliber goaltender, and Ersson might be better suited in a backup role until he shows something more.
Now for the rest of the season, can Ersson do enough to keep his role as the primary Flyers goaltender? We’re not saying that they will trade him — since he is good enough to be here and is still young and cheap — but will he end the 2025-26 Flyers season having played the most games among Flyers netminders?
If the young Swede balls out, then he most certainly could and then the Flyers might just go shopping for a stable veteran backup to support him. If Ersson continues to perform like he did on Saturday afternoon against the Kraken, then maybe a larger conversation needs to be had and the Flyers target someone like a more established Adin Hill in free agency to play the lion’s share of games next season as Ersson supports them.
Sean Couturier’s role
Sean Couturier is going nowhere. His contract, and the letter on his sweater prevents the Flyers from really moving on this summer and of course, he can still play some dang good hockey. He’s not a detriment to the team on the ice at all. So, what will he be doing for the remainder of the season?
Right now he’s been stapled to Matvei Michkov and Owen Tippett, forming a very solid scoring line that can rush up the ice when needed and play smart hockey. If that’s just going to be ridden out for the last 18 games, that is fine by us. But will Couturier be showing us anything that makes us really think and wonder what a 2025-26 version of him is going to look like? Will we catch glimpses of something more or way less that maybe changes our minds where we have already penciled him in for our hypothetical lineup?
Jamie Drysdale reaching his potential
This was a big year for Jamie Drysdale. His first full season as a Philadelphia Flyer. A season where he wasn’t coming in with a nagging injury, or was traded in the middle of it, or was up and down between different leagues — a year where the Flyers just let him be.
Now, there was an injury that caused him to miss a significant amount of time in the middle of it but other than that, it was a season where the 22-year-old just needed to be left alone and actually play some full-time NHL hockey for the first time in a while. And he has looked more steady than ever.
Drysdale as of late has looked more and more like the player that we all thought he could be when he was drafted sixth overall by the Anaheim Ducks. He is the best skater on the blue line and is using that mobility to get to pucks, anticipate plays, and provide a little bit of an offensive jump. Him turning into this player will mean a world of difference for the Flyers.
Of course, 14 points through 51 games so far is not what you want to see from your offensively charged defenseman. But maybe with some actual power play time (we did not want to write about the power play because it would be rambling rant that would go on for thousands and thousands of words) and some puck luck, Drysdale can put some more points on the board and close out this season to just establish himself within the NHL as a more grown player.
Next season is where a little more pressure will be applied so can we see him take that next step in the final several games, for us to not worry so much about applying that pressure?
Matvei Michkov, of course
It’s why a whole lot of us will be tuning in for the last 18 games. Matvei Michkov will be playing in them and putting up more and more points.
Do we need to spill any more digital ink on the player that Michkov is? The kid is absolutely insane and we are hoping to just see more and more of that to close out what should be chalked up as a massive transition season featuring one of the best Flyers rookies of all time.
Could we see Michkov score enough to get himself back in the Calder Trophy race? Most certainly. Does that really matter more to the Flyers than him furthering his development as a more all-around talent on the wing that will be the No. 1 option for their offense for the next decade? Not at all.
As we mentioned, he will be the primary reason most of us are still tuning into these games, so he had to be mentioned, of course.
