June 02, 2026
Charles LeClaire/Imagn Images
Denver Barkey was a late surprise as a center when the Flyers reached the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Sometime before the Carolina series, Rick Tocchet was trying to figure out how to get a bit more from the Flyers' centers.
Keith Jones pitched in with an idea: Try Denver Barkey.
"Honestly, I'll be straightforward, a couple of weeks, we were struggling a little bit at center, like, you know, what about the centers?" Tocchet recalled, while the Flyers were in the middle of their second-round Stanley Cup Playoff series. "And Jonesy came up, 'Hey, don't be afraid to use Barks.'"
Circumstance made room for it.
The Flyers came out flat for Game 1 against the Eastern Conference's top-seeded Hurricanes. It was always going to take much more to wake up from an eventual 3-0 shutout, but about halfway through, Tocchet rolled the dice on moving Barkey, a 21-year-old rookie, in to the middle, just looking for any kind of spark.
The head coach was impressed. Barkey was told ahead of Game 2 that he would be staying there, getting the benefit of a bit of time to practice and to watch tape to fully adjust, then he skated between fellow rookie wingers Porter Martone and Alex Bump.
Together, they went minus-2, getting caught on the ice for Seth Jarvis' tying third-period goal and then Taylor Hall's overtime winner in a 3-2 loss.
But in the bigger picture, they were maybe the Flyers' best line when it came to generating scoring chances, carrying the puck up ice, and skating with visibly consistent energy. Plus, all three were no older than 22, and are each seen as key pieces of the Flyers' lineup for the long haul. So for the future, having them play together, even for a single playoff game, was huge.
And Barkey was crucial to that down the middle, and for the remainder of the series after regular two-way center Noah Cates went down with a broken foot following Game 2 – although it ultimately ended in a four-game sweep.
It's at least enough, going into the offseason, for the front office to think about where Barkey is really going to play from here on out.
Denver Barkey held his own moving into center when the Flyers were up against the juggernaut Hurricanes.
"I gotta give Jonesy [credit]," Tocchet said back on May 6, in between Games 2 and 3. "Because I think Jonesy, he discovered him and talked him up quite a bit. So one day I said, 'I'm gonna use him there,' and I actually liked him. Like, he hasn't been a defensive liability.
"I mean, I'll be honest. I'm looking at video. It's not like he's hemmed in. So we'll keep on – we'll see where this goes. I don't know. Maybe he will be a center. I don't know. I just know that he's got a high hockey IQ."
Tocchet followed up, during his end-of-year press conference in Voorhees after the Flyers' season was over, that the organization is going to have to decide on Barkey's position at some point.
Barkey, before Game 3, said he leaned on his experience of jumping in and out of the faceoff circle as needed during his junior days with the London Knights to keep up, but while knowing that the NHL was a much different game at center, especially in the playoffs.
Still, he held his own, and having such a young player capable of that, where he can flip between positions rather seamlessly as a hybrid type of forward, that's a luxury, Tocchet said.
But for the sake of Barkey's development, Tocchet continued, it probably is best for the Flyers to make a call on where he'll consistently work from.
"I don't think it's gotta be, like, tomorrow that we're gonna have to do it," Tocchet said. "But I would like to give him a little bit of a heads up, say 'We're thinking of putting you in this situation, because at the end of the day, my job is to put young players in good situations. Barkey's no different.
"But the one thing with him, though, if there is a guy that you can bounce around every once in a while, he's the guy, because his hockey IQ is outstanding, his work ethic is outstanding. He's a guy that can really develop into a really frontline player."
And now as a wild card in a Flyers center picture that, suddenly, is starting to crowd up.
Barkey's view of that, and whether he would train as a center or a winger going into the summer...
"I train as a forward," Barkey quipped on exit day in Voorhees last month, when it was his turn with the media. "I kind of just take pride in being a versatile player that the coach can trust to put anywhere."
Now it's on Tocchet and the Flyers' front office to figure out, more officially, where.
A quick look at the Flyers' under-contract center depth and the immediate prospect pipeline, with Barkey included, moving toward the draft and free agency:
• Trevor Zegras
• Christian Dvorak
• Noah Cates
• Sean Couturier
• Denver Barkey
• Jack Berglund (Phantoms, AHL)
• Jett Luchanko (Phantoms, AHL)
• Cole Knuble (Phantoms, AHL)
• Jack Nesbitt (Michigan, NCAA)
• Heikki Ruohonen (Harvard, NCAA)
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