June 23, 2025
The Flyers made some noise ahead of the draft this weekend, trading with the Anaheim Ducks for center Trevor Zegras at the cost of Ryan Poehling, Saturday's 45th overall pick in the second round, and a 2026 fourth-rounder.
The move is a low-risk, high-reward gamble on the part of general manager Danny Brière, who will still have 10 other draft picks at his disposal coming up.
Zegras, 24, only has one year left on his contract, and has struggled through injury and inconsistency in the past two seasons with the Ducks. However, he's shown flashes of incredible talent with the puck on his stick, and talent good enough to make him an NHL star if he can tap into it regularly and stay on the ice.
The Flyers are going to see if he can.
If it works, then they have their skilled top-of-the-lineup center to go right next to rising star winger Matvei Michkov.
If not, then the experiment won't sting them all that much. Still, they want the former.
Here's an immediate, albeit rough, projection of the Flyers' lineup following the Zegras trade – keeping in mind that, no, none of this is concrete, and yes, it's only June. Breathe. Have fun:
| LW | C | RW |
| Matvei Michkov | Trevor Zegras | Travis Konecny |
| Jakob Pelletier | Sean Couturier | Owen Tippett |
| Tyson Foerster | Noah Cates | Bobby Brink |
| Alex Bump | Jett Luchanko | Garnet Hathaway |
Reserves: Nic Deslauriers, Rodrigo Abols, Nikita Grebenkin, Devin Kaplan, Karsen Dorwart
• The first line is on the presumption that Zegras slides right in there between Michkov and Travis Konecny, which is hardly a guarantee. His highlights are all over the internet, they're unreal, but the past two years are still lingering, too. Zegras is going to have to earn his keep.
• Sean Couturier, at this point in his career, probably works best as a second-line center, which this scenario would allow him to be if Zegras does well. Jakob Pelletier still has a lot to prove as a pro, though, and Owen Tippett has to have a bounce-back year.
• Tyson Foerster, Noah Cates, and Bobby Brink became the Flyers' most effective line by the end of last season, but their commitment to two-way checking, if you're team is good or getting better, really should be your third line. They can slot there with this setup at least out of the gate.
• Make the fourth line the kid line with Garnet Hathaway as the vet to oversee it. Jett Luchanko got a look with the Flyers out of camp last year before getting sent back to juniors, and chances are that was with a to-do list of what to develop so he'd be set up with another shot to make the team for good this coming training camp. Alex Bump's stock has also been rapidly on the rise while he was at Western Michigan, and jumped right into the Phantoms' playoff run without flinching. It might not be much of a shock to see him put in a convincing camp. Plus, he has the flexibility to go back and forth to the AHL.
| LD | RD |
| Cam York | Travis Sanheim |
| Nick Seeler | Jamie Drysdale |
| Emil Andrae | Helge Grans |
Reserves: Egor Zamula, Hunter McDonald, Oliver Bonk, Adam Ginning, Rasmus Ristolainen (injured)
• Cam York is an RFA. The Flyers need to sign him. Most likely they will, but with murmurs of them asking Buffalo about Bo Byram, that might not entirely be a guarantee.
• The Flyers have slowly but surely been trying to repair Jamie Drysdale's game on the blueline since acquiring him from Anaheim going on two years ago, and if he's going to break out, this would be the time to do it. The Flyers have openly been high on his potential to become a puck-moving rover, and have been patient with letting him develop, but he is going to have to show something consistent and substantial at some point.
• With Rasmus Ristolainen out for the start of the season recovering from a re-torn triceps, this might be the spot to see what's there in Helge Grans, who is also a big, right-handed shot. It's probably safe to hold on to Emil Andrae as a full-time NHLer, too.
• Egor Zamula has fallen behind and at the end of this past season, Brière was pretty open about how he really needs to show something at this point in his career. He's been a defensive project for the Flyers for a long time, but now Oliver Bonk, Hunter McDonald, and others are knocking on the door. The team isn't going to sit and wait for him.
| G |
| Sam Ersson |
| Ivan Fedotov |
• This is tricky in the odd sense that the goaltending tandem is no different from this past season, but with an awareness that Sam Ersson as the No. 1 and Fedotov as the backup can't be reliably depended on.
They need a goalie. My personal hunch is that they will go looking for a stopgap this summer, but with the belief that their long-term answer, be it Carson Bjanrason or Yegor Zavragin, is somewhere in the pipeline.
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