If you look at the Philadelphia Flyers’ projected depth chart for the 2025-26 season on PuckPedia, you’d be forgiven for thinking it seems incomplete. Their current holders of Philadelphia’s second and third-line left-wing spots — Anthony Richard and Rodrigo Abols — have a combined total of eight goals in 61 games and are between 28 and 29 years old. Those players would be miscast there on a rebuilding team, let alone a Flyers team that general manager Daniel Brière publicly stated aims to take a step forward this season.
However, it’s all but certain the Flyers won’t be that thin at left wing when the puck drops in October. For starters, the hope is that Tyson Foerster will be able to play opening night after suffering an elbow injury and subsequent infection. Getting a two-time 20-goal scorer who’s just 23 years old would certainly be a boon.
That still leaves at least one top-nine forward spot available, though. Filling it will be one of the bigger storylines of Rick Tocchet’s first training camp as head coach of the team he spent the majority of his 18-year playing career on. Here are some of the paths the Flyers can take to do so.
Option 1: The Kids
The Flyers just finished their rookie camp, which should be their penultimate major event of the offseason (and sure enough was immediately followed by a new contract for restricted free-agent defenseman Cam York). Two of the bigger standouts seemed to be a pair of rising wingers, Alex Bump and Porter Martone.
Let’s start with Bump since he seems the more NHL-ready of the two. The 2022 fifth-round pick elevated his stock over two standout seasons at Western Michigan, tallying 23 goals and 48 points as a leading force on the Broncos’ national championship-winning team. He already has professional experience from playing nine games for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, seven of which came in the Calder Cup Playoffs.
Alex Bump, Western Michigan Broncos (Photo credit: WMU Hockey Twitter/X)
Martone, meanwhile, projects as the better player in the long term. That makes sense given the Flyers just took him sixth overall, their second-highest draft pick of the last nine drafts (they took Cutter Gauthier fifth overall in 2022). Size isn’t an issue for Martone, who stands at 6-foot-3 and 208 pounds. He’s a back-to-back 30-goal scorer in the Ontario Hockey League with the Brampton Steelheads, and while it may be ideal for him to develop further there or at the collegiate level, Briere didn’t rule out him making a quick leap.
Of course, the Flyers’ top pick last year, 14th-overall choice Jett Luchanko, did earn some NHL action right out of the box, playing four games for the Flyers last year before returning to junior. He delivered a solid season, beating his previous season’s goal total in 22 fewer games. If he was ready for a cup of coffee last year, maybe he can earn a larger look this time around. Luchanko is a center, so he wouldn’t directly solve the left-wing void. But the Flyers have some flexibility down the middle.
Option 2: Shift a Center
While the Flyers still aren’t stacked down the middle, they addressed their biggest immediate and long-term issue this offseason. Their new draft picks, most notably 12th-overall pick Jack Nesbitt, are at least a few years away. However, the two NHL-ready centers they brought in could be solutions on the wing.
Of their top-four centers, Trevor Zegras is the one who carries the most concern about playing the pivot due to defensive defencies and struggles in the faceoff circle. However, he’s also the organization’s best bet (unless you’re fawning over Luchanko) to be a first-line center-caliber player, meaning the Flyers are probably better off in the long run letting him try to figure it out.
The opposite is true for Christian Dvorak, whose skillset is more ideal for playing center but is the least likely to be a long-term piece. Meanwhile, Noah Cates is sort of a happy medium between those two and is a natural left winger — he didn’t start playing center consistently until his rookie NHL season in 2022-23. With Abols serving as a capable fourth-line center in spot duties last season, the Flyers would probably be better off with him there and someone else taking on more of a scoring role.
Option 3: Make a Move
This is the most exciting but also probably the least likely option. There are still some solid players available in free agency, including four forwards who scored at least 15 goals last season — Jack Roslovic, Jeff Skinner, Joel Kiviranta, and Victor Olofsson. Roslovic can play center, and Kiviranta has plenty of experience in a bottom-six role with a strong defensive track record. And maybe someone could be available in a trade as well.
However, if the Flyers felt the need to have more forward depth, they probably would’ve just qualified Jakob Pelletier and pencilled him into the third-line left wing spot. The Foerster injury is a new dynamic, although the Flyers were probably aware of that when they made the decision. And given Pelletier only signed for $775,000 (for three years) with the Tampa Bay Lightning, it likely wouldn’t have been that hard to reconsider.
The Flyers also don’t have much cap space to work with. PuckPedia currently projects the Flyers to have about $370,000 in cap space after the York extension. That figure is for a roster with 19 skaters; one over the dressable amount for a game, so that further tightens things (although waiving Ivan Fedotov would increase their cushion by just over $1 million). The Flyers can always place Ryan Ellis, who carries a $6.25 million cap hit, on long-term injured reserve (LTIR). But Brière has said they’d like to avoid that, and it’s unlikely any of the readily available forwards move the needle enough to make taking that hit worth it.
“Ideally, we would prefer not going into offseason LTIR,” Brière stated on July 1. “But obviously we’re getting close to the cap and if there’s something that’s too good to pass up, we will look into it.
The Big Picture
Almost every team comes into training camp with some holes, and the Flyers are no different. Now that York is figured out, their top-six defense looks pretty set, and Sam Ersson and Dan Vladar are set to handle the net. Travis Konecny, Matvei Michkov, and Owen Tippett are a solid base of wingers to ride with, especially for a Flyers team that still has minimal short-term expectations.
Related: Flyers 2025-26 Roster Projection 1.0: Porter Martone Makes the Cut
Bump is probably in the best position of anyone in the group. But if Martone stays in the OHL, the nine-game trial could be an option, especially if Foerster indeed misses some time. The good news is that the Flyers have options. Sorting them out is September’s problem.
