In less than one month, the 2025-26 season will begin for the Philadelphia Flyers. Rookie camp is set to begin on Thursday, the precursor to the start of main training camp and the preseason for the Flyers as they prepare for the season.

Prior to any official on-ice activity, Dan Hilferty and Keith Jones held a State of the Team press conference to kick things off on another new campaign, highlighting many areas. Here are five takeaways.

What Defines Success?

In the midst of a rebuild, it can feel like incremental steps need to be taken to show there is progress. For a team that has missed the playoffs for five straight seasons, it’s been a long journey already for the Flyers.

Hilferty opened things up by defining his view of success for the season.

“I feel really good about where we’re headed,” Hilferty said. “This patient approach is working. Excited about Coach [Rick] Tocchet coming in, and feel really good that we’re going to have a successful year. How we define a successful year, how I define a successful year, consistent with last year, is not necessarily the playoffs, although that would be great as a fan, the fan in me, but just see improvement throughout the year in our younger players, and that competitive edge continue to grow.”

Jones agreed with Hilferty’s view, and added that the approach Danny Briere has taken in communicating the rebuild has been handled well.

“It feels a little bit different from the first two years. Starting to progress, our players are continuing to move forward, and we’re doing everything we can to ensure that that continues to happen,” Jones said. “Feel really good about where Danny has the team now and for the future, and I like the way the plan is coming together, but I also appreciate how honest Danny has been with you guys and kind of laying out the plan and then sticking to it. Some of that is by design. Sometimes you need a little bit of luck along the way too. And so far, things are working out the right way. So we’ll continue to grind away and try to get it right.”

Who Can Take Another Step?

To that point, there are several players that Jones mentioned that are expected to take another step in their development and progress as players. He cited Travis Konecny and Travis Sanheim as players that have already done this over their careers, and added many more younger players to the mix that still have room to grow.

“The ones that I comfortably predict are players like Tyson Foerster, Noah Cates,” Jones said. “I think both of those guys showed a lot. Bobby Brink continues to become a better player. I’m looking for really solid contributions from Cam York. I think his game will come back and into a place that it was two years ago. I think the last year wasn’t a great year for him, but I do believe that he’s going to be a big part of our blue line as well.”

But it was his thoughts on goaltender Sam Ersson, who is certainly entering a critical stage of his career, that stood out.

“I’m a big believer in Sam Ersson,” Jones said. “I think that Sam is in a position now age wise, and being pushed by the depth at that position that’s there now is going to benefit him as well. So I think that Sam is going to stand up to the test here this year.”

Evaluating Briere’s Performance

The State of the Team presser also served as an opportunity to get the thoughts of Jones and Hilferty on the job Danny Briere has been doing as GM. Briere, who usually addressed the media multiple times during the season, has typically been at the forefront of any overall evaluations of the team, whether through the draft and free agency periods, the trade deadline, making any significant roster moves, and so on.

Both Jones and Hilferty had glowing reviews of the job Briere has done to this point.

“Both Hilf and I are very impressed by Danny,” Jones said. “He is an extremely intelligent, dedicated person to his job. Methodical, thoughtful, sharing, in the way that he does things, not just with us, but with our Flyers community, with you guys as well. He deals from a position of honesty and has a really good plan in place that he has so far executed very well. So I’m extremely happy with him.”

“His attention to detail and his willingness to allow analytics to come into his thinking, along with the eye test, is very impressive,” Hilferty said. “And I agree, from a communications point of view, he’s been terrific.”

Michkov’s Star Potential

As the Flyers look to advance in the rebuild, one thing remains the same: Matvei Michkov is a key part of the present and future of the team. As the Flyers forward prepares to begin his second season in the NHL, the idea that he could bring even more of a star presence to the Flyers is enticing.

“He’s a very excitable player to watch. He embraces trying to be the best,” Jones said. “It’s an interesting thing to watch him operate so we’re really excited that he’s here. He’s going into year two, so that’s always another challenge for young players that got their first taste of the National Hockey League. But he is a driven type of personality that wants to be a star in this league, and we really appreciate what he brings.”

In a time when the other teams in the city have their established core of star players and are achieving some notable success, there is hope that Michkov is the face at the center of the Flyers reaching that peak.

“He becomes one of them, for sure,” Jones said. “I do think that’s important. I think back to the days, when the flyers were sending out [Eric] Lindros and [John] LeClair. Prior to the salary cap, it was often a way that this team would go about continuing to keep fan interest. Obviously, you can’t do that anymore, so you have to internally develop your stars or get very fortunate that a free agent gets to free agency in this game, which is becoming more difficult. 

“To have somebody like Matvei to continue to push and hopefully become one of those superstar talents is certainly exciting for us. Martone has some of those similarities as well. So yeah, the more of those players you have, the more interest that there is and stars do sell in Philadelphia.” 

Odds and Ends

There were a few quick notes that were mentioned during the press conference.

Both Jones and Hilferty were asked about goaltending on multiple levels. Jones confirmed that the team will have Aleksei Kolosov in camp and that he will be available within the system this season. With Ersson and Dan Vladar in place, Kolosov will almost definitely be playing in the AHL to start the season.

There is also plenty of intrigue around the future of Carter Hart. After Hart was acquitted on sexual assault charges, there have been mixed reports about teams interest in the players involved in the trial. At present, the NHL has not reinstated these players. Hilferty quickly dismissed any questions about Hart, noting that, “the NHL has told us, they’re running the show.”

Finally, an update on Tyson Foerster, who was previously reported to be starting the season with an injury. Foerster’s recovery has been positive and while Jones did not provide an official injury update, leaving that for Briere next week, he did say that Foerster is “on pace to be there for us when the season starts.”

Kevin Durso is Flyers insider for 97.3 ESPN. Follow him on social media @Kevin_Durso.

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