To be honest, we were not at all expecting to be discussing the Philadelphia Flyers so soon as a team that could possibly throw their hat in the ring for the postseason. After all, they’re in a sort of halfway space between wanting to be in the playoff picture and rebuilding and that’s usually a confusing position to be in.
But a funny thing happened to start the year. Trevor Zegras arrived and became an instant sensation and provided the offensive spark they’ve been looking for outside of Matvei Michkov. The full-team approach to providing offense is working as Zegras jumped right in with Travis Konecny, Noah Cates, Sean Couturier and Bobby Brink to score goals and they’re getting blue line production from Cam York, Travis Sanheim and Jamie Drysdale alike.
Even better still, Dan Vladař arrived to play goal, and he’s seized control of the net away from Samuel Ersson and given the Flyers steady, solid goaltending. With new coach Rick Tocchet running the show in his old stomping grounds as a player, there’s reason enough to get hyped about the Flyers, especially playing in the Metropolitan Division that, outside of Carolina and New Jersey, is a hot mess.
The Metropolitan is the exact kind of division that opens things up enough so that if a team gets hot enough, they can wrangle up enough points to either push for third place or get ahead of Atlantic Division teams for the wild card because that division is a constant brutal battle.
The Flyers’ depth is a bit questionable, but if they wanted to dare to dream, they have some players they could use to make trades to better improve their chances should it come to that.