Fans of the Philadelphia Flyers around the world get to finally breathe a little bit easier ahead of Wednesday night’s collision against the Florida Panthers. Nikita Grebenkin is going to play.

After missing way too many consecutive games and being a healthy scratch back in Philadelphia and to start the road trip Tuesday in Tampa, Grebenkin appears to be back in his spot on the Flyers’ fourth line next to Rodrigo Abols and Garnet Hathaway.

Hello from #Flyers morning skate in Sunrise and a few tweaks

Foerster-Cates-Konecny
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Vladar is in the starters net pic.twitter.com/42dy878asY

— Jackie Spiegel (@jackiespiegel93) November 26, 2025

The 22-year-old Russian winger is going to be back on the ice as the Flyers take on the reigning Stanley Cup champions and it’s been something so many fans have been clamoring for recently. Despite being one of the true bright spots in the preseason for Philadelphia and then showing some gumption through the early season, Grebenkin has been on the sidelines way too often than most people are comfortable with.

Grebenkin was scratched for three consecutive games

Just last week, as the Flyers hit a very crucial stretch of their season, one of their actually-developing rookies was left out of the lineup for three consecutive games. It’s hard to argue with the results — the Flyers earned a shootout win against the Blues, a dominating victory over the rival Devils, and then just unfortunately ran into the experienced Lightning to start their road trip — but it was just disappointing to see a young player on the sidelines.

If it was for a player with similar hype and promise, then it would be one thing, but it was for Nic Deslauriers, who’s sole job on this entire team is to punch faces. Somehow, the Flyers are getting points with the veteran enforcer in the lineup instead of Grebenkin, which is most likely why head coach Rick Tocchet is keeping the younger winger off the ice.

But it hasn’t just been a theme through last week. Grebenkin has appeared in just 12 of the Flyers’ 21 games this season. He hasn’t been banged up or battling an injury to our knowledge, but it’s just to give way to Deslauriers and the other, more senior depth forwards. Which is just a little bit frustrating from a fan’s point-of-view — wanting to see the player that could certainly be a part of this team when they’re actually a reliable playoff contender instead of the dude who is on the last legs of his career and a pending unrestricted free agent.

Especially after just seeing the Flyers lay down and take a shutout loss to the Lightning on Tuesday, seeing a spot in the lineup just completely wasted is disappointing. Grebenkin has some offensive potential — with a goal and three points in his 12 games he isn’t exactly lighting the world on fire but it’s better than just skating around waiting to get in a fight. Plus, there’s still a physical impact that he brings so it’s not like Tocchet is forced to let a teeny tiny winger on the fourth line but would rather have someone who can handle himself. Grebenkin is perfectly fine in that role.

Either way, here’s hoping that we have minimal scratchings from here on out.

Rest of the Flyers lineup mostly stays in-tact

Tocchet is going with the same forward lines as of late, as reported by Jackie Spiegel.

Sean Couturier will be centering Matvei Michkov and Bobby Brink; Noah Cates as the pivot between Tyson Foerster and Travis Konecny; and then rounding out the top nine will be Christian Dvorak and Trevor Zegras partnering up next to Owen Tippett. Largely, these lines have been winning the underlying battle — the Couturier-led trio have a 57.8 percent share of the shot attempts at 5-on-5, for example — so it makes sense to not jumble up the combinations once again.

On the blue line though, Noah Juulsen is drawing back in for Egor Zamula to be with Nick Seeler on the bottom pairing. This rough-and-tumble duo will be the depth counterpart to Cam York and Travis Sanheim, and then Emil Andrae and Jamie Drysdale sticking together to round out the top four.

It is interesting that Andrae is keeping his opportunity with Drysdale after the first two goals in Tampa were largely his fault — he got bodied out of the way by Brandon Hagel on the first and then misread the rush chance completely on the second. Tocchet has at least a little bit of patience to see this pairing through, it seems.

Flyers will be taking on the Panthers in what should hopefully be a little bit of reset after the disappointing showing in Tampa.