The Flyers have recently been hit with a streak of injuries and it has us thinking: Who are the players that would be the most detrimental to this team’s potential playoff berth if they were to miss a substantial amount of time?
We are 26 games into the season, and the Flyers are still sticking around regarding playoff positioning. They are now the third seed in the Metropolitan Division. There’s 56 tilts left, and a lot of time for the Flyers to remain as consistent as they’ve been so far or to possibly fall off the rails.
Heading into Thursday’s action, Philadelphia are tied for the seventh in points in the league as well as the seventh-best winning percentage. Their 7-3-0 record in the last 10 games has been eclipsed only by Washington (9-1-0) and Tampa (8-2-0) in the Eastern Conference. More importantly they’ve gained on every team under them including the two wildcard spots and those glut of teams in the hunt. Not a huge amount of distancing but there’s more in the rearview mirror than ahead of them for today. They’ve won six games on the road, almost half the total they won last year (13). And they’ve won nine games at home this year after only hitting 20 victories last year. Knock on wood, things are going well.
But the recent injury to Tyson Foerster and the status of Cam York, who left the Buffalo game Wednesday night early and is day-to-day, have caused the Flyers to bend a bit but not break. At least not yet. A few more bumps and bruises could be on the horizon. Time will tell. Nonetheless, there are three players on the Flyers roster, where, if they were injured for an extended period of time, would have ridiculously negative effects.
Any one of this trio ending up on IR or LTIR would leave a huge hole in the lineup, and result in the remaining players needing to give an extra 15 to 20 per cent each, much more than the five per cent Tocchet cited earlier in the week regarding Foerster’s injury and being out two to three months.
Here then are three Flyers the team is simply incapable of replacing without a massive trade or huge overhaul taking place should they get hurt. We’ll start from the net out.
Dan Vladar
Sam Ersson beat Buffalo, getting his first regulation win of the season. And was above .900 in save percentage (a season-high .931). He’s been fine this year, stellar in the extra sessions and downright dynamite in the shootout. But one thing is clear: for all the shootout saves, Ersson is not the straw stirring the Flyers’ drink right now. Dan Vladar has been everything and a box of chocolates! Strike that, you never know what you’re going to get with a box of chocolates.
So far this season Vladar has been outstanding. He’s in the top 20 to 30 in the league overall when it comes to wins, save percentage and goals-against average. It’s been ages since any Flyers goalie had such a distinction. His goals-against average currently (2.56) is over a third of a goal less than his career average (2.95). And he has 10 wins, or almost 20 per cent of the total he had over his career (59). Vladar (or Darth Vladar as some are naming him) easily is looking like the steal of the 2025 free agency scavenger hunt!
As a result, any time Vladar has been jostled in the crease or has gone down after being hit (as shown below), Flyers fans are probably a bundle of nerves. If he ends up getting hurt for any length of time, or suffers a devastating injury, the Flyers are probably toast in the big picture this season. Yes, they could rally in the games afterwards and put together a short winning streak that defies logic and reason. Over the long haul, the absence of Vladar would be as lethal as you could imagine, especially for a team that at times has had a hard time scoring goals at even-strength (although that looks to be improving in recent weeks). If Vladar gets hurt, the void would be near impossible to fill for Ersson, a goalie who was given the starter’s job after January 2024 and has rarely looked like he’s up to the job.
In short, as Vladar goes, so goes the Flyers. And if Vladar is gone, most likely so are the Flyers playoff aspirations.
Travis Sanheim
Travis Sanheim looks to be on pace to match his offensive output last season. With 11 points in 26 games, he should be around the 30-point mark this season. Thus far, he’s been the workhorse he’s always been, with only three games this season where he’s been under 23 minutes of ice time (Pittsburgh on Dec. 1, New Jersey on Nov. 22, and against Dallas on Nov. 15). Sometimes, Sanheim doesn’t look like he’s having a great game. But when you realize who he’s up against most nights, namely the best the opponents have to offer up front, sometimes he’s going to show he’s human. This is only demonstrated more when his partner Cam York isn’t there, as was the case early on in the season and in the third period against the Sabres on Wednesday night.
A workhorse number one defenseman who had his name in the mix for Canada’s Olympic Team might not be as bright on the radar now as he was in the summer. But he still is the Flyers defenseman that they’d be lost without. Sanheim has missed a grand total of four games the last four full seasons. That’s four out of 328 contests, the last half of which came with him out from under Ivan Provorov’s spotlight. He’s logged an average of 23:48 in 2023-24, 24:29 last season and so far this year he’s at 25:15. And he’s looked generally good to quite good most nights. As a result, any injury to Sanheim is going to be next to impossible to replace without Flyers general manager Danny Briere pulling the trigger on a deal to get a stud defenseman. Nobody on the roster now or in the depth chart is close to eating the minutes and workload Sanheim has had this year. And with York only having an injury that’s day-to-day, Sanheim’s workload will increase by a little the next few games, hopefully not a lot.
Sanheim has been one of the most underrated defensemen the last few seasons. And is on a tremendously team-friendly long-term deal. Any loss of Sanheim would make Noah Juulsen or Egor Zamula no longer fighting for a spot as the sixth blueliner. And making Cam York, as good as he’s been, having to accept a workload he’s most likely not capable of sustaining over a few months or half a season when he gets back to playing. When the return of Rasmus Ristolainen would be the best remedy to offset the loss of Sanheim, one doesn’t need to connect the dots to realize just how screwed Philadelphia would be without the Elkhorn, Manitoba native.
Trevor Zegras
As solid as the Vladar acquisition has been, just as strong or marginally stronger has been what Trevor Zegras has done in his first two months and change with Philadelphia. Out of the depths of despair and doldrums on the West Coast, “Ziggy” has found tons of stardust in a magical first 26 games. With 26 points thus far, the obvious point-a-game pace is something few might have envisioned starting the season. He’s seven points away from eclipsing his point total last season. And going by his best seasons, he could easily surpass those 60-plus point totals before the trade deadline emerges. As if that wasn’t enough, he has resurrected a power play that is no longer the laughingstock of the National Hockey League. It’s still not great, but not being the bottom of the barrel is refreshing.
As great as Zegras has been as a quasi-hybrid center, it would probably take a lot of wind out of the Flyers’ sails if he was injured for any length of time. In fact, it might take down a sail or two on the Flyers ship. He’s been that damn important. With a fourth line that has producing nothing, and a struggling Matvei Michkov to start the season, Zegras (with Vladar holding up more than his share) has put the team on his shoulders and is dragging them into the playoff hunt. All the more reason why any kind of injury to him would definitely negatively affect almost everything the Flyers have going. The power play, or what semblance there is of one, would be back down to the lowly foundations of last year without the main quarterback with 11 power play points (on 14 power play goals). And it would without question leave a huge hole in the line with Christian Dvorak and new winger Travis Konecny.
Sure, the Flyers could still tread water if Michkov, Konecny and Owen Tippet began playing out of their minds or went on incredibly lengthy hot streaks. But that might be hard to fathom considering just how streaking Tippett has been and Michkov can be at times, to say nothing of Konecny’s drop in production the last half of 2024-25. It’s safe to say they couldn’t weather the storm left by a Zegras injury. Which is why everyone was almost in tears watching Rasmus Dahlin reef the Flyers winger hard into the boards from behind on Wednesday night. He got back up and was fine, keeping the idea of post-season hockey alive and well.
The result?
The Flyers, like any team that needs to be competitive, needs to have a very good goaltender, a very good defenseman munching up minutes, and a very solid forward who can produce. Philadelphia have that for the time being in Vladar, Sanheim, and Zegras. A loss of one of them would probably be a huge nail in the Flyers coffin regarding the playoffs. If two of the three were out for a while, you might as well start throwing dirt on them. Otherwise, if Philadelphia remained in playoff contention minus two of Vladar, Sanheim, or Zegras, Rick Tocchet’s name should be etched on the Jack Adams Award for the second time in three seasons now.