Nikita Grebenkin, Noah Cates, and Bobby Brink all needed something going into Wednesday night. 

Grebenkin needed a chance to create some offense. He had been in and out of the lineup sporadically to start the season, and usually skated in limited minutes when he was on the ice in a checking role that was more about keeping the puck out of trouble rather than doing something with it. 

Cates and Brink needed to produce some offense again. They were separated in the lineup, and neither had scored or even registered a point since the Nov. 22 outburst of a win over the Devils. 

They were all capable of better, the circumstance of Tyson Foerster’s upper-body injury put all three of them on a line together, and for the first game at least, they found a spark. 

Brink scored in the first period, to put an emphatic stamp on a rally of three goals in 59 seconds, Cates scored in the second, and Grebenkin knocked down, collected, and slipped down a loose puck at the blue line to keep play onside and collect an assist on the turnover that led straight to Brink’s goal. 

And that’s only what showed up directly on the stat sheet of the Flyers’ 5-2 win against the Sabres at Xfinity Mobile Arena. 

Grebenkin, Cates, and Brink each skated with a noticeable jump, produced chances, and controlled the puck well against a Buffalo team that struggled after answers and struggled to crack Sam Ersson down at the Philadelphia net.

It was a game all three of them needed. 

“Those two guys have been playing together for a year now,” head coach Rick Tocchet said of reuniting Cates and Brink postgame Wednesday night. “So, Tyson went out, put them back and see if they get the chemistry.”

They found it, and as for Grebenkin’s part on the line…

“I thought he had some jump,” Tocchet continued.

There was a bit of a catch, though. Grebenkin skated only at even strength, and since the Flyers went to the box six times while Buffalo took five trips on their end, that kept the 22-year-old winger to just 12:02 of ice time with a decent chunk of inactivity in between. 

The key for Tocchet, however, was that when Grebenkin did get sent back out, he skated hard. 

“The penalties kill those type of guys,” Tocchet explained about Grebenkin’s situation against the Sabres. “But what I like about it is that he sat and then he went out there and he’s spinning his legs. That’s hard to do, so I give him a lot of credit for that.”

Because in a circumstance where Foerster is down for the next 2-3 months, which forces Tocchet to ask for “five percent better” out of every other skater in the lineup, an effort from Grebenkin like Wednesday night, with an opportunity to finally produce more, was what Tocchet needed to see out of him – and to see Brink and Cates skating downhill with him, too.

“He’s always flying out there and making plays,” Cates said of Grebenkin in the Flyers’ locker room after Wednesday night’s win. “So just kinda the more we play together, the more we can learn and build that chemistry and that trust. I thought he was awesome tonight.”

Take a shot for Tyson

Foerster might be down, but he’s still around. 

In the locker room postgame Wednesday night, Trevor Zegras, who inadvertently scored the go-ahead goal for the Flyers when his cross-ice pass took a rocketing deflection off of a Buffalo skater’s foot and in, was asked about how the team has been trying to deal with a loss to the lineup as big as Foerster’s. 

Zegras answered in a way only he would…

“Yeah, I mean, he was in the locker room. He’s still here,” Zegras said with a smile and through laughs from the local press. “But yeah, he’s a tough guy to replace. So we all just gotta be a little bit like Foery. Blocking shots or shooting when you should pass…But he’s a tough guy to replace, for sure.”

So take a shot when it’s there.

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