Rick Tocchet faced some scrutiny last season for his handling of Matvei Michkov’s development. The outside noise had gotten to such a fever pitch that it forced Danny Briere in front of the media to calm things down.

There’s reason to believe Michkov will bounce back from a sophomore slump and the dynamic with Tocchet won’t be such a hot-button topic.

What Tocchet did with Trevor Zegras last season showed the head coach can unlock key talent. Tocchet challenged Zegras before the season. The 25-year-old forward went on to have a career year and is now the highest-paid player on the Flyers’ roster.

“I was really excited to see the way Trevor reacted to that,” Briere said last Thursday. “Because not everybody takes it the same way.”

Zegras came to the Flyers last summer with flashy skill and highlight-reel ability. But he had not yet made the playoffs and his game needed a resurgence. Tocchet wanted Zegras to focus on making winning plays and not just ones that elicit clicks on the internet.

“He really took it the right way,” Briere said. “He wanted to prove to Tocc and to everybody in the organization that he’s more than that, he’s about winning, he cares about this team.”

With the microscope fixated on Tocchet and Michkov, the head coach’s work with Zegras went under the radar. Tocchet put Zegras on the wing earlier in the season to build his confidence and then moved him back to center as the Flyers made their playoff push.

It paid off.

“I think I just had a lot of fun being at the rink and being around the guys,” Zegras said Tuesday in a Zoom press conference. “I find it lucky to be surrounded by so many amazing people, from the guys to the coaching staff to Danny and [president of hockey operations Keith Jones] and Dan Hilferty, the owner. So I found that it was just a very good situation for me mentally. It was a lot of fun on the ice, too.”

Zegras finished the season with 26 goals and 67 points, both career highs. He had five multi-goal games after having none the season prior with the Ducks. The Flyers made the playoffs for the first time since 2020, picking up 18 wins over their final 25 games, and advanced to the second round.

“I think we’re in a great spot,” Zegras said. “I think that was kind of just the beginning last year and I think we got a lot confidence as a group for how we played after the break and how we all came together and knew that it was going to be really hard. To come out of that and make the playoffs and then to win a round, I think that was great for what we’re trying to build. Hopefully we pick up where we left off.”

As a restricted free agent this offseason, Zegras re-signed with the Flyers to a four-year, $36.5 million contract, a deal that has a $9.125 million average annual value.

His first season with the Flyers led to four more. And it started with him stepping up to a challenge.

“Even in this negotiation, he took charge, he’s the one that said, ‘I want to be in Philly, I love it here, I want to stay there,'” Briere said. “So this is a big reason why this contract was done, this extension was done, because Trevor was really involved, Trevor was adamant that he wanted to be in Philly.

“So I’ve got to give him a lot of credit for how he carried himself last year, how he wants to prove to everybody that it’s not just about the clicks; he’s a leader. And that’s what we expect, too, from here. In signing this extension, he’s going to have to take a bigger part of the leadership process on this team. I’m really excited about him.”