Category: Flyers/NHL

The Flyers know their power play needs to be better this season.

During Saturday’s scrimmage, the team tested out the power play for the first time in camp, and it went about as well as last season.

The first unit, playing for the orange team, included Jamie Drysdale at the point, with Trevor Zegras, Owen Tippett, Denver Barkey, and Matvei Michkov.

It was hard to tell exactly where each player was positioned because they struggled to enter the zone and get set. No one on the unit is a strong faceoff man, which contributed to their difficulties getting into formation to generate chances.

Zegras and Michkov generally prefer playing on the right, which means the unit will be pretty fluid with motion against some opponents.

“They’re going to have the puck most of the time, right?” coach Rick Tocchet said. “Can they manipulate the structure that’s in front of them? That’s going to be video; it’s going to [be] spend[ing] some time with them, and they have to have that sixth sense themselves. We can’t tell them everything. It’s not a robotic game, and they’re going to have to figure it out.”

The second unit featured David Jiříček, Travis Konecny, Porter Martone, Tyson Foerster, and Noah Cates. It’s a vote of confidence in Jiříček, who played most of the scrimmage on a pair with Nick Seeler, and seems to be the clear frontrunner for the final open spot on the Flyers’ defense.

Tocchet praised Jiříček’s patience and passing on the man advantage, but joked that he’s afraid to use his booming shot to avoid hurting his teammates, which makes it challenging to practice.

“In a game, you don’t care, you tee it up, but that’s the hardest thing, and then guys don’t shoot it [in practice],” Tocchet said. “Can anybody make a puck that is an actual puck that, if you get hit, it doesn’t hurt you? It’s 2026. If somebody can do that, they’d make a lot of money.”

That second unit looked a bit stronger, and Martone got a solid look on goal in their two-minute opportunity.

Tocchet didn’t want to evaluate the units heavily after the scrimmage. Each group had just about two minutes to practice together. Plus, even with a shortened training camp, more opportunities remain to run the power play.

Last season, the Flyers converted just 15.7% of their opportunities, which ranked last in the league. There’s some reason for confidence that their trajectory is headed upward, since the underlying numbers looked slightly better. The Flyers’ five-on-four expected goals percentage was 92.26%, according to Natural Stat Trick, ninth in the league.

“There’s all the stuff with numbers and expected goals vs. actually what happened,” Drysdale said. “You look at those, and we’re in a pretty good freaking spot. It’s just a matter of capitalizing, getting into the right spots, but at the end of the day, those numbers don’t matter. The only ones that matter are the ones that go in the net.”

Across the first two days of training camp, the Flyers coaching staff has worked on resetting their systems, five-on-five play, and, with a two-on-two small-area game, puck protection and strong play around the net.

They have not worked on the power play.

But it’s coming, with the two main groups of NHLers set to scrimmage on Saturday at the Flyers Training Center (10:40 a.m.). Ten forwards and six defensemen per team — two players at each position will have to sit — will skate five-on-five and work on special teams.

“I think we’re a really good team, especially five-on-five, and fix that and make that just a little bit better, it makes us that much better overall,” defenseman Jamie Drysdale said of the power play.

“Make it substantially better, now you’re talking about a different team, I think in terms of the win column. A lot of games are won and lost on special teams, so definitely a big bonus, and I think we’ve got the skill.”

While the Flyers had a spring awakening last season, the power play has been barely breathing the last few years. Last season, it finished dead-last for the fourth time in five seasons at 15.7%.

On Tuesday, Flyers general manager Danny Brière said he thought it “was definitely better than it was the year before, but the stats didn’t show that, and that’s not good enough.” They need to convert, and he put some of the onus on guys like Drysdale and Trevor Zegras.

“There’s always things in the summer, I guess, that you work on that kind of go hand in hand with the power play,” Zegras said when asked about on-ice work in addition to videos he watched. “Obviously, you don’t have penalty killers and your guys that you run with in the summer, but it’s wall work or entries or maybe getting to the inside, shooting pucks, hitting one-timers. You kind of just do all that stuff anyway, so you hope it translates once the season starts.”

Last season, Drysdale spent more than 180 minutes on the ice with the man advantage, tops among Flyers blueliners and No. 3 on the team overall. At his end-of-season availability in May, he said part of his summer focus would be to help get the power play out of the NHL’s basement, specifically with his shot.

Drysdale worked on his shot — which coach Rick Tocchet can already see a difference in — through his footwork, getting his feet set, and finding spots that he often finds himself open with his skating coach, Dawn Braid.

The blueliner, who took a step forward in his game last season, believes he can increase scoring opportunities not just for himself, but his teammates at even strength and the man advantage. He also worked on his reads too, which Tocchet said the group needed to improve.

“We spent a lot of time last year on knowing those lanes, and there’s only so many options from each kind of quadrant on the ice or area that you’re in, and it’s just picking the right one,” Drysdale said, noting he also used video.

“It’s making the read sooner before I get the puck, things like that. So, again, it kind of just tacks on to finding the spots that I know I’m going to be in, and just working from those spots, working on my reads from those spots, and just getting ultracomfortable with my outs, my options, and my shooting lanes.”

One interesting option this season for the power play is newcomer David Jiříček. Lehigh Valley coach John Snowden told The Inquirer in May that Jiříček, who was acquired in the trade that sent Bobby Brink home to Minnesota, “is dangerous on the power play,” and Tocchet said on Friday he has “got the [heck] of a shot.”

“I think so,” Jiříček said when asked if he improved it over the summer. “Try to work on it every day. I think that’s my biggest asset. Try to bring it to the table every day on the practice and after that in the game.”

Although he wasn’t sure he would get an opportunity on the power play, Jiříček also hopes to show what he can do overall. The blueliner, who was drafted in 2022, is now on his third NHL team.

“Not to people,” he said when asked if he needs to prove himself to anyone.

“I think to myself, ‘[The media] can write anything, right?’ But you know, especially for me, I mean, I just got to prove it to myself and show on the ice that I’m capable to play.”

Breakaways

Asked about playing center, Zegras said, “If I want to play center, which I definitely do, I got to get better faceoffs. I think I was OK, not very good at them last year.” Noel Acciari, who was signed as a free agent on July 1, had a 61% winning percentage in the faceoff circle against the Flyers in the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I wonder why,” Zegras said with a chuckle when the forward’s prowess was brought up. Would he pick his brain now that they are teammates? “Yeah, for sure,” Zegras said. “Ask him what I was doing wrong, probably.” … Asked about Noah Cates and Tyson Foerster getting some time together in camp, Tocchet mentioned the possibility of adding Travis Konency to the wing: “That’s a [heck] of a, I don’t know what line that is. It’s a good top line, or … I think it’d be the best third line in the league.” … Nikita Grebenkin joined Group C on Friday in a yellow noncontact jersey, skating with players heading back to juniors or Lehigh Valley. The forward, recovering from an upper-body injury, took part in some drills but skipped those with heavy contact. Brière said Tuesday he would “miss the first couple of days of camp” after suffering a flare-up last week.

Near the end of a two-on-two training camp drill on Thursday, Tyson Foerster beat Travis Konecny and ripped a shot top-shelf past Joseph Woll.

That shot sparked a playful argument — had Foerster tied the score, 3-3? Was it still 3-2, as Konecny insisted?

After a bit of chirping, Woll, who was acquired in a trade from the Toronto Maple Leafs over the summer, finally gestured that Konecny was right, he’d only allowed the two goals.

“We were talking about a couple camps ago when I was a rookie, I blew him up out there,” Foerster said jokingly. “So he said it was going to be a hard camp. And we’re going against each other out there, we’re trying to make each other better, so we always have good competition, and it’s a lot of fun.”

There’s a new energy around the Flyers following the team’s first playoff berth in five seasons. On the walls of the practice facility, a new poster reading “be here for the rise” looked down on the first official training camp practice of 2026-27, the first season in a while in which the Flyers will have serious expectations from the beginning.

Winning a playoff series and losing to the Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes in the second round was a big step forward for a young group of Flyers, many of whom had never played in a postseason game before.

But general manager Danny Brière said the fear that “keeps [him] up at night” is that his team will grow complacent following the progress made last season and stagnate. On the ice, Konecny said the hunger to keep achieving is already evident.

“Coming back, we’re still talking about it,” Konecny said. “It tells me that guys kept that in the back of their heads all summer, stayed hungry. They want more of it.”

Coach Rick Tocchet said even on the first day, it was clear just how much that playoff experience helped the development of the Flyers’ young players, with notable improvements in terms of their patience with the puck.

Winger Owen Tippett also said the team got significantly closer during the playoff push and subsequent run. Having so many returnees this season built the excitement and the internal competition over the summer.

After winning a playoff round, the Flyers won’t sneak up on teams the way they did last year. They conceded the first goal 31 times in the regular season, and managed to win 22 games in which they were down by at least one goal, including seven games where they trailed by a goal in the third period.

The Flyers won’t be able to rely on those types of comebacks this year, but Tocchet said that the playoff experience helped to teach the team how to lock a game down and when to push the pace. Tippett agreed that the new year will force the Flyers to start on the front foot.

“It’s nice to go in and surprise teams, but at the same time, you want teams to come at you right away,” Tippett said. “It pushes us to be better as well. We need to take that next step and be prepared and know that teams are going to come at us right away and challenge us early. That’s the next step for us too, to take it head on and start on time.”

Breakaways

Eleven players were added to the team’s training camp roster ahead of opening day on Thursday: Forwards Brady Berard, Alex Čiernik, Matthew Gard, Owen McLaughlin, Ilya Pautov, Nathan Quinn, and KJ Sauer; defensemen Brek Liske and Luke Vlooswyk; and goaltenders Martin Psohlavec and Marek Sklenička.

Hockey is built on lore.

“There was a time that players went to training camp to start training for the season and to get in shape,” said Matt Nichol, a strength and conditioning coach who has worked with countless NHLers, in a 2014 Gary Roberts Performance video.

This wasn’t everyone, to be clear, but back in the day, players had time to prepare for the rigors of a season once they arrived in their respective NHL cities for training camp.

Since then, the science behind getting in shape has evolved, from how to train on and off the ice to nutrition. In the early 1990s, the mindset really shifted, as players began taking only a few short weeks off during the summer before getting right back in the gym and on the ice to prepare their bodies for what was to come.

And now there’s been another change.

With a new collective bargaining agreement that went into effect at midnight Tuesday, gone are the days of fitness testing, like measuring a player’s body fat or the dreaded “rope test” that former coach John Tortorella deployed on Day 1 to see where his players were physically.

And this year, training camp for the Flyers is condensed to just 11 days, counting from their first on-ice session at 8:45 a.m. Thursday in Voorhees, and ending with practice on Sept. 27. This is why team-style skating sessions started earlier, the ramping up of high-intensity workouts is occurring much earlier than in previous years, and why an emphasis — “a massive emphasis,” as one pro hockey coach said — has been put on doing the work in the summer because there is no time to ease back into things.

“Probably 10 years ago, you took a lot of time off the ice, and now more guys are skating earlier,” a veteran NHL defenseman told The Inquirer last season.

“… There’s still some heavy lifting throughout the week, but it’s not every day. It’s probably every other day, every two days, whatever the strength coaches think. And then towards the end, you ramp it up. You know, a little more power, speed work into the skates.”

Although the offseason work has been important for decades, it is even more critical now.

Last season there was much discord about Matvei Michkov’s fitness entering the season and how it impacted him throughout the year. He has acknowledged several times, including this summer in a Russian-language interview, that he did not prepare adequately for his sophomore campaign and came in with a high body-fat percentage. Based on social media posts, it looks like he’s put in the work.

“Everybody has a different path along the way,” Flyers general manager Danny Brière said on Tuesday, adding Michkov looks like he has “a different swagger” now. “But what I was excited to see was, I think his maturity level increased as the season went on. In the offseason, seeing him here, he’s got a pep in his step. He feels good. He looks good. So I’m excited about Matvei’s season.”

And everybody has a different focus every summer, based on their needs and age. As one veteran NHL forward nearing the end of his career told The Inquirer in February, when you’re younger, the goal is to teach your body to get stronger and have bigger gains. As you age, it’s about getting your body back to that strength and improving on it. No matter the age, conditioning is important, too.

“It doesn’t happen overnight, either. It’s developing those habits in the gym,” said Bryan Marshall, a longtime strength and conditioning coach who was recently named the New York Islanders director of player performance. Marshall has worked with plenty of NHLers, including Flyers defenseman Jamie Drysdale since he was 14 or 15.

“It’s not one magic summer that does anything. It’s more buying into a philosophy that for the next decade of your life, you have to make decisions that are aligned with your hockey goals.

“And I think that has more to do with it for Jamie, because what I’ve noticed over the years is he has one successful month after another in the summer, and then one successful summer after another. And the next thing you know, he’s developed so much more strength, so much more power, and he’s now got the capacity, I think, to sort of really showcase his talents, right? Because the rigors of an NHL season are pretty grueling.”

The usual plan in the gym for Drysdale over the summer, per the defenseman, who spoke to The Inquirer in April, is rigorous: Mondays and Wednesdays are power days, Tuesdays and Thursdays are strength days, and Friday is conditioning. He would focus on power, aerobic capacity on the bike or VersaClimber, ladder work, hip mobility with bands, and explosiveness, like with box jumps. Working with bands and box jumps are his two favorites.

He’ll also typically undergo a comprehensive power assessment with Marshall using force plates and other technology to understand how he produces power, including force and velocity. For Drysdale, he saw that as he got stronger, he got faster.

As one player said: “It never really stops. It’s a full-time job in the summer as well.” Added another: “If you’re not in shape going into the season, you’re behind the eight ball.”

Why? Because during the season, you cannot train the same as you do in the offseason.

The body needs time to rest and recuperate in between workouts, whether they come on the ice or in the gym. According to UCLA Health, the benefits of a rest day include giving the “body a chance to flush out that excess lactic acid so muscles feel less tired and sore,” and allowing the body to heal and strengthen muscles after intense exercise creates small tears.

It’s why, although he chipped away at it and worked out more often during the Olympic break, it was hard for Michkov to ever get into top conditioning shape last season after a poor start. The heavy work in the gym is done in the offseason because, as one former NHLer told The Inquirer, everyone starts at a certain level, but as the season wears on and the body builds endurance, it also breaks down, causing a player’s strength to drop.

“There are sacrifices you have to make. That maybe some of your other buddies [have things they] can do that you are, unfortunately, [unable] to do,” a current NHL forward said.

“But at the end of the day, I’m fortunate enough to play this game at a high level, and I love doing it, so I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure I put myself in the best position each year.”