The 2025-26 Philadelphia Flyers season is on the horizon, and the interest around what kind of team the roster will shape up to be is on the forefront of everyone’s mind. So what exactly needs to go right this season for the Flyers to find their way back to the playoffs?
Number 5: York Bounce Back Season
The Flyers chose not to change up their defense during the 2025 offseason. They added a couple depth pieces in Noah Juulsen and Denis Gilbert, and have Oliver Bonk making the jump to the pro level, but the seven players who were here last year are all back again. That includes Cam York, who ended up signing a reasonable five-year extension after some uncertainty about his future with the team late in the season after clashing with former coach John Tortorella.
Now that he’s back, they’re going to need the 24-year-old left-handed defenseman to regain his form as their top guy. While some of his underlying metrics weren’t bad, he played nearly 500 less minutes last year than he did in 2023-24 and was significantly less impressive offensively as well. They need an overall bounceback campaign, and hopefully a refreshed coaching staff will be the genesis of exactly what Cam York needs to reclaim the 1D spot.
Number 4: Zegras’ Renaissance
Zegras was the big fish of the Flyers’ 2025 offseason, and they’re sure going to put a lot of stock in the 24-year-old entering the new season. They’re going to need him healthy, playing center and posting a near-point-per-game pace to get the most out of their current wing-heavy forward group.
The problem is he’s only played 88 games in the last two years, has spent most of that time when he’s healthy on the wings, and hasn’t scored more than 32 points since the 2022-23 season.
He’s obviously walking into a much better team than the one he’s been stuck on in Anaheim, and given the Flyers’ lack of center depth, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be getting copious opportunities in prime positions to succeed. Now the ball is in his court to make it happen.
Number 3: Play the Prospects
The lack of overall roster change means that, theoretically, the Flyers are going to rely heavily on the copious amount of rookie and prospects they’ve got in the AHL to make an impact on the main roster.
The problem? Development and integration has been the single biggest area of failure for the organization for years now.
Rookies like Bump, Barkey, Bonk and Kaplan plus returning young guys like Grans, Gendron, Andrae and Dorwart could all be fighting for main roster minutes. In the past, John Tortorella would shut them down before they even got their feet wet. Whether or not the players succeed or fail should be on them, not by the coach setting them up for failure without even giving them a chance.
Number 2: Deploy Ersson Better
The Flyers had the league worst combined save percentage for two consecutive years now… and they didn’t really address that problem in any kind of tangible way during the summer. They did sign Dan Vladar, but his very pedestrian stats don’t seem to indicate he’s the hero they need.
They might not be winning either the Vezina or Jennings trophy, hell they may not get out of the bottom third of the league in team save percentage, but even a minor improvement to the backup role could go a long way to getting more out of Sam Ersson in a slightly reduced starter’s role and overall putting their hopes of a postseason berth back on track.
Number 1: Don’t Hinder Michkov
The fact that Matvei Michkov scored 26 goals and 63 points in 80 games during his rookie season whilst feuding with head coach John Tortorella doesn’t really get talked about enough. There was a stretch of the season right after Christmas where Michkov was lucky if he saw more than 10 minutes of ice time a night.
We saw the production turn up in a brief flash after Tortorella was fired with a few weeks remaining in the regular season, and if that’s any indication of what lies ahead for Michkov, expect the sophomore forward to shatter his 63-point pace from his rookie season.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: Getty Images
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