News Flyers Team Notes

[Philadelphia Flyers]

Flyers reveal new alternate captain on opening night

The Philadelphia Flyers were missing a member of their leadership group — well, at least officially. After trading Scott Laughton last season, the team didn’t officially replace him as an alternate captain.

Coming into this season, Sean Couturier maintained his role as the captain, with Travis Konecny hanging onto his as and alternate captain, and the Flyers revealed their other alternate captain on opening night, and it comes as no surprise.

SNNY pic.twitter.com/QvmlgBWnMd

— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) October 9, 2025

Sanheim is one of the leaders on the team, and now it’s official.

Couturier is still the longest-tenured member of the Flyers and is the deserved captain of the club. Sanheim has also spent his entire career in Philadelphia since being drafted with the 17th overall pick in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft. He made his NHL debut in the 2017-18 season and has been a stalwart on the blue line since.

Sanheim’s name was in trade rumors when Danny Briere took over as general manager in 2023, with a reported trade to the St. Louis Blues reportedly nixed due to Torey Krug invoking his no-trade clause.

That’s been a blessing in disguise for the Flyers as Sanheim has broken out in a big way over the last two seasons. He was named to Team Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off in February, and he did not look out of place.

Sanheim hit career highs in goals (10), assists (34), and points (44) in the 2023-24 season, and although he took a step down offensively last season, he averaged a career-high 24:30 per game. It could be argued that Sanheim was the Flyers’ most valuable player for portions of last season.

The 29-year-old defenseman has now played 579 career games with the Flyers. He’s been able to stay healthy over the last four seasons, only missing four games in total and playing in all 82 contests last season.

Congratulations to Travis Sanheim on a very well-deserved honor.

Source

Source: https://www.broadstreethockey.com/post/flyers-reveal-new-alternate-captain-on-opening-night/

 

[Philadelphia Flyers]

Friday Morning Fly By: Well, that’s one

*The Flyers are on pace to go 0-82 (we love this joke every single season after the first game, don’t we folks?) after dropping a relatively respectable game against the reigning champs from Florida. Could’ve been worse, for sure. RECAP!

*Perhaps the most surprising thing about tonight’s game was that Dan Vladar got the start over Sam Ersson, but Vladar looked pretty dang good! So maybe it wasn’t so wacky a decision after all. [BSH]

*Rick Tocchet obviously thought Vladar earned the spot. Just like he thinks Rodrigo Abols earned his. [Inquirer]

*The other news we got ahead of last night’s opener was that Travis Sanheim has been giving a much-deserved letter. We love that. [BSH]

*It’s hard to make any kind of real assessment after one game, but even before the game kicked off folks were postulating that it’s going to be real hard for the Flyers to find success this season. We shall see. [The Athletic]

*Other folks were making some bold predictions for the season, as we all love to do. [NBC Sports Philly]

*Speaking of, we made our own set of bold predictions! Even better than the other ones! [BSH]

*If you’re a subscriber over at Charlie’s website you can check out his questions facing the team. Charlie went with questions, not predictions. [PHLY]

*Anyway, looking to the future, the front office has made a lot of moves to set themselves up to have a ton of cap space to play with this summer. Problem is, it’s only October and they’re nearly out of options to spend all that money on. [BSH]

*And finally, just in time for the new season, we’ve got new merch!! We think you’ll really like it, so check it out. It’s fun. [BSH]

Source

Source: https://www.broadstreethockey.com/post/friday-morning-fly-by-well-thats-one/

 

[Philadelphia Flyers]

Rick Tocchet changes Flyers lineup after season-opening loss

The Philadelphia Flyers’ lineup for the season opener raised a lot of questions, and a few of those are being answered at practice on Friday. After the Noah Cates line was the only trio that generated much of anything on Thursday night in Florida, every other trio has a new look on Friday.

Per PHLY’s Charlie O’Connor, the forward lines were as follows:

Travis Konecny – Sean Couturier – Matvei Michkov
Christian Dvorak – Trevor Zegras – Owen Tippett
Tyson Foerster – Noah Cates – Bobby Brink
Nikita Grebenkin – Jett Luchanko/Rodrigo Abols – Garnet Hathway

Now this is more like it.

The top line had plenty of success last season. They were the Flyers’ second-most used line behind only the Cates line, and had 53.3% of the expected goals share and outscored teams 16-12 in 230 minutes at 5-on-5, per MoneyPuck.

The downside of this line is that Michkov and Konecny both prefer to play on the right side. But hockey can be positionless once you get into transition, and moving to the left wing might be most beneficial for Konecny and the Flyers.

The second line is a solid group. Pairing up Dvorak and Zegras makes a lot of sense, and using Tippett as the third does as well. Tippett is going to need to be moved around a bit before finding where he fits, but the other two could play well together based on their on-paper skillset.

The third line is the third line. It’s going to stay together until the Flyers need to move one of those players up in the lineup.

And this looks like an NHL fourth line. Whether it’s Luchanko or Abols at center — O’Connor noted that Luchanko got the first rep at practice –, they both bring different things to a fourth-line center role with the gritty Grebenkin and Hathaway at wing. This is a line that won’t play minimal minutes as they did with Nic Deslauriers in the season opener.

We’ll see just exactly how the Flyers line up on Saturday night in Carolina against a tough Hurricanes team, but this group of lines already looks a lot better than what they ran out on Thursday night.

On defense, the Flyers appear to be going with the same pairs:

Nick Seeler – Travis Sanheim
Adam Ginning – Jamie Drysdale
Egor Zamula – Noah Juulsen

The Flyers desperately need Cam York to get healthy, and they are hoping for him to return for the home opener on Monday. But it might be better for York and the Flyers in the long run to not rush him back until he’s 100% good to go.

That means another huge workload for Travis Sanheim, who played 27:15 on Thursday night, 5:06 of which came on the penalty kill.

The Flyers were largely outplayed without their new alternate captain on the ice. They led in shot attempts 12-10 in Sanheim’s 18:33 at 5-on-5, but the Panthers had a 30-23 advantage with Sanheim off the ice, per Natural Stat Trick.

Hopefully, the Flyers will be able to find some chemistry and momentum to build on for the home opener on Monday night against the Panthers.

Update on Cam York’s injury status​

In addition to Tocchet decided to revitalize the lines and give a look that most of the Flyers fan base wants, we received some slightly positive reporting on the status of defenseman Cam York and when we could expect him to make his season debut.

Heard they were hoping he could return as soon as Monday. But that's far from a guarantee. https://t.co/JgsbhHTOsf

— Charlie O'Connor (@charlieo_conn) October 10, 2025​

According to PHLY’s Charlie O’Connor, there is a world where York is back as soon as Monday to be on the ice for the Flyers’ home opener when they host the Panthers at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

While the Flyers did open the season with him on Injured Reserve, and typically that comes with a seven-day minimum for the player to miss game action, the Flyers managed to backdate when they initially placed the blueliner on it. Basically meaning that York wouldn’t have to miss the first three games if they set the start day to his IR stint for when the NHL season started last Tuesday. A whole lot of words to say that we could see a very welcome addition to this blue line sooner than some thought.

Source

Source: https://www.broadstreethockey.com/post/rick-tocchet-changes-flyers-lineup-after-season-opening-loss/