The Philadelphia Flyers are heading into a season where the big answers may have to come from inside the room.
After a playoff run nobody quite expected - and a round win to go with it - the Flyers are leaning on internal growth to keep moving forward in 2025-26. Danny Briere did make a few moves to lift the floor, but the real push has to come from the players who got a taste of postseason hockey last spring.
That leaves one major puzzle for training camp and beyond: what does this lineup actually look like?
There are a lot of ways to sort out the forward group, and plenty of them make sense. The Flyers have several centers, a crowded wing picture, and enough moving parts that nearly every combination seems to come with a reason. Three questions stand out above the rest.
Trevor Zegras is the biggest one.
He was better than expected last season, finishing with career-highs of 26 goals and 67 points, but his best fit still isn’t locked in. Most of his season came on the wing in a hybrid setup with Christian Dvorak, and the two clicked well enough to help Dvorak to a career year and a five-year contract extension.
Then came the Olympic break, and Zegras started getting looks at center. He didn’t look out of place there in the final months, and by the end he had shown he could handle first-line center duties. That carried into the playoffs, though in a smaller sample.
The concerns haven’t gone away, though. Zegras’ two-way game is still under the microscope, and his faceoff issues could loom larger in bigger moments.
From a roster-building standpoint, center is the cleanest answer. If Zegras is down the middle, the Flyers can sort the rest of the depth chart around him with Dvorak, Cates and Couturier likely next in line, plus Denver Barkey and Noel Acciari able to move over if needed. And if Philadelphia wants Zegras to fill the role the team really needs, that’s the spot.
Still, the Dvorak connection is hard to ignore. If that pairing keeps humming, the Flyers could easily start the season with them together again and sort out the center spots behind them based on who’s playing best. If Couturier builds on the strong second half he put together in a fourth-line role, he could open as the third-line center while Acciari handles the fourth.
Zegras is the pivot point either way. If he ends up on the wing, the logjam only gets tighter.
Matvei Michkov brings a different kind of lineup question, but it matters just as much.
The more specific version of the old debate is now this: where does Michkov play? The Flyers’ winger mix already includes Tyson Foerster on the left side and Zegras there when he’s not at center, but Travis Konecny, Owen Tippett, Porter Martone and Michkov all prefer their natural right side. Some of them can play either wing, but it can still matter - and it seems to matter for Michkov.
After Bobby Brink was traded, Rick Tocchet and the Flyers gave Michkov a chance to “try” the right side. The timing lined up with a strong team stretch and a hot run from Michkov himself. He closed the season with 18 points - 4 goals and 14 assists - over his final 16 games.
The Flyers may ultimately care most about production, and if he’s scoring, the position label is secondary. But giving him the chance to stay on the side he’s grown up playing does seem to make sense.
Then there’s the camp battle involving Denver Barkey and Alex Bump.
Both wingers are left-shot options, and both have climbed through the prospect pipeline on a similar track, which is why they’re being mentioned together as they compete for a roster spot. But the roles they’re fighting for are not the same.
Barkey looks like the more flexible fit. The Flyers would probably be comfortable keeping him in the NHL even in a bottom-six job, and he could start on the fourth line if that’s what the roster needs.
He plays a responsible game in all three zones, can add a bit of offense, and brings the kind of versatility coaches love. He’s even shown he can handle center if needed, including in the playoffs.
Barkey’s hockey sense stands out, too - he’s viewed as one of the smartest prospects in the system, and maybe one of the smartest players in the room.
He’s already shown chemistry with Couturier in the middle and Tippett on the other wing, which opens the door to a Barkey-Couturier-Acciari checking line.
Bump feels like a different type of candidate. The Flyers would likely want him playing either on the third line or higher in the NHL, or in the top six in Lehigh Valley. He could survive in a fourth-line role and give that group some punch, but that may not be the best use of him for the team or for his development.
He’s a shoot-first winger who spent most of his time on a line with Dvorak and Konecny, though those results were uneven. He did look better in a smaller sample with Cates and Michkov, and that could become a Flyers line at some point this season - maybe even on opening night.
Neither Barkey nor Bump has a clear path yet. They’ll have to show in camp that they offer more than the other depth options in the mix. If they don’t, both could start in Lehigh Valley, while a more experienced name like Carl Grundstrom could win the spot instead.
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