The Leo Carlsson offer sheet changed the temperature around Flyers free agency in a hurry, but while Danny Briere and Pat Verbeek sit in that staring contest with Anaheim, a few other roster questions are still hanging in the air.
One of the quieter ones involves Nikita Grebenkin, who looked like an easy keep until the Flyers started filling in around him. Noel Acciari came in.
Porter Martone and Alex Bump are ready for full-time NHL work. Then Carl Grundstrom was re-signed after a solid half-season in the bottom six.
Grebenkin had his moments too, but he also missed 27 games because of injuries and scratches, and that’s left his place in the lineup less certain than it once seemed. He doesn’t really look like a player who should be buried as the 14th forward, but his ice time is very much in doubt until the Flyers know how much money they have left to work with.
The defense picture is murkier in a different way. By trading the rights to Emil Andrae and letting Noah Juulsen walk, the Flyers opened up the sixth and seventh spots on the blue line.
David Jiricek looks like the likeliest fit for the sixth job. He’s a former sixth overall pick, now on his third team, and the pressure is on for him to turn AHL efficiency into something that actually sticks at the NHL level.
He’s also no longer waiver-exempt, which only sharpens the stakes.
That spot, though, may not be locked down for long. Rick Tocchet has already shown he’s willing to bench players and shuffle a rotation, and Simon Benoit is in the mix in the same way Juulsen was this year. Behind Jiricek, Oliver Bonk and Ty Murchison are waiting, and if the Carlsson contract gets done and the roster needs to be trimmed, the Flyers may have to decide whether a defender gets moved or whether one of those younger names gets pushed up the ladder.
Then there’s the goaltending chain, which may be the most interesting of all. The Flyers extended Dan Vladar until 2032, setting him up as the starter, and added Joseph Woll, who is signed for the next two seasons and brings backup experience with possible starting talent. On paper, that leaves the next two years looking settled.
That setup could squeeze Alexei Kolosov and Carson Bjarnsson out of the development picture and put the spotlight on Yegor Zavragin instead. Zavragin is with Metallurg Magnitogorsk after being traded from SKA St.
Petersburg, and he should get a heavy workload as a starter this season. The path for him to become the North American option seems to be taking shape.
The open questions are obvious: can Kolosov or Bjarnsson do enough in the AHL to force their way back into the conversation? Could an injury create an NHL opening for one of them?
Or are the Flyers simply waiting on Zavragin? For the first time in a while, they may actually have real depth in goal.
In Other News...
Flyers Nearly Landed The Franchise Scorer Fans Have Been Begging For
The Flyers have spent plenty of time trying to find the kind of elite scorer who can change the shape of a roster, and their front office has not been shy about swinging big when the opportunity looks right. That appetite showed up again in a recent report that Philadelphia was prepared to chase one of the leagues premier wingers if he ever became available, a pursuit that would have fit right into the organizations broader push to add top-end talent.
Instead, the market never opened the way the Flyers hoped, and the club moved on to another aggressive route by making an offer sheet to Leo Carlsson. It is another reminder that management, including assistant general manager Brent Flahr, is willing to be bold when it believes the payoff could be franchise-altering, even if the bigger prize slips away before the bidding ever really begins. [Read more 🡒]
Flyers Are Stuck In A Franchise Shaping Wait With Anaheim
The Flyers long summer wait with Anaheim has turned into one of those front-office storylines that hangs over the league longer than anyone expects. With media voices like Elliotte Friedman suggesting the contract could ripple well beyond one roster, the intrigue has only grown, and the latest bit of context is that Ducks defenseman Pavel Mintyukov landed a bigger deal than many anticipated, a development that may matter more in Philadelphia than it does in Orange County.
There are still four days left for Anaheim to decide whether to match, which keeps the Flyers in limbo while the Ducks sort through their own business. Jamie Drysdale and Trevor Zegras have already filed for arbitration, adding another layer of offseason pressure for Anaheim, and for the Flyers the whole situation remains tied to a franchise-defining outcome that could shape how aggressively they can keep pushing this summer. [Read more 🡒]
Matvei Michkov Looks Determined To Change The Flyers Conversation
Matvei Michkovs second season in Philadelphia was a reminder that even elite talent can get knocked off course when health and preparation are disrupted. An injury limited the way he could train last summer, and the result was a tougher year than the Flyers expected from a player who arrived with so much offensive promise.
This offseason, Michkov has gone back to work in Perm, Russia, leaning into weightlifting and on-ice sessions as he tries to reset for the year ahead. He is also slated to take part in the NHL-KHL Match of the Year charity game, another sign that he is staying active and pushing toward a cleaner, more complete preparation for the next Flyers season. [Read more 🡒]