Trevor Zegras is stepping into a bigger job in Philadelphia, and he’s not pretending it’ll be easy.
After the Flyers locked him up on a four-year, $36.5 million contract extension over a week ago, the expectation is clear: Zegras is going to be one of the key centers driving this team, right alongside Christian Dvorak. That’s a different kind of ask than what he was doing before. Zegras spent time on the wing earlier in his career, then moved to center this past season, and the transition came with some real growing pains.
Zegras said he welcomes the challenge, but he also knows there’s work to do if he’s going to handle that role the way the Flyers need him to.
"I think some of it starts in the gym and just getting bigger and stronger," he said, h/t NHL.com's Adam Kimelman. "But I think a lot of it was reps and repetition and taking a ton of face-offs, even against your own guys in practice or after practice, and just picking up on little things that maybe guys against you do.
All things that I'm always thinking about. So I'll try and definitely be better than I was last year."
That last part matters. Zegras’ face-off numbers last season were rough: he won just 131 of 384 draws, which came out to 34.1 percent.
For a player projected to be one of the Flyers’ top two centers, that’s a problem. He did show some progress in the playoffs, though, winning 44 percent of his face-offs there.
The Flyers’ offseason picture adds another layer to this. They made a real push for center Leo Carlsson with an offer sheet, and the Ducks matched the five-year, $90 million deal.
That leaves the what-if hanging in the background: if Carlsson had changed teams, would Zegras have stayed at center, or moved back to wing? There’s no answer to that now, and the Flyers seem comfortable moving forward with the roster they have as training camp approaches.
What they do have is a player coming off his best offensive season. In his first year in Philadelphia, Zegras posted 26 goals and 41 assists for 67 points in 81 games. All three of those numbers - goals, assists, and points - were career highs.
So the contract comes with expectations, and Zegras knows it. Philadelphia didn’t bring him in just to be part of the mix.
They need him to produce, and they need him to keep getting better in the middle of the ice. The face-off work will be watched closely in preseason and beyond, because that’s where the biggest question still sits.
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