{"id":176251,"date":"2025-09-28T23:38:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T23:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/176251\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T23:38:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T23:38:07","slug":"east-notes-grebenkin-norris-mateychuk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/176251\/","title":{"rendered":"East Notes: Grebenkin, Norris, Mateychuk"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Philadelphia Flyers have quite a few talented young forwards vying for a limited number of available NHL roster spots this preseason, and one player who has reportedly taken a lead in the race for an NHL job is winger Nikita Grebenkin<\/a>. The 22-year-old Russian winger is \u201cthe clubhouse favorite\u201d to earn an NHL role at this stage of the preseason, according to PHLY Sports\u2019 Charlie O\u2019Connor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Grebenkin scored<\/a> in yesterday\u2019s preseason loss to the Boston Bruins, and is reported to have had an impressive camp. Grebenkin arrived in the Flyers organization late last season as part of the team\u2019s trade of Scott Laughton<\/a> to the Toronto Maple Leafs. The 6\u20192, 220-pound winger scored 28 points in 50 AHL games last season and was recently ranked by Elite Prospects<\/a> as the club\u2019s 11th-best prospect. If he ends up claiming a spot on the team\u2019s NHL roster, it could come at the expense of another young player vying for a role such as Alex Bump<\/a> or Jett Luchanko<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other notes from the Eastern Conference:<\/p>\n

Buffalo Sabres center Josh Norris appears to have a massive opportunity in front of him entering his first full campaign in Western New York, reports Buffalo Hockey Beat\u2019s Bill Hoppe<\/a>. Norris, who was traded to Buffalo in 2023-24 in a deal that included 2019 seventh-overall pick Dylan Cozens<\/a>, is currently centering the Sabres\u2019 top line alongside Zach Benson<\/a> and Tage Thompson<\/a>, as well as skating with the team\u2019s top power play and penalty-kill units. It appears Norris has the chance to become an all-situations number-one center for the Sabres, something that was not entirely possible with his former team, the Ottawa Senators, due to the presence of star Tim Stutzle<\/a>. Norris, who has dealt with persistent injuries (namely a shoulder issue) so far in his NHL career, scored 21 goals and 35 points last season and has a career high of 35 goals and 55 points in 66 games from the 2021-22 season.
\nTeam reporter Jeff Svoboda reports<\/a> that Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Denton Mateychuk<\/a> did a full skate with the team this morning, something Svoboda calls a \u201cvery good sign\u201d given Mateychuk has been dealing with a groin injury this preseason. Mateychuk, 21, is one of the Blue Jackets\u2019 top young players and is coming off of a season where he was named to the NHL\u2019s All-Rookie team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia Flyers have quite a few talented young forwards vying for a limited number of available NHL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,6581,3936,114241,30577,575,114242,3065,85],"class_list":["post-176251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-denton-mateychuk","tag-josh-norris","tag-nhl","tag-nikita-grebenkin","tag-philadelphia-flyers","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}