PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia Flyers didn’t need any added motivation ahead of their game against the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
Speaking on Monday, Southern California native Cam York said: “Anytime I play Anaheim, I always get excited.”
“Obviously, an anticipated game,” added former Ducks and current Flyers defenseman Jamie Drysdale, who starred in last year’s memorable meeting, in which Cutter Gauthier made his first appearance after essentially forcing the Flyers to trade him.
But not this time. “It’s Z’s stage this year,” Drysdale pointed out.
That’s Trevor Zegras, of course, the face of the Ducks franchise just a few years ago, who faced his former team for the first time since a June trade. After downplaying it Tuesday morning, Zegras acknowledged afterward that he had been “thinking about this game for a long time.” His celebration after his first of two goals on the night, in which he mimicked emphatically hanging up a telephone, was apparently about how brief the call was that he received over the summer informing him of the deal.
But there was more fuel for the Flyers, who went on to record a raucous 5-2 win, than just those connections. Monday’s announcement that the Flyers inked Christian Dvorak to a five-year, $25.75 million contract extension added even more electricity to the dressing room. Zegras — who said he received an urgent call from Dvorak around 11 p.m. Monday asking to come to his place in the city because he needed a witness while signing on the dotted line — mentioned that when Dvorak arrived at the arena Tuesday for the morning skate, there was a “nice round of applause for him.” The smirk on Zegras’ face suggested it was more than just a polite golf clap.
His Flyers teammates flooded Dvorak’s phone with text messages Monday night, too, when the news officially broke.
“He’s just such a good locker room guy, and I think everybody is excited to see him when they get to the rink,” said Zegras, who was tight with Dvorak even before they were teammates through mutual pal and Montreal Canadiens forward Cole Caufield. “Just a true pro.”
“(To) make it official and have him here long-term, I think it means well for this locker room, and he’s fit in really nice,” Travis Sanheim said. “Obviously, been playing great for us. Really happy to see that.”
But the extension is about more than just keeping a well-liked, productive player at a valuable position in the fold. Dvorak was a pending unrestricted free agent. When he signed a one-year, $5.4 million contract with the Flyers on July 1, there was as much of a chance he would be dealt ahead of this season’s March 6 trade deadline as there was of earning an extension. Considering contending teams are always looking for help down the middle, and those players are difficult to find, Flyers general manager Daniel Briere would have fielded innumerable phone calls had he made Dvorak available to the highest bidder.
That won’t happen now. That Briere decided so quickly that Dvorak was worthy of a deal that is probably too long for a player of Dvorak’s caliber is a clear signal the pivot toward trying to win is in full swing.
Put another way, it’s now playoffs or bust for the 2025-26 Flyers.
Speaking before Tuesday night’s game, Briere pooh-poohed that suggestion. Instead, he focused on what Dvorak has done in his short time with the club, posting nine goals and 17 assists for 26 points in 40 games and slotting in as the de facto top-line center between Zegras and Travis Konecny.
“He’s a good hockey player that makes us a better team,” Briere said. “He’s a player we want to keep around.”
But Briere has also indicated previously that were the Flyers to put themselves in a position to claim a playoff spot, he wouldn’t do anything to derail that. And the players are holding up their end of that bargain. Tuesday’s win puts the Flyers at 22-12-7 on the season, in third place in the Metropolitan Division and third in the Eastern Conference by points percentage (.622). Everything about how they’ve performed so far this season, from their resiliency to their balanced scoring to their goaltending, suggests they’re going to remain in the race for the next three months.
To be clear, keeping Dvorak around beyond this season does have its merits. The 2026 free-agent class is thin, so if they lost him, they might not have been able to fill that hole without trading some high-end assets themselves. The center prospects they’ve drafted the last two years still need further seasoning. Dvorak can play multiple positions now or in the future and is a trusted, all-situations player. And, yes, Dvorak does seem to be a popular guy, adding to the culture that Briere has prioritized since he took over.
For the Flyers players, though — particularly those who endured previous general manager Chuck Fletcher’s mismanagement and Briere’s two straight seasons of selling important players for future assets — they can now sleep soundly knowing Briere has put Comcast’s money where his mouth is when it comes to giving them an honest chance to end a five-year playoff drought.
“I think we’re hopefully at that stage where that’s the side of it that we’re getting,” Sanheim said when asked about the Flyers’ not being sellers this season. “I think we want to just keep pushing along and proving that we’re a good hockey team.”
Said York: “Keeping this core together, it’s clicked from the start. It’s been a great group from Game 1. To see that is really cool, and we’ll see what happens the rest of the way.”
Briere acknowledged that at the halfway point of the regular season, which they reached Tuesday, the Flyers are “maybe a little better than I expected.” He’s hopeful they won’t repeat what happened two years ago, when they were surprisingly in the playoff race all season before eventually falling short on the last day.
“We saw how it went in the second half (in 2023-24),” Briere said. “I’m hoping that this year, a lot of the guys that were there will be better prepared to face the music when it matters most.”
There’s a big difference this time, though, as they’re almost certainly going to remain together. That wasn’t a hurdle they were able to clear two years ago when goalie Carter Hart was placed on indefinite leave and Briere traded key defenseman Sean Walker.
Dvorak’s extension reflects that Briere won’t tinker with something that is working this season. It will now be up to the players in the room to reward him, and themselves, for that vote of confidence.
“It’s a little different than years past,” Noah Cates said. “It’s a good feeling, and it’s good buy-in for this team. We’re in this together, and we want to make a push for the playoffs.”