{"id":224380,"date":"2026-03-17T23:08:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T23:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/224380\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T23:08:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T23:08:07","slug":"trevor-zegras-thriving-with-flyers-after-trade-from-anaheim-ducks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/224380\/","title":{"rendered":"Trevor Zegras thriving with Flyers after trade from Anaheim Ducks"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2015 Tuesday\u2019s practice at the Honda Center was a little weird for Trevor Zegras<\/a>. For the first time in his NHL career, the forward was using the visitors\u2019 locker room and bench. <\/p>\n

Almost nine months ago, Zegras was acquired from the Anaheim Ducks in a deal that took nearly two years to come to fruition. On the Monday before the NHL draft, he was shipped to the Flyers in exchange for forward Ryan Poehling, the 45th pick in the 2025 draft, and a fourth-round pick in 2026.<\/p>\n

The shift back east<\/a> \u2014 he was born and raised in Bedford, N.Y. \u2014 has reignited the 24-year-old\u2019s game. <\/p>\n

\u00bb READ MORE: The Flyers\u2019 power play is last in the NHL again. Here are three suggestions for how they can fix it.<\/a><\/p>\n

After two injury-plagued seasons that saw him shift from center to wing and where he posted a combined 47 points in 88 games, this season, he has 54 points across 66 games. His 22 goals are one shy of his career high, set in 2021-22 and 2022-23, as are his eight power-play goals, with nine his high from 2021-22. His 19 power-play points are a career high. Zegras is on pace for career highs of 27 goals and 67 points as of Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, maybe,\u201d he said when asked if the trade was needed on his end to restart his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t go back and change things. You can just, I guess, learn from them, grow from them. I think I\u2019m a different hockey player and person for having gone through that stuff that I went through. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if I would necessarily change it. I\u2019m in an unbelievable spot with unbelievable guys, and I love Philadelphia and everything that it has to offer, living in the city. We have amazing fans and everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zegras came to Philly with the expectation of playing down the middle again. As Flyers general manager Danny Bri\u00e8re<\/a> said back in June: \u201cWe hope he can help in the center position, because that\u2019s obviously an area that we could improve.\u201d But Bri\u00e8re also said that if coach Rick Tocchet<\/a> decides that he\u2019s better suited on the wing, and there\u2019s other guys that play better in the middle, he\u2019s going to decide.”<\/p>\n

And wing is where Zegras has been for most of the year \u2014 except for the past five games. Although the GM told The Inquirer on March 7<\/a> that the team \u201cfelt he\u2019s been a little better on the wing this year,\u201d an hour later, he was centering a line.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a small sample size, but Zegras has stepped into the center role and hasn\u2019t looked too out of place. According to Natural Stat Trick, at five-on-five across those five games, he has 12 individual shot attempts, including four high-danger chances, eight scoring chances, one goal, and three points (he also has a power-play assist).<\/p>\n

When he is on the ice at five-on-five, the Flyers have just 46.85% of the shot attempts, but they have more shots on goal (36-30) and are outscoring the opposition, 4-2. But there\u2019s a balance as he has the best expected goals for among the team\u2019s forwards (3.23), but the worst expected goals against (3.75).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been good,\u201d Zegras said of shifting to center. \u201cStill think I can do a little bit better on the faceoffs, but I think other than that, I feel like I kind of like where my games at through the middle.\u201d<\/p>\n

The faceoffs have definitely been a struggle. Entering this season, he\u2019s never won more than 43.8% of his draws in a season, and this year he\u2019s at 31.6%. The past five games are worse at 26.27%. It\u2019s part of why he leads the forwards in on-the-fly starts, or times he came on the ice during live play rather than at a faceoff. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s an offensive guy, so I try to get him mostly on the offensive part [of the ice]. Yeah, I\u2019m constantly doing that, but there\u2019s going to be some times where he\u2019s going to have to dig in there for us and take a D-zone faceoff, just sometimes you can\u2019t protect that,\u201d Tocchet said.<\/p>\n

\u00bb READ MORE: Trevor Zegras has fit in seamlessly with the Flyers. What will it cost to keep him long-term?<\/a><\/p>\n

While Zegras continues to work on his defensive zone structure and faceoffs, Tocchet said he may put another center out with him in the third period for support. He has been playing well when paired alongside Owen Tippett<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to Natural Stat Trick<\/a>, in 376 minutes in tandem together this season, the pair have outscored opponents (21-14) \u2014 10 goals are from high-danger spots \u2014 posted more shot attempts, shots on goal, and scoring chances, and have 54.25% of the expected goal share.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s awesome. He\u2019s so creative with the puck. He sees the ice really well, and I think the longer we\u2019ve kind of played together, especially with him at center … he\u2019s closer,\u201d Tippett said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re getting better at our reads and support. But yeah, he\u2019s just a crafty player with a lot of skill. He sees the ice really well. And a lot of the conversations we\u2019ve had have been, give him room to make those plays and try and find the areas that you know where he\u2019s looking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The duo will be skating alongside Nikita Grebenkin again as the Flyers try to stay in the playoff chase. They face a Ducks team on Wednesday (10 p.m., NBCSP) that is first in the Western Conference\u2019s Pacific Division but has just three points more than the Flyers.<\/p>\n

After everything Zegras, who had two goals<\/a> in the Flyers\u2019 win against Anaheim at Xfinity Mobile Arena in January, has gone through, does it give him a little extra juice for Wednesday?<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, maybe,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019ll be just cooler to be back. It\u2019ll be weird, playing on the other bench and warming up on the other side \u2014 even playing them last time was a little strange \u2014 but I feel like so much time has gone by. It\u2019s more like it will be a cool experience than a chip on my shoulder, I guess. <\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it\u2019ll be like a motivating game, but I think it\u2019ll be a good experience than anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2015 Tuesday\u2019s practice at the Honda Center was a little weird for Trevor Zegras. For the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,102243],"class_list":["post-224380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-trevor-zegras-trade-return-anaheim-ducks-center-experiment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}