The Philadelphia Flyers returned to the playoffs for the first time in six years last season without a true star skater. <\/p>\n
Before we get into things, the definition of a \u201cstar player\u201d isn\u2019t black and white. It really is a subjective thing. However, we can take an objective look at a subjective list of rankings.<\/p>\n
Over the course of August, NHL Network put out its rankings of the top 20 players at each skater position \u2014 center<\/a>, winger<\/a>, and defenseman<\/a> \u2014 along with the top 10 goalies. The Flyers were only represented by Dan Vladar as the No. 8 goalie in the NHL right now<\/a>, with none of their skaters cracking the top 20 at their position.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t help that they combined left wingers and right wingers into one position and still only ranked 20 players rather than 40 \u2014 there\u2019s an argument to be made that Travis Konecny, who had the 49th-most points among forwards last season, is a top-40 winger in the NHL. I could also argue that Travis Sanheim is one of the top 20 defensemen in the league \u2014 he made Team Canada, after all. But I digress.<\/p>\n Along with the Flyers, five other NHL teams didn\u2019t have a skater on any of the top 20 positional rankings. In fact, four teams weren\u2019t represented on the lists at all, including in the crease, with the Calgary Flames, Seattle Kraken, St. Louis Blues, and Vancouver Canucks all understandably lacking a top-ranked player.<\/p>\n Are the Flyers the best team without a star skater?<\/p>\n The Flyers and the Washington Capitals are the two teams who have just a goaltender among the NHL\u2019s rankings at each position \u2014 Vladar at No. 8 and Logan Thompson at No. 6.<\/p>\n The Capitals were clearly better than the Flyers and the rest of the Eastern Conference in the 2024-25 season, finishing with a conference-best 111 points. This came a year after sneaking into the playoffs in Game 82 with 91 points.<\/p>\n Last season, though, the Flyers got the last laugh as they made the postseason with 98 points while the Capitals\u2019 95 points weren\u2019t good enough to earn a playoff spot.<\/p>\n Heading into the 2026-27 season, the Capitals and Flyers will once again be battling for a playoff spot in the Metropolitan Division. And if we\u2019re being honest, yes, the Capitals appear to be better than the Flyers on paper. They loaded up this offseason by signing Alex Tuch and trading for Jordan Kyrou to support Alex Ovechkin in what could be his last dance in the NHL.<\/p>\n So, the Flyers may not be the best team without a star skater, but they certainly have the potential to become that this season. Having said that, if the Flyers do take another step forward, that may be due to one of their skaters making the leap into stardom.<\/p>\n Which Flyers could rise into stardom this season?<\/p>\n Trevor Zegras<\/p>\n Let\u2019s start with Trevor Zegras, who appeared to be headed that way early in his career. He finishesd second in Calder Trophy voting in 2022, and was subsequently one of the cover athletes for NHL 23 that fall. This was all as a 21-year-old who had yet to play 100 games in the NHL.<\/p>\n The rest of his time in Anaheim was turbulent, though, and the Flyers bought low on Zegras last summer. It sure looks like that was a great move as he put up a career-high 26 goals and 67 points in his first season in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n The jury is still out on whether Zegras should play at center or on the wing, which likely hurts his chances to crack the top 20 at either position. Still, if there\u2019s one player who could easily become a star, it\u2019s Zegras, simply because he was already there.<\/p>\n Matvei Michkov<\/p>\n You\u2019d think that Matvei Michkov was in and out of the lineup while barely putting up any points last season based on the way some people talk about him.<\/p>\n After finishing fourth in Calder Trophy voting and being named to the All-Rookie Team in 2025, Michkov took a step back under a new coach last season. It wasn\u2019t a massive step back, though. He still managed to put up 20 goals and 51 points \u2014 down from 26 goals and 63 points in his rookie year \u2014 while playing nearly two minutes less per game.<\/p>\n Michkov is still just 21 years old and appears to be ready to hit the ground running come training camp. He has the swagger, and a step forward this season could put him back in headlines for the right reasons after a season full of drama, which may or may not have been somewhat caused by his coach.<\/p>\n Porter Martone<\/p>\n Speaking of exciting young players, Porter Martone already looks like a star.<\/p>\n Martone put up 10 points in nine regular season games and five more in 10 playoff games after recording 50 points (25 goals) in 35 games as a freshman at Michigan State. The 19-year-old forward then joined Team Canada for the World Championships, recording five points in 10 games while seeing some time on the top line.<\/p>\n It may not be this year, as Martone may see some growing pains in his first full NHL season, but the power forward has all the makings of a star player.<\/p>\n Honorable Mentions<\/p>\n I mentioned Travis Konecny before, and he\u2019s probably the closest thing the Flyers have had to a star player in recent years. His 325 points in 374 games since the beginning of the 2021-22 season ranks 50th in the NHL among forwards, and that\u2019s with some not-so-great linemates playing alongside him. <\/p>\n I can already see the comments about Owen Tippett, and yeah, he certainly has star potential. He\u2019s had some of the best Flyers highlights in recent years, and has scored at elast 20 goals in all four seasons in Philadelphia. If he can have a season where he shoots closer to 20% than his career 10.5%, perhaps he can get there.<\/p>\n Maybe Tyson Foerster can get there with a healthy season? He\u2019d need to put up at least 30 goals, though, as a huge part of his game is his two-way play and defensive prowess that doesn\u2019t necessarily show up in the box score.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia Flyers returned to the playoffs for the first time in six years last season without a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":829438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-829437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}