The Fates were with Trevor Zegras, for now

From NHL.com

By Bob Herpen

Phanatic Hockey Editor

Lost in the narrow 2-1 defeat the Philadelphia Flyers suffered at the hands of the Ottawa Senators on Thursday night in Canada’s capital was a play that took mere seconds to unfold but could have had drastic consequences for both the player and the franchise.

In the third period, with the Orange and Black trailing, winger/center Trevor Zegras was attempting to gather a loose puck in the area between the goal line and the top of the faceoff circle on the left-wing side. Defending Zegras was Sens forward (and Alex Trebek fave) Tim Stutzle. 

As Zegras attempted to follow the path of the puck, he turned awkwardly – as an outfielder might when misjudging the path of a fly ball – and fell to the ice. Stutzle, unable to react accordingly and adjust his own path as Zegras fell, brushed the toe of his skate over Zegras’ left wrist.

The angle of the blade was not perfectly flat and flush. Thank the hockey gods.

A close call as a skate blade comes near Trevor Zegras' wrist, but no damage was caused. pic.twitter.com/rU6FDkGWtu

— TSN (@TSN_Sports) October 24, 2025

Zegras was acquired in the offseason from the resurgent Anaheim Ducks, a young talent in need of taking flight to new horizons. Before the weekend, he had yet to score this season, compiling five assists in seven games thus far, but still showing flashes of the brilliance – practice rapport with Matvei Michkov notwithstanding – which led him to compile career bests of 23 goals and 42 assists in a healthy 2022-23 campaign. 

Limited to just 88 games the previous two seasons for the rebuilding SoCal franchise, the change of scenery to the East Coast offered a chance to put these troubled years behind him. Last year, it was a torn meniscus in his right knee and recovery from subsequent surgery. Two years back, a lower-body injury and a broken right ankle cost him almost two-thirds of the season. 

Despite a 3,000-mile relocation, it only took seven games for the Devil’s magnifying glass to find him again, ready to fry him in the blistering sun like an ant. Zegras’ contract runs out next year, with an AAV and cap hit of $5.75 million. 

We’d like to have him back in one piece, please.

For his part, after a tentative first half of the game on Saturday afternoon against the New York Islanders, Zegras shook off the cobwebs and registered two regulation goals -- his first with the club -- and contributed a shootout marker in the Flyers' eventual 4-3 shootout decision. He made the most of his chances, clocking in with a 66.6% shooting percentage (2G on 3 SOG).

I’ll say it once, then never again: can’t we have anything nice? Light a candle, put the lock upon the door. Break out the bubble wrap. It’s one thing to be stuck in a perpetual cycle of rebuilding, but who did we collectively anger that the spirits want to call down the thunder so often? Atkinson and Couturier. Ryan Ellis. Ristolainen.

Stranger still, despite twittering of the most mundane of circumstances night to night, the incident eluded every press box denizen of every major outlet which covered the game. You'd think a close call like this *might* pick up some additional coverage in Flyerdom alongside the "What's Wrong With Matvei?" chorus.

I know it's been happening more than usual. Jordan Eberle two years ago. Evander Kane and Jakob Chychrun this calendar year. Brock Nelson of the Colorado Avalanche just sustained a cut wrist in practice about 10 days ago.

I still can't shake the image of the first time a wrist cut sustained during NHL action received prolonged coverage: Canadiens forward Donald Audette dazed and shakily attempting to leave the rink while holding his limp and bloody left wrist in his right hand after Rangers forward Radek Dvorak's skate slashed it during a 2001 contest in Montreal.

The monster lurched around the continent for a while, but it managed to emerge from hiding and find the Flyers organization again.

On Apr. 7, 2013, prospect Eric Wellwood, then playing for the Adirondack Phantoms in the American Hockey League, did the job on himself during a game against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. 

Those of us around the franchise at this time thought it could have been more likely to happen to his brother, Kyle, who could skate like the wind but had immense trouble stopping and altering his course. Somehow, while skating his shift, Eric fell. Somehow, while falling feet first into the boards, his left skate crossed with his lower right leg, slicing through the protective sock and resulting in a nasty, deep cut which bled all over his skate. 

Courtesy of Yahoo! Sports

The damage was as significant as it was horrific: a partially-severed Achilles tendon and a severed artery, plus two less significant severed tendons in his right leg. Following two surgeries and time spent in a cast, Wellwood pondered his fate.

“I had six minutes before I bled out,” Wellwood said to the Windsor, Ontario Star. “My trainer (Greg Lowden) later told me you usually have four to six minutes before you have lost too much blood.

“Once I learned how close (it was) a couple of days later, how severe it was, it sent a chill down my spine. (I’m just) happy to still be breathing,” he added.

Wellwood, then 23, never played again.

In Los Angeles, and of all days on Apr. 1, 1978, the late, great Rick MacLeish almost made “the ultimate sacrifice” in playing Fred Shero’s brand of Flyers hockey.

Diving to knock down a pass from the King, MacLeish fell face first towards the Forum ice, where his neck was cut by the skate of future Hall-of-Famer Marcel Dionne. Escorted from the rink with virtually every available towel on the bench pressed to his neck, doctors acted swiftly to get the bleeding under control. The final tally: two gashes requiring 80 stitches to close. 

Typical of the era, the seemingly-unperturbed MacLeish quipped, as reported in Full Spectrum, “I didn’t realize I was in trouble until I took a drag of a cigarette and the smoke came out my neck.”

MacLeish, the first of two certified snipers of that era, recovered and went on to play another six years, compiling another 103 regular-season and 21 playoff goals for the club. 

And lest we forget, another soon-to-be Flyer is the reason the NHL in the mid-1980s switched from the World War II-model heavier iron nets fitted with a bar in the middle and flush against the ice to keep the puck from rebounding outward.

Just after Christmas in 1980, during a game between the Islanders and Hartford, New York’s John Tonelli drove then-Whalers defenseman Mark Howe, butt-first, into the protruding prong. The metal lifted off the ice, pierced Howe’s backside at such an angle that caused significant blood loss, but miraculously avoided penetrating anything more vital to daily function. It still took 3 1/2 years to officially remedy the situation.

Zegras was lucky, as a hundred other players in professional hockey over the decades have been on plays that end up being of little to no consequence. Until they happen and the ripples of the aftermath trigger deep consequence while affecting everything in its path.

Flyers fans, take a deep breath. And try not to think of what didn't happen.

Spectrum Memories: When Legion of Doom dominance became a Hab-it

Courtesy of the NY Times

By Bob Herpen

Phanatic Hockey Editor

When the Philadelphia Flyers raised the curtain on their 29th season in the NHL and their last in the Spectrum, 30 years ago tonight in Montreal, the hockey gods and schedule-makers couldn’t have provided an opponent more ripe for the plundering.

The Montreal Canadiens missed the playoffs during the previous, lockout-shortened season, the first time they hit the links immediately following the completion of their regular-season schedule since 1970. Head coach Jacques Demers’ hot seat became even hotter as the club had backslid three seasons in a row from a Stanley Cup title, to a first-round elimination, to sixth place in their division.

The Flyers, meanwhile, were looking to prove their own five-year climb out of hockey’s also-rans that culminated in a surprise run to the Eastern Conference Finals, was no fluke. First-year head coach Terry Murray had previously reached the third playoff round five years earlier as bench boss with the Washington Capitals. 

Since the landmark trade 240 days earlier which netted John LeClair, Eric Desjardins and Gilbert Dionne in exchange for Mark Recchi, the Flyers simply owned the Habs. Won three straight games to finish the season series 3-0-1, outscoring their Gallic foes by an 18-6 count. 

Adding insult to injury, only 16 days after the deal, LeClair ran roughshod over his former club with a hat trick in a 7-0 shellacking that stands today as the largest margin of victory for the Orange and Black in the hockey Mecca. 

After compiling 25 goals in 37 games after the deal (equivalent to 55 goals over a full 82-game schedule) then adding five more scores in 15 playoff tilts, Johnny Vermont charged into the new season fresh from inking a $7.5 million, 5-year contract and amidst plenty of press speculating how the Legion of Doom would fare for a whole season. 

Team captain Eric Lindros entered his fourth NHL season as the reigning Hart Trophy winner, robbed of a scoring title due to finishing 2 goals shy of Pittsburgh’s Jaromir Jagr and losing the league-mandated tiebreaker. 

In June, after being handed the award by Canadian writer Scott Young, father of the godfather of grunge Neil Young, the 22-year-old burst into tears. He told millions across North America “Thanks to the fans of Philadelphia who supported us when we weren’t so good. We’re getting better, and we’re gonna do it!”

Big E cried all the way to the bank after the Hart honor triggered a clause in his contract which raised his yearly salary by a whopping $600,000 as reported by Jay Greenberg in Full Spectrum. 

“When we’ve got the best player in the league, he’s worth it, don’t you think?” Greenberg reported then-Flyers owner Ed Snider responding to questions that the extension to Number 88 could have his wallet weeping.

Desjardins also reaped the windfall with a new $6 million pact over 4 years as did third-year sensation Mikael Renberg ($6.4 over 4 seasons).

“I think this group of guys wants to stay together,” Clarke noted. “And we want to keep them together.”

Finances secure, the game was essentially over before 15 minutes elapsed from puck drop. Four different Flyers punctured future Hall of Famer Patrick Roy, including Lindros, LeClair and two guys needing to secure regular roster spots in Patrik Juhlin and Rob DiMaio. Philly won the fights, too, during the 7-1 rout.

It wasn’t just the glow of a brand new season for the players.

The familiar voice you hear on the local Channel 17 broadcast in the above video is Jim Jackson. With the retirement of Gene Hart following the last of the club’s broadcasts during the Eastern Conference semifinals the previous May, the torch was passed and Jackson was promoted from the radio booth to the TV side. The pairing with former Flyer Gary Dornhoefer as color commentator would last the next 10 seasons, interrupted only by the washed-out 2004-05 campaign.

"You can't be unhappy with 28 years," Hart mused as he continued his role with the organization as a team ambassador.

In all, eight different players tied to the Flyers organization the year before lit the lamp (including Brent Fedyk, Rod Brind’Amour, Renberg for the visiteurs and Recchi for Montreal). Roy was pulled less than 23 minutes in after yielding 5 goals on 15 shots, lowering his career regular-season mark vs. Philly to 1-10-7.

The rout foreshadowed the sharp and dramatic inverse relationship to success between the two franchises during the latter half of the 1990s. 

The Flyers went on to win four straight to start the year and ended October with a 7-1-3 mark. The Canadiens scored just 4 goals in their first 5 games – all losses – while the skid finally torched Demers for good. The hiring of former Habs legend Mario Tremblay out of the broadcast booth led to a sudden 12-2-0 turnaround, but his abrasive personality caused some trouble a bit later on with Roy.

When the Flyers returned for their last Forum go-round 9 days before Christmas, the visitors rudely wore out their welcome, but this time with the Legion taking a back seat. Two narrow home victories -- 3-2 on Feb. 1 marred by an ugly incident involving Marc Bureau and Petr Svoboda and another 3-2 score during the final regular-season contest at the Spectrum in April -- meant a clean 4-0-0 season sweep vs. Montreal for the first time in franchise history. 

The Habs did not beat the Flyers again until October 26, 1996 at the spanking new Molson (now Bell) Centre and did not win in Philadelphia until well after the Orange and Black's new building was long-since christened, in January 1998.

A Child's Garden of Flyers Captaincy Chicanery, continued

Courtesy of Crossing Broad

by Bob Herpen

Phanatic Hockey Editor

The second of two parts examining the troubles, issues and unavoidable nonsense surrounding the state of the Flyers' captaincy, now focusing on the 21st Century.

We left off with the untimely ascension of Eric Desjardins to the Flyers’ captaincy in the wake of the Eric Lindros situation and the former's willingness to give it up all too easily. “Rico” loved being captain so much due to the added pressure, he up and quit, in October, 2001. As many veteran beats would quote the 1993 Cup winner both on and off the record, “aye yi yi.”

No less a respectable rag such as the New York Post reported at the time there were rumblings of disenchantment with then head coach Bill Barber – who himself endured an Icarean fall from Jack Adams Award winner the previous spring to being booted off the bench less than a year later.

The grim reaper not named Stu Grimson came next for Keith Primeau, for whom it took a long time to receive the good graces of the fanbase after being acquired from Carolina in January 2000 for the beloved Rod Brind’Amour. A veteran centerpiece by his fifth year here, Primeau looked to turn a scalding-hot 2004 playoff run into longer-term success with the Flyers. Alex Perezhogin – the only way fans would ever recall his name – permanently put an end to those dreams with one ill-timed elbow in October 2005 at Montreal.

That set the stage for Derian Hatcher. Hatcher was the first American-born captain to win a Stanley Cup (with Dallas in 1999) and became the first U.S.-born skater to take the role in Philadelphia, albeit on an interim basis initially since it was unknown if Primeau’s concussion was serious enough to end his career. 

Once Primeau was officially cooked, the mantle passed to Peter Forsberg in September 2006. A first-round draft pick in 1991 who went onto fame and fortune in Quebec and Denver, Foppa came back to adoring crowds the year before and established himself as a dominant center – when he was healthy. Forsberg played exactly 100 regular-season games as a Flyer, missing 38 others until being dealt to Nashville on Feb. 15, 2007 in a transaction whose trade tree yielded four players and neatly set up the post-Forsberg era. 

The stain on his tenure was also not his fault. Five days after an embarrassing 9-1 loss at Buffalo dropped the team’s record to 1-4-1, the club’s hockey ops structure fell victim to “Black Sunday.” That morning, Oct. 22, 2006, Bob Clarke was allowed to step down as GM, Paul Holmgren was appointed successor, with head coach Ken Hitchcock being fired and replaced with the player-friendly 2005 Calder Cup champion coach John Stevens. 

That led to Jason Smith. By then skating the 15th of his 16-year-NHL career, Smitty seemed to be the anchor a young roster needed. Until his agent let it slip in the spring of 2008 that his client wanted to test free agency, which signalled the end of his one-year run once the Orange and Black were eliminated by the rival Penguins in the Eastern finals.

So now we get to Mike Richards. One of the two Golden Children who rode that ‘05 AHL title into spots on the NHL roster, along with Jeff Carter. Given the “C” after serving notice during the club’s surprise ‘08 run, he became the face of the franchise heading into just his fourth NHL campaign. 

Richie was initially as tenacious in seeking the puck on the ice as he was seeking companionship off the ice. We were all witness to The Shift.

But then we also were hostage to Dry Island. And those times on camera where he held a Thousand Yard Stare that rivaled those of World War I and Vietnam veterans. The burden, it seemed, was placed on his shoulders too early and seemed too great to bear for the kid from Kenora, Ontario.

And then, just once, on June 23, 2011, we saw Holmgren’s Viking veneer drop when a media member asked if they really could have kept Richards instead of unloading his contract to the Kings to eventually acquire goaltender and amateur cosmonaut Ilya (Humangous Beeg) Bryzgalov.

“It’s disappointing to be traded from a place like Philadelphia where hockey is so big,” Richards said in a piece published the next day authored the LA Times’ beat Helene Elliott. “Decisions have to be made … I think it was more of a business decision than a personal one. Which doesn’t make it easier but at the same time allows you to sleep a little better at night.”

Of note during this era, multiple reports (now hiding behind a paywall) stating both center Danny Briere and franchise cornerstone Simon Gagne turned down the captaincy. Somehow, their reputations remained intact even among the older, more blue-collar-leaning fans who still hold Clarke as the alpha and omega. 

Enter the mainstream media’s best friend, Chris Pronger. Prongs brought veteran savvy and a way of

From CSN Philly

controlling the postgame scrum in the locker room from his 2009 acquisition from Anaheim that served plenty of notice to any unfortunate angle-heavy writers.

“We need to get guys together and camaraderie and chemistry and that flow going early in training camp and then onto first part of the season to get acclimated to one another, get comfortable and get off to a good start and get feeling good about ourselves so that we can get on a bit of a roll,” a prophetic Pronger said in September 2011 to Comcast SportsNet.  

After gathering a good amount of karma in making it a point to consistently defend Richards as team leader during his first two seasons in Philly, Prongs’ inevitable reign lasted all of 13 games.

First sidelined by a scary incident with his eye in late October, 2011, Pronger somehow returned to action after missing only 6 games, only to be permanently felled by post-concussion effects following a loss in Winnipeg in mid November.

We all remember Sam Carchidi’s infamously bold prediction that Claude Giroux had officially announced his presence as team leader after opening Game 6 in 2012 with a thunderous check on the eclipsed Sidney Crosby immediately followed by the game’s opening score? It apparently led to the longest single captaincy tenure in franchise history, one that didn't even officially start until late January due to a lockout.

Did Giroux do anything else that would have justified his remaining team captain for almost 10 full seasons? The man is hockey’s version of the Teflon Don. Nothing sticks. 

The punters will die on the hill that the organ-eye-zation (three GMs worth) repeatedly failed to acquire the proper talent. You *can* make an argument that nobody else fit the bill. That’s actually a solid indictment of the churning brain trust who were allergic to getting this right.

Meanwhile, Crosby helped the likes of Jake Guentzel, Patric Hornqvist, Bryan Rust, Carl Hagelin and Chris Kunitz become Stanley Cup champions.

Looking at the long-term damage the Pronger situation wreaked on the leadership matrix, who could have been a credible long-term stop gap? 

Jaromir Jagr? Well, he followed the money. Briere was at the end of his career content as an alternate. I don’t even want to get into discussing Wayne Simmonds as a taboo breaker. Hartnell Down? Bruh. Kimmo Timonen? His unimpeachable professionalism netted him the captaincy for a young Nashville franchise but his personality was in reality way too taciturn to be a motivator for a legacy franchise loaded with expectation.

It isn’t a ringing endorsement but Giroux was really the choice by de-fault. And if you’re familiar with Homer Simpson, those are the two greatest words in the English language. 

Laude spent exactly 1,000 games with the Flyers and exactly 715 of those with the “C.” How much of a legacy can really exist when exactly four playoff appearances yielded exactly one playoff series win, albeit during the COVID-shortened season? Again, can’t wait to hear from the G-Stans.

Sean Couturier currently holds the job, only having been officially designated on Valentine's Day 2024. But with Rick Tocchet now in charge and the sands in Coots’ hourglass already falling, let’s quote Ecclesiastes. There is nothing new under the sun. The decision for the captaincy hinges on a coach’s ability to tread the line between maintaining old relationships and fostering new ones.

“Had a few conversations with him over the summer,” the cagey Couturier told Jackie Spiegel in an Inquirer piece from Sept. 3. “Met him at the end of last year in person for the first time. Really looking forward to getting going and trying to build a winning team here, get back into the playoffs, and be Stanley Cup contenders.”

Couturier’s usefulness as an NHL-caliber player is bound to expire before the rebuild’s success and definitely before his contract, which is up in 2030. Yet, with his eventual retirement on the horizon and the fact that no head coach since Mike Keenan has lasted four full seasons, here’s yet another impossible leadership crossroads.

History tells us Tocchet’s next “C” change will be one based on necessity and likely won’t be a lasting one.