VOORHEES, N.J. – The Flyers’ climb back to respectability this season didn’t come without a cost.
At least 10 players finished the season with some sort of injury of note.
Flyers general manager Daniel Briere said all but one of those should be ready for the start of next season.
The one exception might be Nikita Grebenkin, who was sidelined for a good portion of the end of the season. He’s currently listed with an upper-body injury.
When asked about the injury situation, Briere was asked if he has concerns heading into the 2026-27 schedule.
“Not at the moment,” Briere said during Thursday’s end-of-season press conference at the Flyers Training Center. “There’s one, maybe (Nikita) Grebenkin (upper-body injury), depending on how it goes. Initially we thought it was going to be something short. It just never got better. Now we’re looking at different options for him.
“He’s the only one I would say maybe, if it doesn’t improve. . .other than that, everybody else should be back healthy, one hundred percent for next season.”
Briere said most of the players will have the summer to train. There were a couple of summers where players had injuries which hindered their ability to go full throttle.
“They had to kind of change their training,” Briere said. “They weren’t able to completely train the way they wanted to, get ready for the season.
“I think everyone (except Grebenkin) will be able to go full out training-wise. So that’s exciting.”
According to Briere, here is the list of injured players heading into the offseason.
>Emil Andrae: Fractured wrist, requires surgery.
>Alex Bump: MCL sprain.
>Noah Cates: Fractured foot, no surgery required.
>Christian Dvorak: Fractured foot, separated shoulder.
>Nikita Grebenkin: Upper-body injury.
>Garnet Hathaway: Fractured fibula.
>Travis Konecny: Fractured rib, nasal fracture.
>Owen Tippett: Internal bleeding, core muscle injury.
>Cam York: Fractured rib.
>Trevor Zegras: Elbow ligament sprain.
Tippett had to miss the entire Carolina series because of the internal bleeding and the core muscle injury.
“As far as I know, there’s nothing else really to worry about,” Briere said. “He just needed a little extra time. And things are trending in the right direction. He was able to do everything on the ice except contact.
“If we had kept playing, there’s a strong chance he would have been back, later in the second round or the third round.”
The Flyers weren’t crazy about getting swept by Carolina in the second round of the playoffs but they weren’t using injuries as excuses.
Philadelphia could only manage five goals in four games. They certainly missed Cates, Tippett and so forth.
“That’s part of it,” Briere said. “But it’s also the playoffs. In the playoffs, it’s a little tougher to create, it’s tighter. Everybody is playing a little extra hard. Nobody wants to give you an inch. Certainly with a break or two we could have made it to Game 5 or 6, but that’s how it goes.”
>Praise for Tocchet
Briere’s association with coach Rick Tocchet goes all the way back to their playing days together in Arizona.
The Flyers’ GM hired Tocchet confident he could get this team headed back in the right direction.
“I thought he did a great job,” Briere said. “It was fun to see him – and I knew him as a teammate – and watched from afar when he was coaching. I was really impressed with how involved he was with the players. He almost became a skills coach as well as a head coach.
“It was almost as if he was filling different boxes. The amount of time he’s spending on the ice after practice. Most coaches are off the ice and gone. It was really impressive how he stayed and worked with guys individually. There’s a connection there. He’s a player’s coach.”
Tocchet posted impressive career numbers. That goes a long way toward credibility with players.
“I love how he uses experience as a player to relate to,” the GM said. “Everything Rick Tocchet earned in his career he earned the hard way. Nothing was ever given to him. That’s kind of the mentality he brought on with our guys.”
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