The Philadelphia Flyers really could have cooked something up that so many fans have been begging to see all season long but instead kept more of the status quo as they are spiraling down the standings with loss after loss.
It is extremely unfortunate that center Rodrigo Abols suffered a devastating injury on Saturday that has killed his chances to represent Latvia at the Olympics next month. It is something you just never want to see and a story you never want to hear about — a player’s dreams of representing his country on the biggest stage squashed like a bug just because his leg went completely the wrong way while facing the New York Rangers.
Abols is now unofficially out for an indefinite amount of time, and after watching how he got hurt on the ice, we’re comfortable saying that it will be at least a couple months before we can even think about seeing him back in orange and black. That of course means that the Flyers needed to fill his role as fourth-line center and they did that almost immediately.
Ever so quickly, the Flyers recalled veteran depth center and Phantoms leading scorer, Lane Pederson up to the big club and he will most likely just easily take that fourth-line spot until Abols’s leg is not the other way around. Pederson, unlike the other center options the Flyers have in the AHL, does actually have some NHL experience as the 28-year-old has appeared in 71 games split between the Vancouver Canucks, San Jose Sharks, Columbus Blue Jackets, and the Arizona Coyotes.
But Pederson isn’t some sparkplug that is going to bring some high level of effective offense — not that Abols was either, but at least he had his 6-foot-4 frame to do some work. The newcomer is just someone to fill the role and someone that the Flyers do not have any plans for beyond this season.
The opposite of that is Trevor Zegras.
Flyers could have potentially found their first-line center with this opportunity
All season long, Flyers fans and some media have been clamoring for the team to at least give the team’s leading scorer a bigger chance to thrive at his natural position. Give him multiple game’s worth of leash to stick down the middle and see what happens. Head coach Rick Tocchet has had other plans as he tries desperately to see what can lead to them winning the next hockey game and barely even thinking about what’s ahead in the schedule or in the rebuild.
Zegras is that future as he came in here as a cast-off from Anaheim and instantly took over this team’s offense and has driven this team to the success they had in the first half. He’s essentially been a godsend and with Matvei Michkov not taking full control of his sophomore season, we can barely think of what this team would’ve look like without him.
The only thing that would’ve been better is if Zegras was anchored down the middle and suddenly we would be envisioning everything falling into place as he is suddenly a bona fide top-six center and the Flyers’ only one. Instead, he has been locked to the wing of Christian Dvorak and we are all still wondering how the heck this team is going to suddenly acquire someone who can play down the middle at the top of the lineup.
But now, with Abols out and a hole to fill at center, there was an opportunity for Rick Tocchet to switch his mentality and lock in Zegras as one of the team’s centers for the time being.
It’s bad and a little sad that an injury to a nice player (whose dreams have been crushed, remember) means that fans might have got what they wanted, but it was really an opportunity to re-think the lineup.
Looking at what the Flyers’ lineup could have been
While we’re in fantasyland, as soon as Abols was confirmed to be out long-term, the Flyers could have looked at their collection of 12 forwards and put them together in a way to find things out instead of trying to squeeze as many points as possible from these games.
Especially with the team in a downward spiral, now is the time to try something else and maybe look further than just the next couple games. Say the Flyers put Zegras down the middle and separated him from Dvorak, the other two center slots would easily remain with Sean Couturier and Noah Cates. None of those players would want to be the fourth-line player but that gives the team a chance to roll all four lines as scoring threats and give more of a chance to other players.
Hypothetically, the Dvorak, Cates, or Couturier lines could take on stronger opponents and lessen the workload for Zegras as he re-finds his footing in the middle. If he was fully trusted to just go out there and be with two wingers like Travis Konecny and Denver Barkey, for example, he could be in a more sheltered environment. If given a lower quality of competition just as he shakes the rust off, it would probably end up working out where he could take over and potentially be the first-line center this team has been searching for.
That is of course hoping for the best out of a hypothetical situation, but there is certainly a realistic path there. And, the worst-case scenario is that we all find out that Zegras truly cannot handle playing the center position under Tocchet. The key thing is finding out the answer and not just assuming without a lengthy opportunity taking place.
It has somewhat died down now, but that is almost certainly just coming to realization that we will never see Zegras consistently play center with Tocchet in charge, so there’s no point in complaining about the lack of opportunity. Unfortunately, there was one chance right in front of them and it has been skipped over.
But to be fair, even with Pederson recalled, there is the chance to still do this. There are 35 games left and we would be surprised if Abols plays in even 15 of those. Pederson can be switching to the wing, or even just as a healthy scratch for Nic Deslauriers and the four centers would be the exact ones in the scenario above. It’s not like Tocchet is locked into any decision for his lineup. But for the time being, and knowing that Tocchet hasn’t tried it yet, it certainly is a safe bet that Zegras won’t really be given a multi-game stretch to play down the middle and get back to his natural position.
It’s all just about finding things out for the time being and with the Flyers’ season now likely ending after Game 82, the focus should be even more on the future and Zegras is such a big part of that. Finding out if he can be the first-line center we all want, could be
