After the most recent presser from the Philadelphia Flyers‘ Governor and CEO Dan Hilferty and President of Hockey Operations Keith Jones, it certainly sounds like the team is ready to take the next steps in transitioning out of their rebuild and into a line of contention.
Jones mentioned several times that the Flyers will now be looking to add instead of subtracting, which had been their mode of operations over the last few years. He alluded to a few more interesting points about how they knew they had to move out Sean Walker even when they were in a playoff position two seasons ago so they could keep on track with their rebuild, and that now they owe it to the players to get better.
While expectations should be tempered once again ahead of the 2025-26 season, there’s still an air around the Flyers of uncertainty; in the sense that we still don’t know what to expect from this group. If the new coaching staff can light a fire under them, they have the capabilities of pushing for a wild card spot, however as we’ve seen over the years, dry spells are very common.
Coupled with Jones’ comments about the Flyers looking to make a statement in the very near future, that should put the spotlight on at least one player in particular that needs to get off to a strong start to further cement his place on the roster in Owen Tippett.
Tippett had seen his name come up in trade rumours just one year removed from signing an 8-year contract extension. He certainly took a step back from his 2023-24 season that saw him put up career-highs across the board in goals (28), assists (25), points (53) and shots (289).
Th 26-year-old forward was acquired in the Claude Giroux trade ahead of the trade deadline in 2022. He had a statement season in 2022-23 when he popped 27 goals and 49 points in 77 games with a career-high 17:26 ATOI. Tippett had also put himself in John Tortorella’s good graces and earned a lot more opportunities on the ice than he had ever been granted in his time with Florida.
With 55 goals and 102 points over his first 2 full seasons in Philadelphia, a lot more of the same was expected in 2024-25. Unfortunately, he slumped to the tune of 20 goals and 43 points in 77 games and managed just 188 shots for a shot-first winger.
He started off the season with a bit more vigour as he potted 11 goals and 22 points in his first 34 games but then found it really difficult to produce offensively in his final 43 games with just 9 goals and 21 points.
He came out of the 4 Nations break with 4 goals and 5 points in 3 games but then ended the year with just 2 goals in his final 22 contests and just 46 shots on goal.
There weren’t too many standout offensive performances to talk about last year outside of Matvei Michkov and Travis Konecny. Tyson Foerster did look a lot better once Brad Shaw took over as the interim, Sean Couturier had his moments as well, and Noah Cates quietly produced for what his role was.
Tippett needs to be near the front of the line of the Flyers’ attack alongside Foerster to help players like Michkov and Konecny. We had seen the electric side of Tippett in bunches during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, so perhaps last year was a bit of anomaly, however 2025-26 is going to be an important year for a variety of reasons.
For starters, he’s going to need to prove that he can be a front-line offensive players for the Flyers who are looking to shape and mold their roster with an infusion of youth on their way. Tippett is also going to have to prove his contract with 7 years remaining at a cap hit of $6.2 million.
For what the Flyers are currently building, they have their alpha/superstar-in-the-making in Michkov at the front of the line and Konecny as the point-per-game 1B to Michkov’s 1A. After that, the following tier needs to belong to the scoring wingers on this team like Tippett, Foerster, and even Trevor Zegras if he can become a focal point in the coming years.
Tippett has the ability to be a 30-35 goal scorer, considering he’s only 1 full season removed from a 28-goal campaign. However, what last year showed us, is that he needs to regain a lot more of that confidence and swagger we saw previously.
188 shots isn’t going to do it for a shot-first winger, especially since that’s 101 shots less than he registered from the year before, for an offense that’s screaming for goal scoring production.
If you dig deeper into his season, he was second on the team with 2.4 shots on goal per game and first with 5.5 attempts, however that differs from his team-leading 3.7 shots on goal and 7.0 shots attempted per game from the year before.
Even further down the pipe, Tippett may have had less total shots that missed the net or that were blocked, but percentage wise, it was a whole lot worse. 28.1% of Tippett’s shots missed the net in 2023-24 but that number jumped to 36.3% in 2024-25 and his net miss % above expected jumped from 1.5% to 8.5%.
A much improved power play will go a long way for all of the offensive players on this team. League-wide, there are so many dynamic power plays, and even more players who pad their season total numbers with their power play performances. The Flyers haven’t had that level of success in a long time and it shows.
Tippett didn’t even score a power play in 2024-25 and that’s coming off of 5 tallies in 2023-24 and 8 in 2022-23. He even tallied 2 power play goals in 45 games for Florida in 2020-21 and 1 for the Flyers after the Giroux trade. Although his power play minutes decreased from 208 to 147.7, 0 goals is unacceptable.
We can easily use Rocky Thompson as the scapegoat for the last few years but with a new coaching staff behind the bench and a different voice in charge of the power play, we need to see something close to double digits from Tippett, at the very least.
He’s not the only one that needs to improve on the power play as the Flyers didn’t have a single player reach double digits. Michkov and Konecny led the way with 8 tallies, Foerster had 6, 3 players were tied for 2, and another 4 players were tied for 1 that included Morgan Frost, Ryan Poehling, and Andrei Kuzmenko.
Even beyond the power play itself, the Flyers only had 2 players score more than 50 points in Konecny and Michkov. Couturier, Foerster, Tippett, and Bobby Brink were between 41 and 45 points, and that’s the list. They also only had four 20-goal scorers and Michkov was the only player to reach 200 shots on goal.
So it’s obvious that the philosophy needs to change, the players need to be more confident, and the wingers who are being paid to score goals need to provide and that starts with Tippett.
It’s going to be another developmental season for the Flyers and if they can get a few breakout offensive performances from guys like Tippett and Foerster, that will go a long way into what Daniel Briere is trying to build on the ice as their young prospects are beginning to slowly funnel through the pipeline.
Tippett has a top-6 and power play role more than likely entrenched heading into the season. Depending on what Rick Tocchet is looking for from his even strength lines, Tippett could start with the highly skilled Zegras feeding him passes, which should go a long way if he decides to fire more shots towards the net.
To his credit, he has looked good in the preseason so far, where he recorded a power play goal – of all things – against Montréal, as well as an assist on the man advantage against Boston.
With the second year of his contract kicking in and the start of the regular season less than 2 weeks away, look for Tippett to try to bury his disappointing 2024-25 season with a much improved 2025-26 showing.
