Flyers ‘stayed hungry’ after their playoff run, and it showed as training camp begins
The Flyers know they won't sneak up on anyone this year, but with plenty of returnees, they're confident as training camp gets underway.
Near the end of a two-on-two training camp drill on Thursday, Tyson Foerster beat Travis Konecny and ripped a shot top-shelf past Joseph Woll.
That shot sparked a playful argument — had Foerster tied the score, 3-3? Was it still 3-2, as Konecny insisted?
After a bit of chirping, Woll, who was acquired in a trade from the Toronto Maple Leafs over the summer, finally gestured that Konecny was right, he’d only allowed the two goals.
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“We were talking about a couple camps ago when I was a rookie, I blew him up out there,” Foerster said jokingly. “So he said it was going to be a hard camp. And we’re going against each other out there, we’re trying to make each other better, so we always have good competition, and it’s a lot of fun.”
There’s a new energy around the Flyers following the team’s first playoff berth in five seasons. On the walls of the practice facility, a new poster reading “be here for the rise” looked down on the first official training camp practice of 2026-27, the first season in a while in which the Flyers will have serious expectations from the beginning.
Winning a playoff series and losing to the Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes in the second round was a big step forward for a young group of Flyers, many of whom had never played in a postseason game before.
But general manager Danny Brière said the fear that “keeps [him] up at night” is that his team will grow complacent following the progress made last season and stagnate. On the ice, Konecny said the hunger to keep achieving is already evident.
“Coming back, we’re still talking about it,” Konecny said. “It tells me that guys kept that in the back of their heads all summer, stayed hungry. They want more of it.”
Coach Rick Tocchet said even on the first day, it was clear just how much that playoff experience helped the development of the Flyers’ young players, with notable improvements in terms of their patience with the puck.
Winger Owen Tippett also said the team got significantly closer during the playoff push and subsequent run. Having so many returnees this season built the excitement and the internal competition over the summer.
After winning a playoff round, the Flyers won’t sneak up on teams the way they did last year. They conceded the first goal 31 times in the regular season, and managed to win 22 games in which they were down by at least one goal, including seven games where they trailed by a goal in the third period.
The Flyers won’t be able to rely on those types of comebacks this year, but Tocchet said that the playoff experience helped to teach the team how to lock a game down and when to push the pace. Tippett agreed that the new year will force the Flyers to start on the front foot.
“It’s nice to go in and surprise teams, but at the same time, you want teams to come at you right away,” Tippett said. “It pushes us to be better as well. We need to take that next step and be prepared and know that teams are going to come at us right away and challenge us early. That’s the next step for us too, to take it head on and start on time.”
Breakaways
Eleven players were added to the team’s training camp roster ahead of opening day on Thursday: Forwards Brady Berard, Alex Čiernik, Matthew Gard, Owen McLaughlin, Ilya Pautov, Nathan Quinn, and KJ Sauer; defensemen Brek Liske and Luke Vlooswyk; and goaltenders Martin Psohlavec and Marek Sklenička.
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