Flyers’ defenseman Nick Seeler walked away from the NHL, came back, and now has his first playoff goal
The 32-year-old, who took a mental reset from the game in 2021, has found a home in Philadelphia as an unsung glue guy. But in Game 3, he found himself in the limelight for once.
About an hour-and-a-half after scoring his first playoff goal in Wednesday’s 5-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins, Nick Seeler stood in the middle of the Flyers’ locker room, laughing at the small black platform in front of him. He made a self-effacing joke as he stepped on top of it.
Over a dozen reporters stared back at him. Cameras and boom microphones and lighting equipment hovered above.
“This is so weird,” the defenseman said.
It’s hard to fault him for feeling that way. Seeler has spent a lifetime in the background, quietly grinding through the game he loves. According to his former youth hockey coach, and agent, Chris LaCombe, the 32-year-old used to be the undersized kid on his bantam team.
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This remained true throughout most of his time at Eden Prairie High School; Seeler didn’t make the varsity squad until his junior year. He was selected in the fifth round of the 2011 NHL draft by his hometown team, the Minnesota Wild, played junior hockey for a year, played college hockey for three, and spent the 2016-17 season with the Iowa Wild of the AHL.
Even after he made his debut with Minnesota in 2018, Seeler struggled to stay in the pros. He shuffled back and forth from the NHL to the AHL, and was waived in February of 2020. The Chicago Blackhawks claimed him, only to terminate his contract in January of 2021.
The defenseman decided to take a break, physically and mentally. He walked away from the sport, and went home to help his dad, Dan, who owns a paint distribution and manufacturing company in nearby Shakopee.
About two or three months later, Seeler reached out to LaCombe.
“He sent me a text,” LaCombe recalled. “‘Hey, let’s talk. I can’t sit in an office. This is crazy.’”
The Flyers signed the defenseman that summer to a one-year, two-way deal where nothing was promised. He earned a two-year extension in May of 2022, and inked a four-year, $10.8 million extension in March of 2024.
And now, in April of 2026, he’s firing pucks from the blue line, through a whole lot of traffic, to give his team a cushion over the Penguins in Game 3 of its Eastern Conference first-round series.
“He was never the first guy, second guy, third guy,” said LaCombe. “There was always somebody else being picked. And I think he just got used to that.
“I’m OK with being in third place. I’m going to fight to get to first place. And he simply outlasted them all.”
Getting the ‘fire’ back
Seeler has long been known as the consummate team guy, one who will do the thankless grunt work of taking blows and blocking shots and eating pucks. His willingness to put his body on the line has endeared him to many of his comrades.
In December of 2018, with not even a full NHL season under his belt, a 25-year-old Seeler took on Nic Deslauriers, one of the toughest guys in the league, in the second period of a game between the Wild and the Montreal Canadiens.
Deslauriers grabbed Seeler by his jersey, and threw about 10 right hooks, before both players tumbled onto the ice.
“He punched him so hard, that one of the players on the Wild bench said, ‘I thought someone hit a coconut with a baseball bat,’” LaCombe said. “But [Nick] did it because he was a new guy in the league, just coming up. And Deslauriers is in his prime. Everybody is afraid of him.
“[Nick] stood up for his team. ‘I’m not afraid, I’ll go in there with you.’”
Absorbing the physical anger of opposing teams, night in and night out, wasn’t easy, especially amid his unstable position with the Wild and the Blackhawks. So, Seeler told his family and his agent he’d take a break in 2021.
He continued to work out, but stayed off the ice for a while, until that spark reignited within. He began to skate at the University of Minnesota’s rink, and texted LaCombe shortly after.
“I started to get that fire and that passion back,” Seeler said, “and wanted to get back into it. And ultimately got an opportunity here, which I was extremely thankful for.”
Former Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher, who originally drafted Seeler with the Wild in 2011, expressed interest, and before long, the defenseman was donning orange and black.
It gave Seeler some much-needed stability. In Philadelphia, he found an organization that believed in him, so much so that they re-signed him not once, but twice. He gelled with his coaches (John Tortorella endearingly called him a “nut job”) and began to take on more of a mentorship role with his teammates.
But one thing he never got was the limelight, even in a big sports city like Philadelphia.
Seeler didn’t mind this. If anything, he seemed to prefer it. But on Wednesday night, when he ripped that puck past Pittsburgh goalie Stuart Skinner, all eyes turned to him.
And even then, as the defenseman stood on that small black platform, Seeler chose to make the moment about anyone but himself.
“[Noah Juulsen] made a great play over to me, and we had a great screen in front,” he said. “And thankfully, it went in.”
» READ MORE: Sielski: The Flyers won Game 3 the way they used to, and it all felt fresh and new and promising.
