Flyers return to practice after the Olympic break with playoffs on the mind: ‘The urgency, the compete level needs to be up’

It’s 23,040 minutes and a handful of hours. It’s five games.

But how do you measure a year?

In goals? In saves? In shifts?

How do the Flyers’ decision-makers measure this season? That’s the question as president Keith Jones and general manager Danny Brière figure out what to do as March 6’s 3 p.m. trade deadline ticks closer.

For the players who hit the ice Tuesday for the first allowed practice after taking 11 days off for the Olympic break, they are focused on closing out strong, beginning on Feb. 25 against the Washington Capitals (7 p. m., NBCSP).

» READ MORE: Travis Sanheim learned hard work growing up on a grain farm in small-town Canada. It helped make him an Olympian.

“I don’t think there’s any emphasis on the games before the deadline, [it] doesn’t change anything for us,” winger Travis Konecny said. “We’re just looking to get back on track, kind of back to the way we were playing at the start of the season.”

The last time the Flyers were in playoff position was Jan. 12. They sat in third place in the Metropolitan Division, but since then, they have won only three of 12 games (3-6-3) and posted the fifth-worst points percentage (.375) in the NHL.

With 26 games left on the schedule, and just five until the trade deadline, time isn’t just ticking on what management will do but also ticking on the season. The Flyers enter the last stretch eight points back of both the Boston Bruins, who hold the second wild card in the Eastern Conference, and the New York Islanders in the Metropolitan Division. The Flyers have a game in hand in Boston and two on the Islanders.

“Two division opponents right when we get back, huge back-to-back,” said center Noah Cates, regarding playing the Capitals and New York Rangers on consecutive nights (8 p.m., ESPN).

“So, yeah, definitely the urgency, the compete level needs to be up, everything. Definitely huge for us to get back into shape and our structure, different things that were lacking before the break. And get reset and refocused and dialed in for huge games in February and then in March.”

Tuesday marked the start of pseudo-training camp, with seven practices over the next eight days at the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees.

Things started slowly as the players worked on getting their hands back, touching the puck for the first time in a while, and skating. Some of the drills included a small area game of keep away, with one fewer puck than the players, and someone ending up as the last man standing, and another where the players had to pass between pylons a certain number of times before being able to shoot on goal.

As the day wore on, the intensity ratcheted up — without contact — and it ended with a conditioning bag skate.

“I think you realize where we’re at in the standings, where things are schedule-wise. Right now is part of the process, and today was part of the process of getting ourselves back up to speed,” assistant coach Todd Reirden said. Reirden spoke with the media with Rick Tocchet still in Italy as an assistant coach for Hockey Canada.

“Every drill was done with a purpose and with a reason behind it to be able to get the players executing as high a pace as they possibly could, conditioning at the end, and then tomorrow, we’ll go after certain areas of our structure to improve.”

» READ MORE: Rick Tocchet’s late parents emigrated from Italy. Now, he’ll go back there to coach Canada in the Olympics

One guy the Flyers will be relying on is Konecny, who has 37 points in the past 35 games, including nine points in five games heading into the break. Banged up and playing through it — he tallied a hat trick as he gutted out and grimaced through a demoralizing loss to Columbus on Jan. 28 — the alternate captain has impressed everyone, including Reirden.

“I had a good break, got a chance to reset, get my mind in a different spot. Kind of realize where we’re at as a team and what we need to do finishing the season here. For me, just getting to the top of my game, where I need to be to help our team, and I think everyone is in the same spot,” Konecny said.

But he’s also looking ahead. Konecny, who said after the loss in Boston to the Bruins before the break that “I’m tired of missing the playoffs,” looks at the standings every day.

“I think it’s disappointing every year if you miss it,” he said on Tuesday. “I think what’s gotten everyone to this point is everyone’s a competitor, everyone wants to compete in the big games. … It’s not going to be like the end of the world if it didn’t happen; I’d be frustrated.

“But I know that the team we’re building, what we have, the plan, we’re going to be a playoff team, and I’m not worried about that. I know everyone believes in that in this locker room, so we keep on pushing. Hopefully, it happens, and we’re going to give everything to get there, and if it doesn’t, we re-evaluate and get better in the summer.”

Goalie Carson Bjarnason was recalled from Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League on Tuesday to give the Flyers two goalies with Dan Vladař at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics. … According to Reirden, defensemen Oliver Bonk and Hunter McDonald will also join the Flyers with Rasmus Ristolainen and Travis Sanheim in Italy playing for Finland and Canada, respectively, and the Phantoms off until Friday in Hershey. McDonald was with the Flyers across the weeklong trip to Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and Denver, but did not play. Bonk joined the Phantoms in early December after missing training camp and the start of the season with an upper-body injury. He has six points in 22 games.