Flyers activate Tyson Foerster from IR; Oilers star Leon Draisaitl’s advice for Matvei Michkov

After returning to Flyers practice Tuesday, Tyson Foerster skated Wednesday with the team for an up-tempo optional morning skate at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

According to coach Rick Tocchet, the winger was expected to be a game-time decision when the Flyers host the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday (7:30 p.m., NBCSP).

“You’ve got a good feel, there’s a good possibility,” Tocchet said, adding that the defensive pairings were staying the same.

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But as the day wore on, the injured reserve icon was removed next to Foerster’s name on the roster posted on the NHL’s media website. Forward Carl Grundström was also missing from the roster after making his Flyers debut Nov. 8 against the Ottawa Senators.

The Flyers finally made it official around 5 p.m., activating Foerster and loaning Grundström back to Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League. Grundström was not subject to waivers.

The Flyers placed Foerster on injured reserve Nov. 3 with a lower-body injury, retroactive to Nov. 1. The winger blocked a slap shot by Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly with 13 minutes, 51 seconds left in the first period on Nov. 1. The shot from Rielly appeared to hit him on the inside of the left ankle, and, after Auston Matthews tied the score at 1 seconds later, Foerster went down in pain and then down the tunnel. He returned and played the rest of the night, scoring his fourth goal of the season in the third period on a power play.

But Foerster did not play in the Flyers’ 2-1 loss to the Calgary Flames the next day, and according to a source at the time, the expectation was that he would miss 10-14 days. He missed four games while on IR.

Slotting back in, Foerster will be thrown directly into the fire. He skated with his usual linemates, Noah Cates and Bobby Brink, at practice, and the trio is expected to go head-to-head with Oilers star Connor McDavid’s line.

“Obviously, it’s a tough night with his speed, his skill, just everything he brings, you know, McDavid, [Leon] Draisaitl, and how dangerous they are,” Cates said Tuesday. “So you’ve got to be focused. You’ve got to be smart defensively and really disciplined, and a huge game for our team. You need everyone. ... It’s not just individual guys, just structure and making them go through five guys.”

Foerster has four goals and seven points in 11 games this season with a plus-minus of plus-5.

There’s been a heavy focus on Matvei Michkov since he arrived in Philly in the summer of 2024. It is expected, as the 20-year-old Russian, who was drafted seventh overall in 2023, brings a level of skill and potential the team has not seen in decades.

But with the spotlight comes over-analysis of his every move and every word, whether by him, Tocchet, or, as seen over the weekend, his teammates — even if it was a perfectly acceptable response by Sean Couturier to a question about what Michkov has been doing to work through a scoring drought.

“I think it just comes with wanting to be the best, and wanting to be talked about, right?” Draisaitl said. “Like, it’s not always going to be positive, it’s not always going to be great.”

Draisaitl knows a thing or two about being in the spotlight. He has won a Hart Trophy as the NHL’s MVP and is the league’s reigning Rocket Richard Trophy winner after scoring 52 goals last year. The Oilers forward, who hails from Germany, has been living in Michkov’s shoes of high expectations since he entered the NHL in 2014.

“We’re all trying to be the best that we can be,” he said. “I’m sure he wants to be talked about. He wants to be one of the best players in the league, and sometimes there’s harsh conversations or there’s hard things that come with that. That’s just the way it is. Yeah, it doesn’t always need to be roses and everything’s perfect, that type of way. So sometimes it’s OK for it to be direct.”

Draisaitl has been playing alongside McDavid since 2015, as has Canadian defenseman Darnell Nurse. They’ve all been playing under pressure in hockey-crazed Canada and a city that is craving a first Stanley Cup since 1990.

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“It’s tough. These markets, when you come in with high expectations and are really good players, there’s going to be pressure, so to say, externally,” Nurse said. “I think as athletes, you just try to take care of what you can within your game, and Connor was so good at that, worry about playing, and then kind of, the rest kind of takes care of itself.

“So obviously, there’s pressure when you’re playing in a market that cares a lot about the game, cares about the team. It’s part of the job, and just means you’re playing in a market that cares.”

Defensemen Noah Juulsen and Cam York, forwards Christian Dvorak and Trevor Zegras, and goalie Dan Vladař were the only players who did not participate in the optional morning skate. All are expected to play, and Vladař will start against the Oilers. ... Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch was with the Flyers as an assistant coach during defenseman Travis Sanheim’s first two seasons. “When I left here, he was just about to take off,” Knobaluch said after Edmonton’s morning skate. “He was probably, at the start of the season, he was a seventh defenseman. As the season went on, he moved up, became a regular defenseman, and probably made it into maybe the top four. Obviously now, he’s one of the better defensemen in the league, [having] conversations beyond Team Canada. A guy who’s playing 25-plus minutes a night, all situations. And I think there was always the belief that he could be an impact defenseman. Just that young guy who was just getting the confidence to do it. And as that season was progressing, you could see him transitioning into being a good player.”