Tyson Foerster is ready to roll after last year’s injury setback: He ‘could score 40 goals in this league’

Tyson Foerster skated through the neutral zone, stepped to his right, and ripped a shot past Carson Bjarnason in the Flyers’ scrimmage on Saturday.

The shot brought to mind what could have been last season had the winger been healthy for the full 82-game slate.

Foerster suffered an upper-body injury while attempting a one-timer against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Dec. 1 that required surgery two weeks later. At the time, he led the Flyers with 10 goals across the team’s first 25 games, hitting double digits in the game he got hurt.

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The 24-year-old returned in April after missing 49 games, notching three goals in the final eight contests of the regular season, before adding one in 10 playoff games. He finished the regular season with 13 goals in 29 games.

Last year’s setback came after Foerster had surgery in the 2025 offseason because of a right elbow injury he suffered during that spring’s World Championships that became infected.

“Yeah, this summer was completely different,” Foerster told The Inquirer on Friday. “This is the first summer I went home in like five years — I’ve been in Voorhees training here for the last five years — so it was good to go home and see my family more.

“And had a great trainer and skated like three to four times a week, so it was really good and a lot of shoulder rehab stuff just to make sure they’re both strong, and heavy legs. Kind of the usual stuff for everyone.”

Foerster trained with David Blaise, who he had been with since he was a kid playing hockey in Ontario. He would spend time in the gym upstairs in between work on the rink downstairs with a skating coach. The winger also went to Muskoka Hockey and skated with NHLers there; former Flyers forward Sam Gagner leads the program.

Finally being able to train properly has boosted Foerster’s confidence. When he came back in April, he acknowledged that “for sure I felt a little tentative,” but at a certain point he forgot about it, and now feels 100%.

“I do. I’m not just saying that, I do,” coach Rick Tocchet said on Monday when asked if he sees a difference from last year’s training camp.

“He’s been rehabbing for two years, and it’s nice to go home for the summer and not rehab, and just work on your game. You can see it. He looks quicker, and he just looks good. You can tell he put a good summer in, and he’s refreshed. So that really helps us in the department of shot-quick guys, right? He can shoot the puck off passes. ... When you get those guys in the lineup, hard to find those guys because they can shoot from anywhere and score.”

Foerster’s shot is much talked about and is a major reason the Flyers made an eight-year, $56.7 million commitment to the winger this summer. Tocchet consistently mentioned how much they missed Foerster’s shot when the season dipped around the Olympics, and how it could have further boosted the offense as the team started to surge.

Across his 195 regular-season games in orange and black, Foerster has 61 goals. His 0.31 goals per game mark ranks third among Flyers who have played at least 100 games since he made his NHL debut on March 9, 2023.

“I think my shot’s always been one of the stronger suits for me,” he said. “And I worked on it all summer too. It’s more about deception and getting the shot off quick than being hard. And honestly, picking the spot too. There’s a bunch of spots that you see the goalie and trying to time it right where he pushes off, and you shoot the other way, so just little stuff like that.”

Foerster couldn’t really work on his shot last summer because of his elbow injury, so he spent this summer working on finding lanes, his hands, wall play, and getting pucks through defenders. He practiced beating opponents one-on-one, specifically using his body more to protect the puck.

It will help at five-on-five but also on the power play, where Foerster is expected to play a key role.

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On Monday, after practice with the non-game group, he stayed on the ice with Trevor Zegras, Jamie Drysdale and Matvei Michkov. They appeared to be working on the power play while getting direction from assistant coach Jaroslav “Yogi” Svejkovský, who is in charge of the Flyers’ man advantage. Zegras was on the right flank, Drysdale at the point, Michkov around the crease, with Foerster on the right flank and taking one-timers.

“I think Tyson’s awesome,” winger Porter Martone said on Monday. “I’ve gotten pretty close to him this year specifically; since I’ve been here, I’ve been hanging out a lot, and I try to pick his brain as much as I can. I always say this: he could be a first-line guy who could score 40 goals in this league, but he could also be a third-line guy who shuts down other teams’ top lines every night.

“So I think that’s someone who you look at. He works extremely hard, and he just does it the right way. And I think it’s someone who just cares about winning, and that’s exactly what we need.”

The thing with Foerster is that while, yes, he’s a goal scorer, he’s also a monster defensively. It’s why Tocchet called him a “jack of all trades” on Monday, noting he can be out there when they need a goal or need to stop one.

“He does everything right, everything the right way,” said forward Noah Cates, who has primarily been Foerster’s center for several seasons and is his penalty-killing compatriot.

“He plays so hard, protects pucks, and when he’s going, he honestly can be our best player and dominate games in such different ways, especially with his stick and defensively. But that shot is just, it’s lethal as well. So yeah, he’s really come around these past couple years, and [with] him healthy for a full year, who knows how many goals he can score; he can get up there. So really excited for him.”

Forward Nikita Grebenkin skated with the non-game group on Monday in a regular jersey. He had spent the first few days of training camp in a yellow non-contact jersey. Flyers general manager Danny Brière had said the forward’s status for the start of training camp was a little up in the air after “a little flare-up” in early September of an upper-body injury that occurred in March and caused him to miss the rest of the season and playoffs. ... Goaltender Joseph Woll will get his first start in orange and black on Monday in the Flyers’ first preseason game against the Washington Capitals (7 p.m., NBCSP). According to Tocchet, he will play two periods, and Bjarnason will play the third. ... Other notable names playing on Monday are forwards Jett Luchanko, Denver Barkey, Porter Martone, and Alex Bump, and defensemen David Jiříček, Ty Murchison, Oliver Bonk, and Simon Benoit.