Sean Couturier may be the team's captain. Matvei Michkov is the darling of the team right now. However, the Flyers' highest-paid player is their most talented. That guy is Travis Konecny.
He is no longer a "young player". He is a respectable, all-star veteran. He is a team leader. The team rises and falls on him, taking their lead while he puts the team on his back. It's time to take the role of a leader and bring this team to new heights.
Konecny was a first-round pick by the Flyers in 2015. He was selected 24th overall in the same draft that they selected Ivan Provorov seventh overall. He appeared in 70 games that season, scoring 11 goals and showing the speed and toughness he continues to have now. He missed nine games due to injury, but finished the season on a line with Claude Giroux and Michael Raffl.
After a slow start to his second season (two goals in the first 17 games), he exploded the rest of the way for his first of three straight 24-goal seasons. He became an All-Star in 2019-20 and was on fire before the world shut down due to COVID-19. During the playoff bubble, he kind of disappeared. In the 16 games the Flyers appeared in, he registered seven assists with no goals, despite leading the Flyers with 24 that season.
That poor playoff performance drew the ire of then-head coach Alain Vigneault. He was benched and scratched for poor play. Even though the 2020-21 season was shortened because of the pandemic, he scored just 11 goals. The following season, his performance continued to stagnate until Vigneault was fired.
What's interesting is that while Konecny struggled under Vigneault, he flourished under John Tortorella. In his first two seasons, he broke the 30-goal mark. In 2023-24, he led the league with shorthanded goals as he was used on the penalty kill and became a deadly player to use when down a man. It was as if Tortorella unlocked the greatness within Konecny.
Because of his improved play, the Flyers signed him until 2033. The team is pretty much being formed around him. But like everyone else, he struggled last year. His goal totals fell from 33 to 24, but he set career highs in assists (52) and points (76). You could attribute this to him dishing out goals to linemates Tyson Foerster and Matvei Michkov
With Giroux gone, the offense revolves around Konecny. He has led the team in points for the last four seasons and goals for three of the last four. It's the reason why the Flyers signed him to that long, expensive contract. He gets everything started.
While he has performed well, the team around him has not. You can blame some of it on the coach, but the players are the ones on the ice. We have seen a coach affecting a good player, as Vigneault hindered the growth of Konecny. However, he did well under Tortorella.
If Rick Tocchet can help some of the younger players adapt to a new system, you can assume Konency will thrive and lead the way. For a 28-year-old entering his tenth season, he is no longer a young kid waiting to become great. Greatness is within his reach.
Konecny is rising high on the Flyers' charts. He has 476 career points. With a 70-point season, he would sit 13th all-time. He has played 646 games as a Flyer, which is 16th all-time. A 70-game season would be 13th all time (he is currently at 16th, six behind John LeClair).
He is two goals from reaching 200 in his career. A 30-goal season would put him ahead of his head coach and just outside the top 10. He is 22 assists away from 300 in his career, putting him three behind Eric Desjardins' 303, which is 15th all-time.
Konecny has a chance to have a very historic year for himself and the Flyers. He has to take every advantage of it. Quietly, we are witnessing what could become one of the great careers in Flyers history unfolding. While Couturier is the captain, Konecny is the leader in every other sense. It's time he builds on his success so far and becomes the player he is known to be.