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The Philadelphia Flyers held a late morning practice on Saturday at the FTC in Voorhees. The session featured a full of roster players, with the exception of the team’s Olympians. Goaltender Dan Vladar, who just returned from the Olympics in Milan, will not practice until Monday.
The team recalled defenseman Adam Ginning and goaltender Aleksei Kolosov for Saturday’s session.
Saturday’s line combinations
The Flyers rotated their defensemen during Saturday’s practice. However, coach Todd Reirden experimented with a pairing of Emil Andrae with Jamie Drysdale.
Trevor Zegras – Christian Dvorak – Travis Konecny
Matvei Michkov – Noah Cates – Bobby Brink
Denver Barkey – Sean Couturier – Owen Tippett
Nikita Grebenkin – Carl Grundstrom – Garnet Hathaway
Emil Andrae – Jamie Drysdale
Cam York
Nick Seeler
Noah Juulsen
Adam Ginning
Samuel Ersson
Aleksei Kolosov
Special teams practice
Reirden divided practice into two distinct portions with a break between sessions. During special teams work, the assistant coach rolled out these power play units:
Unit 1: Jamie Drysdale, Trevor Zegras. Travis Konecny, Christian Dvorak, Bobby Brink
Unit 2: Cam York, Matvei Michkov,Denver Barkey, Noah Cates, Owen Tippett
Ristolainen wins bronze in Milan
Flyers defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen concluded a successful Olympics on Saturday with a bronze medal. Finland gained revenge on Slovakia with a 6-1 rout. The Slovaks, of course, opened the tournament by beating the Finns, 4-1.
On an individual basis, Ristolainen enjoyed a very strong tournament. He averaged 19:45 of ice time across six games, posting three assists and a plus-nine rating. The International Ice Hockey Federation does not track blocked shots or hits as official statistics. However, “Risto” unofficially notched about 10 blocks and hits apiece.
It’s not a secret that Philadelphia general manager Daniel Briere is open to trading Ristolainen (and absorbing cap) for the remainder of the 2025-26 and 2026-27 seasons. The Flyers will exit the Olympic break nine points out of a playoff spot including the regulation wins tiebreaker. Nevertheless, Briere does not plan to be a seller for subtraction’s sake. The GM is not opposed to acquiring Draft pick assets but he has an eye on adding non-rental NHL talents.
The concern with Ristolainen: durability. He’s dealt with frequent injury-related absences in recent years. Most notably, he’s had two surgeries to repair torn right triceps. The Flyers are a better hockey team with Ristolainen than without him. Nevertheless, the pros of a trade may outweigh the cons even when factoring replacement cost specific to the player’s on-ice role.
Ristolainen entered the NHL at age 18. He’s now 31 years old. He still has productive years left if healthy. Unfortunately, Ristolainen’s ability to stay healthy remains questionable. He has logged a lot of hard minutes during his 795-game NHL career with the Buffalo Sabres and Flyers. Moreover, he’s never played in the Stanley Cup playoffs. If not traded this season or over the summer, 2026-27 will likely be the big Finn’s final campaign with the Orange and Black.
Olympic gold at stake
Every player in the Flyers’ locker room will root hard for Travis Sanheim in Sunday’s Olympic gold medal game. Sanheim is one of the team’s best-liked and most respected players. In terms of team rooting interest, however, the Philly players will be like their counterparts on every other NHL club.
The American players will, of course, pull for Team USA. The Canadians will root for Team Canada. Dual citizen Sean Couturier, born in Arizona but raised in Canada and a past Team Canada player, will also pull for the Canadians. Meanwhile, the team’s Europeans will stir the pot and try to the U.S.and Canadian guys to chirp each other.
Within the Flyers’ locker room, there are seven American players: defensemen Nick Seeler and Cam York and forwards Bobby Brink, Noah Cates, Christian Dvorak, Garnet Hathaway and Trevor Zegras. Five of the seven have themselves represented Team USA in past major international tournaments, although not at the Olympics.
Meanwhile, Russia remains banned by the IIHF. This is not just because of the war in Ukraine but also because it’s nearly impossible to extricate Russian sports programs (especially hockey) from Vladimir Putin and his closest oligarch support base. The Putin government, the powers-that-be in the Russian Hockey Federation and the Kontinental Hockey League are basically all one and the same. Unfortunately, it’s the athletes themselves who suffer the consequences. From a hockey competition standpoint, it also means major tournaments lack a major component of a true best vs. best field.
We’ll never know if Matvei Michkov would have made Team Russia for the 2026 Olympic team had the Russian Federation been eligible. Russian hockey legend Igor Larionov, for one, does not believe so. Speaking to The Athletic, Larionov selected his own theoretical Team Russia. He included several young NHL players, including Ivan Demidov. Michkov would have missed the cut if Larionov were the national team general manager.
Phantoms Update
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The Hershey Bears have historically made life miserable for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. With some notable exceptions, the Bears have gotten the better of the Phantoms more than the current Flyers’ American League farm team has beaten Philly’s predecessor affiliate.
However, the Phantoms have generally fared well this season against the Washington Capitals current-day affiliate. On Saturday, the Phantoms won a seesaw road match, 6-4. Lehigh Valley improved to 5-2-2 against Hershey in 2025-26, including a weekend sweep.
After dropping below hockey .500 for the season overall, the Phantoms are now back up to one win above (23-22-4). On Saturday, the Phantoms built a 4-1 lead and nearly saw it slip away. In the third period, John Snowden’s club had to kill back-to-back penalties. Ultimately, Lehigh Valley held on for the win.
Now healthy following an extended absence from the lineup, rookie winger Alex Bump (9th and 10th goals of the season) notched a pair of tallies. Alexis Gendron and Zayde Wisdom scored their respective ninth goals of the campaign. Rookie defenseman Oliver Bonk (3rd) also scored along with fellow blueliner Christian Kyrou. Meanwhile, Carson Bjarnason earned the win in goal.
BUMPER’S BACK#LVvsHER | #LVPhantoms pic.twitter.com/WsfoMgL2gB
— Lehigh Valley Phantoms (@LVPhantoms) February 22, 2026
The victory was the Phantoms’ 400th win since they relocated to Allentown.The Phantoms return to PPL Center on Wednesday (Feb 25) against the Providence Bruins.
