Scout’s Analysis: Can Flyers unlock Trevor Zegras’ potential? ...Middle East

There was a time, not all that long ago, that Trevor Zegras was a star on the rise and a face/personality for the Anaheim Ducks and the NHL to celebrate and lean into. He was a human highlight reel, hardly trying before attempting plays around the net like the Michigan or a flip “shot” from behind the goal line, and more. He was EA Sports’ cover athlete for NHL ’23 and in his second full NHL season, he led the Ducks in scoring.

Since then, injuries have conspired to slow his rise, with groin and ankle injuries limiting him to 88 games over the past two seasons. His production has fallen off to 18 goals and 47 points in that time, while his defensive game is still a work in progress.

Zegras had been a regular on trade candidate lists for some time, and on Monday, the Ducks moved on from the ninth overall pick from 2019, sending him to the Philadelphia Flyers for Ryan Poehling and two draft picks.

Now Zegras joins former Ducks teammate Jamie Drysdale in Philly as the Flyers try to push their build forward and get closer to the playoffs. If Zegras clicks again, it’ll be a great upgrade to the Flyers’ roster. But first, they have to figure out where he’ll fit in the depth chart.

Is Zegras a centre or a winger?

“That’ll be more a question for Rick Tocchet. He has to decide where (Zegras) fits best,” GM Daniel Briere said. “We hope he can help in the centre position because that’s an area we could improve, but at the same time, if Rick decides he’s better suited on the wing and there’s other guys who play better in the middle, then he’s going to decide.”

Meanwhile, the Ducks have oodles of salary cap space and freed up even more of it in this trade, now sitting with just over $36 million overall. It’s no secret they’ll be aggressively trying to move out of their rebuild and into the playoff race, and are expected to be in the market for some of the biggest names this summer, whether via trade or signing.

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Anaheim GM Pat Verbeek said moving on from such a talent as Zegras for a bottom-six player like Poehling was about putting pieces together on a roster that complement each other. Unlike Zegras, Poehling is a capable penalty killer.

“I think this is where you start imagining lines and how you want certain players to complement each other,” Verbeek said. “We started looking at that scenario, and ultimately, we made the decision to move Trevor because of that. And I think getting a couple other picks to go with it, those picks could come into play. It gives us the flexibility to do some other things and look at other things to enhance our roster. So I think that went into it as well.”

For more on the Zegras-Poehling trade, we turn to our scout Jason Bukala.

SCOUT’S ANALYSIS

To Philadelphia: Trevor Zegras

The Flyers are in a position to take some risks with some of their roster construction, and adding a player with the offensive potential that Zegras brings is a perfect example of a risk/reward scenario.

I appreciate that the Flyers are willing to take on the challenge at this stage of their rebuild by acquiring a player who is entering the final year of his contract and has shown glimpses of high-end offensive potential in the past. Zegras counts for $5.75 million against the cap next season. 

He’s a polarizing player, as his best shifts create some dynamic results on the offensive end, but he can be extremely frustrating to watch when not engaged in all three zones. 

Here are a couple of examples from the tail end of this past season.

Starting a game “on time,” especially when the team is on the road, is extremely important. NHL coaches select their starting five skaters with the goal of setting the tone for the team and hopefully establishing early control of the game overall. 

In the following clip, Anaheim won the opening face-off and dumped the puck deep into the Calgary Flames’ zone. Flames defenceman Mackenzie Weegar arrived on the puck a fraction ahead of Zegras and, judging by his body language, anticipated a hit from Zegras that never came. Instead, Zegras stopped short of taking the body or making a stick-on-stick play as the first forechecker for the Ducks.

It got worse from there as Weegar chipped the puck to the half wall and Calgary was off to the races in the first minute of the game. Zegras ended up being the very last player on the ice to exit the Flames’ zone. The entire sequence is an example of what frustrates coaches about how Zegras approaches the game at times. 

At the other end, the second clip demonstrates how valuable Zegras can be when he has the puck on his stick in high-danger scoring areas. He started the sequence by moving the puck down the half-wall and then again below the goal line. His second puck touch is actually a turnover, but the Flames fail to clear their zone with control and reciprocate by turning the puck over to the Ducks. Zegras made himself available on the weakside flank and ended up ripping a shot under the bar. 

If Zegras gets back to impacting the game offensively the way he did when he entered the league (61- and 65-point seasons his first two years), the Flyers will be pleased. Tocchet, the new Flyers head coach, will definitely be pushing Zegras to provide a more complete effort every night. It’s impossible to teach a player to contribute offence the way Zegras is capable of, but it’s a choice to defend and compete in the small areas of the game that lead to team success, and that’s where a coach like Tocchet excels and might get more out of Zegras overall.

Therein lies the risk when a team acquires a player like Zegras. 

To Anaheim: Ryan Poehling, 45th overall pick in 2025, fourth-round pick in 2026

Anaheim is starting to get more aggressive with their rebuild and clearly looking to fill out their roster with certain player types.

Adding Poehling to their bottom-six forward group provides the Ducks with a secondary layer of scoring and a forward who can skate at even strength and on the penalty kill. He averaged just shy of 14 minutes per game of ice time last year with the Flyers, but still managed to contribute 12 goals and 19 assists.

Poehling tracks up and down the ice on time and provides much more defensive detail than Zegras. He averaged 1:27 per game on the penalty kill as part of the second unit and finished the year a respectable minus-4. Poehling averaged over 50 per cent success rate in the face-off circle and he’s willing to block shots (78) as well. 

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