Quietly, Travis Konecny On Pace To Become Flyers' Best-Ever Goal-Scorer

The rebuilding Philadelphia Flyers are in the heart of a playoff race, and no one is more responsible than the underappreciated Travis Konecny.

With Konecny having a career year, the long-suffering Flyers have a chance to end a four-season streak of missing the playoffs.

The Flyers’ years of struggles are connected to (mostly) first-round draft misses during the last decade.

Konecny, of course, is a first-round exception – a player who has contributed beyond expectations.

On the flip side, first-rounders like German Rubtsov, Nolan Patrick (due to injury) and Jay O’Brien, among others, have not panned out.

And even the first-rounders who did pan out aren’t as good as players who were available to the Flyers during their draft years. I’m referring to first-rounders like Ivan Provorov (Zach Werenski was available), Joel Farabee (K’Andre Miller was available) and Cam York (Cole Caufield was available).

Provorov, Farabee and York are good players, just not at the level of others who could have been selected. (In fairness, almost every NHL team has players they should have picked but didn’t.)

Promising Selections

The Flyers’ last two drafts have shown promise. Hello, Matvei Michkov, Oliver Bonk and Jett Luchanko.

Michkov, taken No. 7 overall in the 2023 draft, may one day be viewed as one of the best picks the Flyers ever made, though he has a long way before surpassing the Great Steal of 2015 – Konecny.

Konecny, 27, is having an all-star-type season again and is making then-GM Ron Hextall look like a genius by moving up five spots in the 2015 NHL draft to take the 5-foot-10, 192-pound forward. Hextall traded the 29th and 61st picks to Toronto and took Konecny 24th overall.

This season, Konecny has 21 goals and 54 points in 47 games. The relentless right winger is on pace for 37 goals and 94 points, and both figures would be career highs.

Yes, the Flyers are rebuilding around him – and if some of the other young veterans like Owen Tippett, Morgan Frost and Farabee do their part, the rebuild will be a success.

How good has Konecny been in his eight-plus years with the Flyers?

Well, he has averaged 26 goals and almost 61 points based on an 82-game season, and he is getting much better with age.

Put another way: You could make a strong case that Konecny (and Jeff Carter) should have been on the Flyers’ recently released quarter-century team, based on play from 2000 to 2025.

The first-team forwards were Simon Gagne, Claude Giroux and Mike Richards. I agree with those selections.

Related: NHL Quarter-Century Teams Tracker: Each Franchise's Best Players Since 2000

Let The Debate Begin

The second-team forwards were Daniel Briere, Sean Couturier and Jakub Voracek. All were/are very good players, and I am not disparaging their talents in any way. Briere was Mr. Playoffs, and that gives him bonus points. Couturier doesn’t have overpowering offensive numbers, but his defense made him a terrific two-way player in his prime. Voracek was one of the best playmakers in franchise history.

All that said, I would have found a spot on the second team for Konecny – he already has 195 goals in 611 career games – and Carter, a true sniper who averaged 30 goals per season during his six years with the Orange and Black. Who do you take off? Take your pick. From here, those two are more deserving than any of the three second-team forwards.

Before his career is over, Konecny is on pace to be the greatest goal-scorer in franchise history. Let’s be conservative and say he averages 28 goals during his eight-year, $70-million contract extension, which starts next season. Let’s also assume he retires at that point at 36 and gets the 37 goals he's on pace for this season. He would thus finish with 456 goals as a Flyer.

That would place him No. 1 in Flyers history. The current franchise leader is Hall of Famer Bill Barber (420 goals), followed by Brian Propp with 369.

In other words, appreciate the fiery player they call “TK,” a guy who is rewriting the Flyers’ record book.

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