With the Philadelphia Flyers in the midst of a rebuild, they decided to ink Travis Konecny to a long-term contract, essentially pinning him as one of the major pillars moving forward. While the extension drew the ire of a large chunk of the fanbase, at the very least, Konecny has proven his worth to start the season and has continued where he left off from his previous two campaigns.
Konecny has been a rather underrated player over his 9-year career. He was a consistent 24-goal scorer and put up a couple 60-point seasons, but he never got fully recognized for his skillset, his intangibles, and how well he was doing on a downtrodden Flyers team that lacked star power.
The Flyers have been one of just a few teams in the NHL that haven’t had a star or a superstar on their team for quite some time. The last player that could hold that moniker was Claude Giroux and he struggled a bit near the end of his Flyers tenure with 96 points in 123 games. The lack of talent around him was and still is a lively debate but the moment he was traded, they had very little left.
Konecny has taken on a much larger role under John Tortorella and has essentially fit the bill of his first round selection back in 2015. He potted 24 goals and 61 points in 66 games during the postponed campaign in 2019-20 but failed to improve or live up to that hype in the few years that passed.
Including the COVID-bubble, Konecny uncharacteristically scored just 27 goals and 93 points in 145 games that followed. The biggest factor was his 7.5% shooting clip, which was well behind his 13.1% he had claimed in his first 4 seasons and 14.4% over the last 3 years where he had scored 24 goals in each one of them.
2021-22 was especially bad at the beginning before Alain Vigneault got fired. It makes you wonder what the locker room was like when you compare how good they were in 2019-20 and the round robin tournament compared to what they were in the first 2 rounds of the playoffs, 2020-21, and the early portion of 2021-22.
Konecny had just 5 goals and 10 points in 22 games, including just 1 goal over his final 13 games with Vigneault behind the bench. Mike Yeo in the interim seemed to have unlocked some of his potential as Konecny would finish the year with 11 goals and 42 points in his final 57 contests.
He ended the year on a high note and with Tortorella at the helm to start 2022-23, Konecny improved mightily and has remained a consistent source of goals and points for a team that is lacking offense and creativity. Over his last 152 games that spans 3 seasons, Konecny has 72 goals and 146 points. He has also led the team in points in 4 of the last 5 seasons and is on pace to make it 5 in 6.
Injuries have taken their toll on him from time to time based on his style of play but whenever he’s on the ice and in the lineup, he has been a factor on and off the puck. Tortorella also unlocked his shorthanded prowess as he has totaled 10 shorthanded goals and 4 additional assists over that span and it should come as no surprise that the Flyers have ranked very high amongst their NHL counterparts in that stat – as well as their penalty kill overall.
With a year still remaining on his contract, the Flyers decided to re-up Konecny for the full 8 years while also dishing him $8.75 million per season. There were rumours that his side was asking for $10-$11 million, but ultimately those were washed away when the Flyers got the deal done at under $9 million.
His comparable in terms of AAV, length of contract, and production, seemed to be Timo Meier, Carter Verhaeghe, and Sam Reinhart. Reinhart signed 3 weeks before Konecny while Verhaeghe signed in October, both at less AAV, but what sometimes gets forgotten or swept under the rug is the state tax discussion and how Florida players tend to have a lower AAV than the rest of the states or Canadian provinces.
So far, Konecny has 9 goals and 19 points in 16 games, 5 power play goals, 1 shorthanded tally, 21:13 ATOI, and 14 blocked shots to 26 hits. His 9 goals, 10 assists, and 19 points lead the team across the board, he has the highest ATOI amongst forwards and 2nd on the team behind just Travis Sanheim.
He also leads the team in expected goals and is second in goals above expected, expected goals per 60, and points per 60, third in assists per 60, fourth in Corsi, second in Fenwick, second in on-ice high danger shot attempts per 60, and the list goes on. In other words, Konecny is leading the team or at the top of nearly every offensive category as he hasn’t let the pressures of a long-term contract bog him down.
The addition of Matvei Michkov has unlocked a little more out of his toolbox and should the two be paired up more often down the road, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Konecny finally topples the 80-point threshold while Michkov surpasses 60+ points as a rookie; especially with how well they’ve connected on the power play.
The soon-to-be 28-year-old is entering his prime and if Philadelphia will ever sniff a deep run in the postseason, let alone the postseason in general, Konecny will have to lead the way. If his teammates can chip in with more secondary scoring, the Flyers could surprise like they did last year, but that’s asking a lot from a team that has been downright abysmal at 5-on-5 this year.
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