VOORHEES, New Jersey — It’s already been established that Travis Sanheim and Travis Konecny are vital, foundational pieces. If — if, we stress — all goes according to plan and the Philadelphia Flyers are a playoff team again, it will be due in no small part to the contributions of the two best friends off the ice and leaders on it.
Sanheim is locked in at a $6.25 salary cap hit through 2030-31 (that includes a full no-trade clause for the next two seasons, and a modified one after that), while Konecny’s eight-year, $70 million contract (with a full no-trade clause through 2030-31) kicks in next season. Even if general manager Daniel Briere makes some headlining moves this summer, neither is going anywhere.
The 2024-25 season trajectories for Sanheim and Konecny were similar. Neither was expected to make the Team Canada roster for the 4 Nations Face-Off, but their impressive performances through early December earned them invites.
They both started to wobble just past the midway point of the season. Sanheim endured a 40-game goal drought from Dec. 18 to March 22, and didn’t seem to be using his legs to generate offense as much as he was in the early part of the season. Yes, the Flyers started to play a much more conservative style after the 4 Nations break and after they traded away some key offensive players, but Sanheim still went much too dry, including a stretch of just one point in 20 games.
Konecny was top 10 in the league in scoring as late as Jan. 21, setting the tone for a Flyers team that was trending toward working its way back into the playoff picture at the time. But he couldn’t maintain it, with one goal in a 23-game stretch from then until March 20.
“The play of some of our guys, especially Sanheim and Konecny the first half of the year leading up to the 4 Nations, that’s something to get excited about,” interim coach Brad Shaw said in his final news conference. “Why or how they maybe fell off from that best game, that’s something that has to get fixed.”
Sanheim and Konecny assessed their seasons in their final media conferences last week.
“I thought my game kind of really took off leading up to the New Year. Had some dips along the way,” Sanheim said. “Down the stretch, I think it was kind of up and down, similar to how our team kinda was.”
“There’s a lot of ups and downs that I would like to fix,” Konecny said. “My consistency is something I talk about every year in trying to improve. There was times this year where I was a little inconsistent and definitely would like to look back on that stuff, and try to improve for next year.”
Sanheim and Konecny are among the Flyers’ more honest, forthcoming players when they want to be. Sanheim was awarded the team’s Class Guy Award this season for his willingness to address the media on what’s happening with him or the team, and Konecny, while not always the most loquacious guy, opens up in certain settings.
So when they both indicate that the physical grind of this season was real, take them at their word. A compressed schedule and lack of a break due to the midseason tournament had an impact.
“Not having the break, I think you saw around the league that guys struggled for a little bit after,” Sanheim said. “You don’t get that 10-day break and you’re battling against the best in the world. It’s obviously challenging. In saying that, other people had to do it. There are lessons to be had, and maybe doing things differently afterwards, whether it’s with your body or just some of the resets that you can do.”
Said Konecny: “I think just the push that I think that I was making to try to get on that 4 Nations team at the start of the year … just kind of I think by the end of that, I was just drained. Just took a lot out of me. And once the play started to go down, it just snowballs and you start getting in your own head. That’s just something on the mental side of things I’ve got to take care of. If we were in a better spot and a playoff push, it wouldn’t have been acceptable to do that.”
If there’s reason to be encouraged, it’s that both Sanheim and Konecny finished fairly strong. While offense still eluded Sanheim after the coaching change from John Tortorella to Shaw, the defenseman seemed to settle in with a new partner in Nick Seeler. Sanheim skated a whopping 30:28 in the first game under Shaw against the Montreal Canadiens on March 27 — partly because of Cam York’s suspension — finishing with a plus-3 rating in the Flyers’ 6-4 win. He was a plus-10 overall in the final nine games with a 52.2 percent expected goals share, fourth on the team among regulars and tops among defensemen. The Flyers outscored the opposition 14-5 at five-on-five with Sanheim on the ice over that stretch.
Konecny still struggled to find the back of the net, with no goals in the final 10 games. But he was still generating offense, with eight assists in the final nine games under Shaw, playing on a line with Sean Couturier and Matvei Michkov. That trio could start next season together, considering Couturier looked rejuvenated in that spot as well.
You can be sure that when Briere indicates he’s ready to pivot on the rebuild and start adding players, there may not be two individuals in the Philadelphia area who welcome that news more than Sanheim, 29, and Konecny, 28. The pair has only ever played in one playoff series in front of fans, in 2018, when the Flyers lost in the first round in six games to Pittsburgh.
Konecny figures the team becoming a consistent contender is still “two years away. We’ve still got a young team. We’ve still got guys developing.” But he also echoed Briere in suggesting that the current group isn’t as far away from the playoffs as the 2024-25 standings would suggest. “I think next year, depending what happens this summer, there’s a very realistic opportunity at being in the playoffs.”
Said Sanheim: “To be able to take those next steps, I think (management sees) it, I think we see it. We’ve got a lot of good pieces here that are only going to get better. … The faster we can do that, the faster we’re getting help from Danny and continuing to build this and take that next step that ultimately we want to (take), and be in the playoffs.”
If Briere does add to the group this summer, whether with significant pieces or simply better role players and goaltending depth, the feeling in September is bound to be different from last year. Shaw figures that could invigorate the two players who, perhaps more than anyone else, will be counted on to help the group finally take a step forward.
“I know Konecny wants to play playoff games again. I know Sanheim wants to play playoff games again,” Shaw said. “These are the guys that are going to drive it for us. We’re going to need growth from our young guys, but it’s really going to be those veteran guys that use the fact that we haven’t been there for a while as a real motivator.”
(Photos of Travis Sanheim and Travis Konecny: Rebecca Villagracia / Getty Images)