How Tyson Foerster became an indispensable Flyer in his rookie season

In mid- to late February, John Tortorella would look up and down his bench for one particular player. But he wasn’t there.

No, he wasn’t looking for Travis Sanheim, Scott Laughton, or even the team’s All-Star, Travis Konecny. He was looking for No. 71, Tyson Foerster.

“I’ve missed him on the bench, not just on a line,” Tortorella said back at the end of February, right before Foerster returned from a four-game injury absence. “I was able to use him on the right wing, left wing, playing 11 [forwards] and seven [defensemen], in a lot of different ways that I never thought I’d feel comfortable with at such a young age that he is. So, I missed him on the bench.”

It’s a far cry from how things were in September when training camp opened. The Flyers weren’t exactly sure how Foerster’s first full NHL season would go. Sure, he had a seven-point, eight-game appearance at the end of 2022-23, and expectations were high among the fans. But the Flyers staff’s enthusiasm was a little more tempered and after an OK camp, he stuck around as attention turned to the regular season.

But the then-21-year-old didn’t suit up for the season opener against the Columbus Blue Jackets and questions started to swirl on whether playing big minutes in Lehigh Valley would suit him better than watching from the press box. However, the questions didn’t have time to percolate; Foerster made his season debut in Game 2 and never looked back.

Slotted in on the right side or the left, on the power play, or even a stint on the penalty kill, where he scored a shorthanded goal, Foerster excelled. He finished with 33 points in 77 regular-season games — including 20 goals, tying him for third in the NHL among rookies. Although he was not named a finalist Tuesday for the Calder Trophy, awarded to the NHL’s top rookie, Foerster’s freshman season was impressive nonetheless. (Chicago Blackhawks forward Connor Bedard, New Jersey Devils defenseman Luke Hughes, and Minnesota Wild defenseman Brock Faber were the finalists.)

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“I feel like I’ve always believed in myself,” Foerster said. “Even this year, it started off pretty rough for me, or not rough, but it’s always nice, better when you start scoring. I just had to keep believing in myself and good things happen.”

In his first 40 games, Foerster notched five goals and 11 assists. Not great for a sniper who collected 80 points in 62 games for the Barrie Colts of the Western Hockey League in the season before he was selected 23rd overall in the 2020 NHL draft. Or a guy who had 48 points in 66 games with Lehigh Valley in 2022-23.

He may not have been putting points up on a nightly basis, but Foerster was starting to do other things right. They were things that Tortorella and his staff took notice of to keep him in the lineup on a nightly basis and allowed him the freedom to find his scoring touch later in the season. As Foerster said, after cleaning out his locker for the final time this season: “I was trying to do anything I could to help the team win, and I thought I’d be defense-first, so that was my mindset going in.”

In those same 40 games, the fresh-faced kid from Alliston, Ontario, ranked third on the Flyers in takeaways (21) and Corsi For percentage (54.66%) at five-on-five, according to Natural Stat Trick. As Tortorella said in March, “A big part of our job coaching is to teach players away from the puck. He’s well beyond it right now.” It’s why the coach was always looking for him, why he had the fourth-highest total of minutes among forwards, and why he was getting more defensive zone starts off faceoffs than anywhere else on the ice. As a rookie.

“Tyson is probably one of the top 10, right now, snakebit around the net, especially the first two months of the season. But he’s doing everything so well away from the puck,” former NHL player Warren Rychel told The Inquirer in December. “I mean, his play away from the puck is probably, in my opinion, why he’s earning the trust of his coach. He’s so good away from the puck. He’s always in the lanes defensively, he’ll block shots. But that’s the biggest thing I notice, [that] he can trust him in any situation at this age is pretty impressive, that’s for sure.”

Rychel, a pro scout for the Edmonton Oilers, coached Foerster in Barrie during that impressive 2019-20 season. He knew back then that the kid who “loved being around the rink and was going to learn to do whatever he had to do to succeed” would become a 200-foot player.

“I saw a guy that loved to be on the ice all the time. I had to almost tell him to get off the ice because he was playing so much in the game, he’d stay after in practice. But he was always a guy who loved to have the puck on his stick,” Rychel said. “He’s got a different array of shots. He can sling the puck through defenders.

“He’s good down low and he’s [got a] real strong stick like when you’re on him. It reminded me of when I played like a Dave Andreychuk, or an old-school Mike Foligno when it feels like he’s got a crowbar for a stick. He’s really strong on his stick.”

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As Rychel noted, while Foerster focused on his checking game, his play has always been centered around a wicked shot. The young winger, who played on his off-wing for a chunk of the season — something he first got a taste of in juniors with Rychel — began to find his scoring touch in the second half of the season. In the Flyers’ final 41 games, despite missing four with that lower-body injury, Foerster scored 15 of his 20 goals.

“Honestly, I think the puck just started going into the net for me,” Foerster said. “I feel like at the start of the year, I was getting a bunch of Grade-A chances, I just wasn’t able to score on them. I was still getting those chances second half and I was just starting to score them. So I think, honestly, I was just actually scoring on them and [got] a couple of lucky bounces here and there.”

Those lucky bounces here and there, and his complete game akin to a grizzled veteran, are big reasons why the rookie will see his name on several ballots for the Calder Trophy. They’re also reasons why the Flyers outperformed expectations and had a chance for a postseason spot up until the waning minutes of the regular season.

“The way he’s taken his game, we didn’t think he’d have as big of an impact,” general manager Danny Brière said after the season wrapped up. Yep. Foerster, a kid who believed in himself, went from question mark to centerpiece. And he’s only 22.