A few weeks before the NHL All-Star break, specifically on the day of the Ed Snider Legacy celebration, a member of the Flyers' organization told me that several players on the team were "pretty banged up" at the time. They were gritting through it because they were determined to stay in the lineup. With January being a particularly busy month on the schedule -- 14 games over the first 27 days -- there was scarcely time to rest.
Travis Konecny was one of the team's banged-up players. He made no excuses and cut no corners. That afternoon, Konecny went out and scored a shorthanded goal -- the game winner -- at 2:27 of the third period. Later, after the final horn, Konecny was in the middle of a multi-player scrum.
Konecny, the Flyers' leading scorer for the second straight season, was the team's lone representative at the 2024 All-Star Game in Toronto. Otherwise, he had the benefits of the team's longest schedule break of the season: January 28 to Feb. 5.
Since returning from the break, Konecny has been on fire offensively. He's recorded at least one point in each of the first seven games in February (5g, 7a, 12 points) and has been one of the biggest reasons why the club has posted a 5-1-1 record.
Last week, Konecny was named as an alternate captain for the first in his NHL career. It was an acknowledgement of the 26-year-old right winger's maturation into the one of the team's leaders. Donning the "A" on his sweater was meaningful to the player.
“That's something that I've been working towards,” Konecny said. “I've always tried to be a leader in my own way."
From his earliest years as a pro, Konecny has always been an ambitious player. In his second season in the NHL, for example, a 20-year-old Konecny stated that he'd like to like to eventually be part of the team's penalty kill.
The normally stoic Dave Hakstol, the Flyers head coach at the time, couldn't entirely suppress a grin when asked about it. Konecny had been scratched a few weeks earlier in Boston during the for breakdowns in his 200-foot game. The previous season as a rookie, he was a healthy scratch in three straight games.
"Hak" answered diplomatically.
"I think it's a good thing that he wants to work toward [being a penalty killer]. He's a young player and he's still developing. Maybe he can do that at some point," Hakstol replied.
The unstated implication: The offensively talented but defensively challenged young winger was not going to be tried as a penalty killer any time soon.
Konecny did not get his wish to become a regular on the Flyers' PK until the 2022-23 season. Now, he's an indispensable part of the Flyers' "power kill", which is ranked second in the NHL at 86.5 percent success and leads the league with 13 shorthanded goals. Konecy is tied for the NHL individual lead with five shorthanded tallies and is tied for second with six shorthanded points overall.
"When he told me last year that he'd never killed penalties before, I was a little surprised," Flyers head coach John Tortorella said. "He reads the passing lanes well and anticipates. We've gotten a lot of transition plays between him and Laughts [Scott Laughton']."
Konecny's penalty killing style is somewhat reminiscent of Flyers Hall of Fame left winger: very aggressive in seeking opportunities to intercept opposition passes, poke the puck ahead from high in the defensive zone or to receive a breakout pass from Laughton or a defenseman. Once he sniffs out a counterattacking chance, Konecny takes off down the ice. Other teams must always be aware of Konecny's ability to turn defense into offense, whether on the PK or at five-on-five.
Konecny has never played a "safe" brand of hockey. He's cut down on some of the lowest-percentage gambles he used to take, but playing with elements of risk will always be part of how he plays. Likewise, in order to be effective, Konecny needs to play with an emotional edge. More often than not, things work in his favor. Sometimes, they don't, such as an ill-timed slashing penalty in the second period of the Stadium Series game at MetLife Stadium on Feb. 17.
Tortorella, who has stated that he realizes Konecny has to push the envelope and play with emotion to be at his best, has admitted that he sometimes has to avert his eyes to prevent from meddling in the player's game.
"TK drives me crazy in some of the things he does," Tortorella said with his typical bluntness. "How reactive he is and how dumb he can be, but it also makes him a great player. He IS a great player."
During the Flyers' 3-1 win in Chicago on Wednesday night, Konecny spent a long early second period shift in the defensive zone. Late in the shift, though, Konecny grabbed the puck in the defensive zone, took off the down the ice and scored inside the far post from the left circle for a 2-1 lead.
