Hollywood moments from the Flyers NHL All-Star

As Kevin Hayes prepares to represent the Flyers at his first NHL All-Star Weekend, the occasion warrants a look back at what got him here. Mostly, it is what is quietly turning into a career year for the veteran forward, who is in his ninth season and as such might be a little far along to refer to this as a "breakout" season, but the Flyers certainly wouldn't mind it if it were a sign of things to come.

Hayes enters the All-Star break with 45 points in 50 games, a 0.90 point-per-game pace that would put him at 73 for a full season. That's well ahead of his previous career-high scoring average of 0.76 points per game in 2018-19, presented that way because Hayes has not played more than 71 games in any of the past four seasons due to injuries and pandemics.
Given all that, the All-Star nod is well-deserved. He was, in fact, the Flyers' leading scorer for the first 35 games of the season until Travis Konecny passed him on December 23; TK was early in a 10-game tear where he put up 20 points (12G, 8A) from Dec. 20 to Jan. 10. But the league's initial rosters were released on January 5 and related arrangements began to be made even earlier, so as great and as deserving as Konecny's season has been, that defining stretch likely came after Hayes had caught the league's eye as the Flyers' representative.
So Hayes will go as a worthy participant, and there's no doubt that he will be one of the stars of the show. The selection is especially meaningful for Hayes, who lost his brother Jimmy to an accidental overdose on August 23, 2021. Although a veteran of 334 NHL games, Jimmy had been well aware that he was never going to be named an All-Star, so his biggest wish was for Kevin to make it to the game someday so he could take Jimmy's son Beau, now three years old, along for the festivities. That is now going to happen, and it will be the experience of the lifetime not only for Beau, but also for Kevin and the rest of his family.
With that, here are 10 of Hayes' many great moments this season that have led up to this coming weekend in South Florida.
#10October 22, 2022 - Just 3:13 into a game at Nashville, on the Flyers' first shot of the game, Hayes sniped a shot top shelf off a feed from Joel Farabee for his first goal of the season in an eventual 3-1 win over the Predators. Hayes went on to return the favor with an assist on a Farabee goal later in the contest which was his seventh of the season, and gave him an eight-point start (1-7-8) through the first five games of the year.
More Information
#9January 5, 2023 - A pretty feed by Hayes to Ivan Provorov set up the Flyers' fourth goal in a 6-2 romp of Arizona. Hayes followed it up with the game's fifth goal on the power play, part of his first three-point night of the season (1G, 2A).
More Information
#8January 22, 2023 -In the span of about four minutes around the second intermission, Hayes scored two power play goals, neither of which came from more than about three feet above the goal line. They turned an early 3-0 deficit to Winnipeg into a 3-3 tie game. Although the Flyers went on to drop the contest, it was Hayes' third multi-goal game of the season.
More information
#7January 26, 2023 - Late in a game at Minnesota, Hayes came off the bench as the extra attacker when Carter Hart was pulled, took a feed from Ivan Provorov right inside the blue line and immediately relayed it to Tony DeAngelo in the right circle, who scored to tie the game with 1:28 remaining.
More Information
#6October 27, 2022 -after being denied on a breakaway by Sergei Bobrovsky, Hayes got his own rebound in the right-wing corner and swept it back out in front for Joel Farabee, who put home the eventual game-winner in a 4-3 victory over Florida.
More Information
#5November 29, 2022 -Immediately off an offensive-zone faceoff, Hayes scored the game-winning goal, while later adding an empty-netter, in a 3-1 win over the Islanders at home.
More information
#4December 7, 2022 - While stationed at the top of the right circle during a power play early in a game vs. Washington, Hayes attempted a one-timer off a feed from Noah Cates, but his stick asplode. After a moment of disappointed reflection directed at the remnants of the stick, Hayes retrieved a replacement from the bench, rejoined the play, and from 10 feet inside the blue line, less-dramatically flipped a wrister though traffic that beat Charlie Lindgren clean.
More information
#3November 2, 2022 - Late in a game at Toronto, after the Maple Leafs' Mark Giordano pinned Travis Konecny to the ice to keep Auston Matthews from having to do anything, Hayes pulled Giordano out of a pile and took him on for his first career NHL fight.
More Information
#2January 17, 2023 -Hayes scored the Flyers' first, fourth and fifth goals in a 5-2 win vs. Anaheim, with the final one triggering a shower of hats from the Wells Fargo Center faithful to celebrate Hayes' first career hat trick.
More Information
#1November 16, 2022 -although an off-night, Hayes hosted a team dinner with his family ahead of the Flyers' game in Boston on November 17. It included a full-team game of knee hockey with Beau, who of course will be his special guest at NHL All-Star Weekend. There's no doubt you'll see a lot of him, especially at the Friday night skills competition, so don't miss it.