Philadelphia Flyers winger (or hybrid center if the term still applies) Trevor Zegras has been a huge addition to the team this season, having stepped in immediately as their leader in both goals and points. But this month, Zegras hasn’t looked quite as efficient or consistent as he has in previous months. For example, heading into the Columbus game Wednesday night, Zegras sees himself sitting with just four goals and three helpers for seven points for the month. He still has three games in January to bump up his stats for the month, but given his current pace, he’ll be lucky to hit 10 points. It seems a noteworthy decline from the 15 points he had in December and the 12 points he had in each of the first two months of the season.
It could be just a lull of sorts for Zegras, given the condensed schedule and the grind that comes with squeezing in 82 games in an Olympic year. He has points in just four of the 12 games thus far in 2026, and points in just one Flyers victory this month when he had a pair of goals against his former team in Anaheim back on Jan. 6. So while it’s difficult to lay blame for the team’s woes at the feet of its leading point-getter and best playmaker all season, Trevor Zegras hasn’t really been visible the last few weeks. It’s no surprise that since Zegras has found himself in a bit of a funk, the Flyers have been struggling a lot more. On Monday night after the Flyers highly lackadaisical 4-0 shutout loss to the Islanders, Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet called out Zegras, stating his game has been “slipping” over the last couple of weeks and he wasn’t “pushing the pace.” As if that wasn’t enough, Tocchet criticized Zegras’s effort when coming back into the defensive zone and his coverage. If Zegras didn’t realize his game wasn’t quite stellar, he certainly knows now.
There could be a few reasons why Zegras has struggled recently. We’ll take a look at them in no particular order.
The fatigue factor
Zegras hasn’t missed a game all year, averaging 18:39 of ice time and being on the team’s most productive offense lines. That might not seem like a lot to handle for a forward, especially one who is turning 25 in March. However, barring a catastrophic season-ending injury (or Tocchet gluing his backside to the pressbox) Zegras will be playing his largest amount of games since 2021-22 when he played all but one game for Anaheim. So this will be his first season in the last three where he should see at least over 75 games played. Zegras played just 57 games last year, and just 31 games the previous year. That works out to just over one full season (88) out of 164 possible games.
While it would be wrong to directly compare the situation of two rather injury-plagued years to the problem Flyers captain Sean Couturier had being out for essentially two seasons, they could be a few similarities. Like Couturier in the first half of the 2023-24 season, Zegras seemed good in the first half of the season but has hit some bumps of late. Perhaps it’s due to the fact his body might not quite be used to the grind of an 82-game schedule. Granted, the Flyers travel schedule is generally far more friendly than teams like Anaheim and other Western Conference teams. It’s just that regardless of whatever training or off-season conditioning a player can do coming off not one but two injury-plagued seasons, nothing compares the body for an 82-game regular season other than playing most of the 82 games. When you haven’t done that the year before and the year before that, it’s not great. So perhaps Zegras’ body is hitting the skids somewhat. Not to the point of being completely banged up and injured. But just not quite seasoned enough to handle the season.
Of course, Zegras should get a huge lift when he, like a number of Flyers, can rest and recuperate for three weeks during the Winter Olympics. He should be ready with a full tank of gas when Philadelphia starts the second gauntlet beginning with Washington on Feb. 25. At least that’s the hope or best case scenario.
Shooting enough?
Some might argue Zegras would get out his slump simply by shooting the puck every chance he got. In October, Zegras started off slow with only 16 shots. November was a revelation as Zegras popped off with 39 shots that month while December was a bit slower with just 31 shots. However, January has been an eye-opener for all the wrong reasons. Thus far, heading into the Wednesday game against Columbus, Zegras has 25 shots. That wouldn’t seem bad except that seven of those 25 shots came against Buffalo on Jan. 14. So the winger has 18 shots in January outside of that Sabres tilt. He’s been held to under three shots in nine games since the start of 2026.
It seems like that dip has translated into how Zegras has done in the first three months versus what he’s done this month. Here’s a table showing the on-ice shooting percentage for seven Flyer forwards from October to December and what each of those seven have done using the same metric for January alone.
| Player | On Ice Shooting Percentage (October to Dec. 31) | Player | On Ice Shooting Percentage (January) | |
| Christian Dvorak | 12.93 | Sean Couturier | 11.54 | |
| Trevor Zegras | 12.31 | Owen Tippett | 11.29 | |
| Travis Konecny | 12.15 | Travis Konecny | 10.17 | |
| Noah Cates | 10.50 | Trevor Zegras | 9.86 | |
| Owen Tippett | 10.21 | Matvei Michkov | 9.80 | |
| Matvei Michkov | 9.87 | Christian Dvorak | 9.68 | |
| Sean Couturier | 9.61 | Noah Cates | 8.20 |
As you can see, for most of the season, Zegras has been solid when it comes to that statistic. Yet he’s dropped somewhat in January, roughly a 20 per cent decline this month versus the first three months of the season. Meanwhile you can see the rise in the same statistic in Sean Couturier and Owen Tippett in January, which is probably in no small part to the emergence of Denver Barkey, even if Barkey is having a tougher time of late. But simply put, Zegras isn’t doing as much now as he did previously.
As for the quantity of shots this season, Zegras finds himself ranked one-hundredth in the league heading into Tuesday’s schedule with 111. He’s third on the Flyers (Tippett and Konecny are ahead of him). Yet the quality of those 111 shots have been above-average. According to NHL Edge, Zegras ranks quite high in various metrics. He’s in the 85th percentile regarding shots on goal in total, and in the 86th percentile regarding the number of mid-range shots. But when it comes to high danger shots, Zegras has 31, which is good for the 71st percentile.
Regarding shooting percentage, Zegras in all locations is at 17.1 per cent, placing him in the 84th percentile. In the mid-range category, he’s at 18 per cent, good enough for the 85th percentile. But the high-danger range sees a drop somewhat at 25.8 per cent, which puts him in the 77th percentile. He’s still above average in shooting percentage in the high-danger areas, but it doesn’t quite measure up to the overall and the mid-range shooting percentiles.
Those overall, high-danger, and mid-range percentiles for goal scoring also tell a similar tale. With 19 goals in all locations, Zegras is in the 91st percentile. He’s in the 92nd percentile with mid-range goals. But when the high-danger zone is calculated, he’s in the 80th percentile. Again, it’s not a horrible thing to be in the top 20 per cent of the league for high-danger goals. But the high-danger area hasn’t been as kind to him as the numbers suggest it should be.
Time for new linemates?
As you are well aware, Zegras has found himself with Christian Dvorak and Travis Konecny for the majority of the season. Originally he found himself with Dvorak and Owen Tippett, but with Tyson Foerster’s injury throwing everything into a bit of a mess, Philadelphia changed things up. The line was stellar for several weeks after forming, and were carrying the load for a lot of victories in December.
Like anything else, it might be time for Tocchet to consider altering the lines again. Or at least strongly considering doing just that coming out of the Olympic break, particularly if the losses before Milano/Cortina begin adding up. Fans would love to see Zegras and Michkov together and see if both can somehow help the other find their game again. Michkov has been looking a little better of late. Perhaps he can light a fire under Zegras the rest of the way. However you slice it, Zegras could probably use a new line combination to see if some synergy can be found with two new linemates. It might not help two of the other three top Flyer lines who seem to be playing fine. But sometimes you have to get some of your key guys going any way you can.
So, can Zegras get out of this?
It appears Trevor Zegras is going to be a Philadelphia Flyer for a while to come — unless Flyers general manager Danny Briere can land one of the better top centers in the league through trading Zegras, he will be a Flyer for many years. Whether it’s from not playing a full season in about three years, or just hitting a wall that he needs to play his way through, Zegras should be happy to know the three-week break in the schedule should be more than enough to have him clear his head, reset, and be ready for the last roughly two dozen games. Ideally, Zegras would have a few multi-point games before the break and can go in on a bit of a confidence high. Right now a lot of things aren’t working for him. He is going to need to put in the work to right his ship. Otherwise the Flyers’ playoff chances will be sinking a lot quicker than they currently are.
All stats courtesy ESPN, Natural Stat Trick and NHL Edge