The Philadelphia Flyers closed out the pre-break portion of their schedule with a controlled, 3–1 road win over the Chicago Blackhawks.

It was the first of two meetings between the teams this season after they split the series last year, and Philadelphia handled the game with the kind of discipline that tends to travel well.

1. The Flyers’ Top-End Production Stays Red Hot.

Travis Konecny and Trevor Zegras continue to drive offense in ways that go beyond highlight moments. Konecny finished with a goal and an assist—his eighth multi-point game of the season, which leads the team—and recorded the 300th assist of his NHL career. His night was efficient, finding soft ice and making quick decisions when Chicago collapsed low.

Zegras, meanwhile, extended his point streak to nine games with an assist on Philadelphia’s opening goal. Over that stretch, he has totaled 11 points (5G, 6A), and only the Oilers' Connor McDavid enters the break with a longer active point streak. What stands out is how Zegras is influencing games without needing to dominate the puck; his reads off the rush and ability to draw coverage continue to open lanes for linemates.

Trevor Zegras is THRIVING with the @NHLFlyers! 🤩

📺: @NHL_On_TNT & @StreamOnMax ➡️ https://t.co/4TuyIATi3Tpic.twitter.com/Nc0rEtXxy7

— NHL (@NHL) December 24, 2025

2. Special Teams Provided Separation, Not Just Support.

Noah Cates’ power-play goal proved to be the difference-maker, extending his point streak to four games and putting him one game shy of tying his career-long streak of five. The goal itself wasn’t overly complex, but it reflected better spacing and decisiveness from the Flyers’ power-play unit.

TK's too smooth. 😮‍💨#PHIvsCHI | #LetsGoFlyerspic.twitter.com/MiwmktyjEw

— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) December 24, 2025

Philadelphia didn’t overwhelm Chicago with volume, but they avoided the stalled possessions that have crept into their power play at times this season. The puck moved quickly enough to force the Blackhawks’ penalty killers to collapse, and Cates capitalized from a high-danger area.

Carl Grundstrom’s empty-net goal later sealed the result, continuing a quietly productive stretch. Since entering the lineup on a consistent basis on Dec. 9, Grundstrom and Zegras now share the team lead in goals (five each). For a player slotted primarily into a depth role, Grundstrom’s finishing has added real value to this lineup.

3. Depth Contributions Reinforced Game Control.

Sean Couturier’s two-assist night pushed him to 16 assists on the season, and both reflected strong positional awareness and timing. Couturier continues to serve as a stabilizing presence in transition, particularly when the Flyers are protecting narrow leads.

Philadelphia didn’t overload any single line, and that balance showed. The Flyers were comfortable rolling shifts, maintaining structure through the neutral zone, and forcing Chicago to generate offense from the perimeter. It wasn’t an overly-high-event game, and that suited Philadelphia just fine.

4. Injuries Cast a Brief Shadow.

The win wasn’t without concern. Denver Barkey did not return for the third period after being hit from behind during a penalty sequence. Head coach Rick Tocchet addressed the situation postgame.

“He got hit from behind on that penalty,” Tocchet told media. “Just get reevaluated from the doctors.”

Later, Travis Sanheim was also pulled from the game with roughly 12 minutes remaining due to concussion spotters. Tocchet offered reassurance afterward, telling media, “I think he’s fine.”

While neither situation overshadowed the result, they’re worth monitoring as the Flyers head into the break. Sanheim, in particular, has been a heavy-minute defender, and any missed time would test the team’s blue-line depth.

5. The Standings Now Reflect What the Play Has Suggested.

With this win, the Flyers head into the break with 45 points, the third-most in the Eastern Conference. They sit second in the Metropolitan Division, just two points behind the Carolina Hurricanes.

This result against Chicago wasn’t about proving legitimacy—it was about handling an opponent they were expected to beat. Philadelphia did exactly that, without overextending or leaving themselves exposed late.

More importantly, it reinforced something tangible: the Flyers have enough skill and work rate across the lineup to support playoff-level results, and they’re winning games in multiple ways. That combination, paired with their current position in the standings, gives them a clear and realistic path as the season resumes.

Christmas has renewed meaning for Abols as a father and Flyer originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Not even a year ago, Rodrigo Abols was taking his rookie lap in Philadelphia.

This was not your typical NHL debut; a 29-year-old from Latvia, with his wife and son in the stands.

But the long journey, the never-ending travel and what probably felt like his final chance, have all been worth it.

“When I’m done with hockey,” Abols said before his first game, “I’m glad at least I came here and gave it another shot.”

Now, his wife Paula and their 4-year-old son Aleksi are enjoying their first Christmas with Dad being a full-time NHL player. And that was not a surefire thing this fall.

As Abols returned to the area for training camp, Paula and Aleksi stayed back in Latvia. Last season, they lived in a hotel here as Abols went back and forth between minor-league affiliate Lehigh Valley and the Flyers.

This season, they arrived later after Abols made the big club with an impressive camp and the Flyers told him to seek permanent residence toward the end of October.

“She has been massive,” Abols said of his wife. “She sacrifices a lot for me to have a chance to play here, holding the fort down, especially this season. The first three months being home, we thought that was the right call for everyone, for her mental sake, for Aleksi because he has got kindergarten and she has got help back home. But now that we have a place here, she can come over for a month.”

Despite entering camp without the hype of some younger prospects, Abols was arguably the Flyers’ biggest standout. Head coach Rick Tocchet tested him with six of the Flyers’ seven preseason games.

The 6-foot-4 center answered the challenge.

“I laugh because early in camp, we had him playing in Game 1 and we were looking at lineups for Games 2, 3 and 4. At first, we didn’t have him in any of those games,” general manager Danny Briere said in October. “After Game 1, Tocchet came back and he said, ‘I want to see him again.’ So we put him in Game 2. After Game 2, he said, ‘I need to see him one more time.’ We put him in Game 3 and Game 4 and Game 5. At the end, we were trying to give him a break and find a way to give him a little bit of a breather.”

His wife had to be ecstatic as she followed from back home.

Abols met Paula before they were even teenagers.

“We’ve known each other for super long,” he said two weeks ago.

He played Latvian youth hockey with her brother Bruno. Eventually, Abols and Paula started dating.

“I wasn’t so interested in her brother anymore,” Abols said with a laugh. “Just kidding.”

As the Flyers went into the holiday break on a good run, so did Abols. He had a goal, two assists and a plus-3 rating over the last three games before Christmas. Abols has played in 31 of 36 games for the Flyers, who are 19-10-7. He has two goals and three assists as the club’s fourth-line center.

He’ll enjoy Christmas with his wife and son, perhaps in New York again.

“That’s the classic,” Abols said, “and it has been kind of our tradition before Aleksi was born.”

Christmas has become different as parents.

“I think there was a stretch when you grow old or grow out of the Christmas excitement I guess,” Abols said. “Now I have a 4-year-old, so he understands what Christmas is and what it means. It’s more exciting just to see his joy and kind of make his day. Definitely now the Christmas spirit is more back than maybe a couple of years before when it was just the two of us.”

Prior to taking a shot with the Flyers last season, Abols spent the previous four seasons in the SHL, Sweden’s top pro league. Six of his first seven professional seasons were in the SHL.

“Pretty much ever since I’ve turned pro, every Christmas has been on the road,” Abols said.

Last season wasn’t an easy transition with a wife and young son. Abols and Paula were taking a leap for his NHL dream.

“I think that’s one thing that burned her up last year, was just being at the hotel a lot and staying here the whole year,” Abols said, “so that kind of takes a huge toll on her.”

This season, he’ll play for Team Latvia at the Milan-Cortina Olympics. Paula may head home to Latvia at some point before rejoining Abols in Italy.

“She might go back before the Olympics to acclimatize, get the jet lag out of the system,” he said, “so she can come to Milan and kind of enjoy her time there and not be on a different time zone.”

Aleksi is just starting to soak up the thrills of his dad playing in the NHL.

“I don’t think he quite grasps what the NHL is, but he just finds it cool to come to the games,” Abols said. “He’s super excited to see me. He has grown so much in these three months. The first week, when he got here, I couldn’t even recognize him. He got so much smarter, so much wiser, so much funnier. It has been awesome.

“You realize you have to appreciate every moment you get with him and that’s what I try to do. After games, he’s coming up, he’s running, hugging, he’s asking if I scored and then he’s like, ‘Flyers had four, Sharks had one. Flyers won!’ He’s definitely having a lot of fun.”

His parents helped fuel his passion for hockey by giving him a sticker page with all the NHL logos.

“So he picks and chooses the ones he likes,” Abols said. “Last year, we put the Flyers ones somewhere, he already used them up, so he was like, ‘I don’t have Flyers ones!’ It’s pretty cool he learns the logos that way. He was asking me who we were playing. ‘We play the Sharks.’ He was like, ‘Oh, that’s the team that bites the stick!'”

Abols is grateful to have the support of Paula and Aleksi here in America, especially at this time of year. The game can be a grind, so far away from home. The journey is better with them.

“It has been fun, definitely much needed in a tight schedule,” Abols said. “When you’re alone and if maybe you’re not playing your best hockey, you can get very down on yourself. So they definitely help me take my thoughts away from the rink.”

Scott Morrow’s time with the New York Rangers has been a rollercoaster ride this season, but there’s one aspect about his character that you can’t take away. 

When the Rangers acquired Morrow from the Carolina Hurricanes as part of the sign-and-trade deal involving K’Andre Miller, they were getting a player who was highly successful in the NCAA and American Hockey League level, largely due to his ability to create offense as a defenseman, but he had yet to etch his mark in the NHL. 

Despite failing to make the Rangers’ roster out of training camp, Morrow was called up a couple of times, and once Adam Fox landed on long-term injured reserve with an upper-body injury, Morrow got the opportunity to step into the lineup and play a prominent role.

When asked about what he wanted to see from Morrow shortly after Fox’s injury, Sullivan gave a blunt answer, a sign that he was simply expecting more out of the young defenseman. 

“Assertive play,” Sullivan said about what he wants to see from Morrow. “Making decisions with conviction and not being in between. Eliminating hesitation from his game.”

Since Sullivan’s request for Morrow to play with more assertiveness, he’s been in the lineup for nine games, which has come with its highs and lows. 

Even though the 23-year-old defenseman has specialized in the power play at practically every level of hockey, Sullivan decided to utilize a five-forward power-play unit upon Fox’s absence. 

At first, Sullivan didn’t fully trust Morrow to quarterback the first power-play unit. 

“We don't think that's the strength of their games to this point,” Sullivan said of why Schneider or Morrow are not playing on the first power-play unit. “We're trying to put a power play together that we think gives us the best opportunity to have success. Obviously, Foxy, I think, is an elite power-play defenseman, with how he distributes the puck up there, the way he sees the game. He's got really good instincts. We don't necessarily think that that's the strength of some of the guys you just mentioned.”

Sullivan did emphasize that Morrow was the most equipped defenseman outside of Fox to play on the man advantage. 

“We’ve made a decision to go with five forwards at this point, but we know that if we were to use a defensemen, he would be the guy because of the instincts that he has,” Sullivan said.

With the five-forward unit failing to produce offense, Sullivan recently added Morrow to that first power-play unit. 

In this role, Morrow has gone through a steep learning curve, committing some costly turnovers in the process, showing that there’s still room for him to grow. 

From an overall standpoint, Morrow has been prone to making some defensive mistakes. Specifically on Saturday afternoon in the Rangers’ game against the Philadelphia Flyers, Morrow committed two costly turnovers, the first one coming on the power play, which led to a shorthanded goal, and the next one taking place in overtime, nearly leading to the game-winning goal. 

Through the mistakes, Morrow has continued to play an assertive game per request from Sullivan, earning his coach’s admiration. 

“What I'll say is, he's an incredible kid, and his ability to shrug off some of the plays and continue to perform out there, I think, speaks volumes for the character of what he's about,” Sullivan said. “He's a young player. He's going to make some mistakes, and let's be honest, we're putting him in some really high-profile positions, whether it be on the power play and overtime, things of that nature. He's playing a significant role here with this group right now, especially with Foxy being out, and so I think he's done a great job with just playing through the ups and the downs. 

Rangers Put Scoring Barrage On Display En Route To Comeback Win Over Capitals In a season filled with scoring woes, the New York <a href="https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/new-york-rangers">Rangers</a> flipped the switch on Tuesday night, scoring five goals in the third period against the Washington Capitals, en route to a 7-3 win.&nbsp;

“I think that's what you get when you deal with young players, especially defensemen. I said this to you guys all the time, I think it's the hardest position to play, but I admire his resilience because that would affect a lot of young players the wrong way. When you watch Scotty play, if he makes a mistake, he shrugs it off, he learns from it. We couldn't be more proud of him for his ability to respond to those situations.”

Sullivan has continued to roll with Morrow on the first power-play unit and give him heavy minutes despite some of his defensive blunders, not trying to punish Morrow for mistakes as he continues to develop. 

On Tuesday night in the Rangers’ 7-3 win over the Washington Capitals, Morrow played arguably his best game of the season. 

He led all Rangers defenseman with a 2.50 Game Score, an analytical stat used to quantify a player's single-game impact, blending goals, assists, shots, penalties, faceoffs, and 5v5 goal/Corsi differentials (shot attempts) into one number, with higher scores indicating better overall performance in that specific game. 

Morrow clearly has the talent to transform into an impactful NHL defenseman. Now it’s about fully adapting to the speed of the NHL game and providing more of a reliable presence for the Rangers, something that should come with time.

It's been almost a week since the Los Angeles Kings traded Phillip Danault to the Montreal Canadiens. Both sides have moved on, and Danault made his season debut for the Canadiens on Tuesday.

Ahead of Danault's return to Montreal, he spoke to the media for the first time since the trade went down.

The 32-year-old veteran did not mince his words when describing his time with the Kings and what ultimately led up to the trade.

"I felt like I had no purpose and that I couldn't bring anything to the team with what I had," Danault said to reporters in French. "I felt helpless and not important. That's how I felt at the end."

This was all before the Habs faced the Boston Bruins. Montreal beat its Atlantic Division rivals 6-2 in Danault's first game back.

In terms of the former Kings' performance, he didn't get his name on the scoresheet.

Danault centered Montreal's third line, with Alexandre Texier on his left wing and Josh Anderson on his right. He finished the contest with 24 shifts and 15:29 of ice time. With Los Angeles earlier this season, he averaged 16:19 of ice time, 50 seconds more than he played on Tuesday.

The Victoriaville, Que., native is still looking for his first goal of the season. He has five assists in 31 appearances this season.

In his five seasons with the Canadiens before joining the Kings as a free agent, he played 360 games, scoring 54 goals and 194 points. He also registered a plus-47 rating and averaged 16:53 of ice time in his first stint with the Habs.

'A Lot Of Hard Feelings': NHL Insider Talks Messy Departure For Danault And The KingsPhillip Danault is no longer a member of the Los Angeles Kings, as he was traded to the Montreal Canadiens on Friday. But details about a messy and intense departure are coming out in the aftermath.

Danault costs $5.5 million against Montreal's salary cap and is the sixth-highest-paid forward on the roster in terms of average annual value for this campaign. He has one more year on his current contract after this season.

For action-packed issues, access to the entire magazine archive and a free issue, subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free. Get the latest news and trending stories by subscribing to our newsletter here. And share your thoughts by commenting below the article on THN.com or creating your own post in our community forum.