Brink or Foerster? Evaluating the Flyers' biggest camp battle

When Philadelphia Flyers rookie camp began three weeks ago, there was a clear hierarchy when it came to the forward prospects looking to battle their way onto the final NHL roster.

In short, it was Tyson Foerster, and then everybody else.

Over the past four days, Bobby Brink has done everything he can possibly do to upend that hierarchy.

“To me, it’s a positive when you’re kinda scratching your head, thinking, ‘Where are we gonna go? Who’s gonna be where?’” Flyers head coach John Tortorella said after his team’s 3-1 victory over the Boston Bruins on Monday night.

For the third time in four nights, Brink excelled. He may not have scored a goal or chipped in with an assist, but the 22-year old winger was constantly making things happen with the puck, rightfully earning a mid-game promotion to the top line alongside Sean Couturier and Joel Farabee. Brink now has three points (one goal, two assists) in his three appearances since Friday, and if anything, that statline undersells his on-ice impact.

Foerster, on the other hand? He’s still sitting on just one assist through four preseason games, and was dropped down to the fourth line with Ryan Poehling and Wade Allison for the final two periods on Monday.

The pre-camp favorite has officially left the door open for a late-riser — in this case, Brink — to potentially snatch his spot on the opening night roster away from him.

Tortorella did push back on the idea that the competition was a simple question of Foerster vs. Brink, noting that the reality of their looming roster decisions was far more complex.

“You guys keep saying that, (but) you’re a little mistaken there,” he contended. “It’s not Tyson against Bobby. There’s a lot of different things that can happen with the lineup.”

But is there really much in the way of flexibility? Sean Couturier, Noah Cates and Morgan Frost appear locked in as the team’s top three centers. Travis Konecny, Owen Tippett, Cam Atkinson and Joel Farabee are all virtual locks to play in the Flyers’ top-nine. That leaves only two spots, and while Scott Laughton could theoretically drop into a fourth line role, the coaching staff seems enamored with the trio of Ryan Poehling, Nicolas Deslauriers and Garnet Hathaway to begin the season as the steady Line 4.

So unless scratching Laughton for Game 1 is on the table — fat chance — there’s only one spot available in the top-nine for Foerster and Brink (and Allison, who is in the battle as well). Thus, the presumed competition.

“I think both of them have looked great and deserve spots on this team,” Farabee said regarding the prospects after Monday’s win.

But given the realities of Philadelphia’s roster, that doesn’t seem likely. Barring an injury or a surprise demotion, it sure looks like one of Foerster or Brink will make the club, and one will be heading back to Lehigh Valley to start the season.

So which one will it be?

Right now, Brink has the momentum. But Foerster’s case remains stronger than some might think. It wasn’t an accident that Foerster began Monday’s game in a top-nine role while Brink had to start on Line 4; it was a sign that despite Brink’s impressive weekend, Foerster was still ahead of him in the organization’s estimation.

Only one preseason game remains for the two top prospects to make their final pushes. So who has the edge? Let’s evaluate their respective cases.

Foerster’s case

1. Foerster was significantly better than Brink last year.

Entering camp, this was Foerster’s biggest edge over Brink, and it hasn’t just disappeared. Tortorella confirmed as much on Monday morning.

“It isn’t just based on what’s happening now,” he said. “We certainly have to be cognizant of what we saw (in the past), especially with Tyson, some of the abilities that he has from last year.”

Foerster’s 2022-23 campaign was impressive on multiple levels. He led the Phantoms in scoring (48 points in 66 games), becoming a better, more well-rounded player in the process. And then, of course, Foerster excelled in his NHL audition, scoring seven points in eight games, and endearing himself to Tortorella not only because of his offense, but due to his increased defensive diligence as well.

By the end of the season, Tortorella by his own admission was starting to pencil Foerster into his 2023-24 starting lineup, a half-year in advance.

“I need to temper myself,” he noted back in March. “I’ve seen it — but you have to temper yourself as I’m thinking about next year. Have him go through camp, I hope he goes through a long playoff run with Lehigh. And then we’ll see where he sits as we go through.”

While Foerster was making a serious impression on the NHL coach, Brink was in the midst of an uneven season after returning from the hip surgery that knocked him out for half the year. He may have put up points (28 in 41 games), but was nowhere near as consistently impactful as Foerster, and not nearly as effective defensively. Brink didn’t even get the late-season NHL call-up that so many Phantoms prospects received, which was telling. He hadn’t earned it.

Brink has looked more impressive than Foerster over the past week. But over the significantly larger sample size of the 2023 calendar year, Foerster still has the better track record.

2. Foerster had a better start to camp.

Brink’s surge really began early last week during the final few scrimmages, before he fully emerged via his standout performance in Boston last Friday. But it’s worth remembering that Brink hasn’t excelled start-to-finish at camp.

In fact, in the two rookie games up in Allentown on September 15 and 16, Brink was downright bad.

Foerster may not have been especially impressive in those games either. But he wasn’t the liability that Brink was, who spent the bulk of the second game hanging out at the New York Rangers’ blueline, hoping for stretch passes to send him on breakaways. His cherrypicking was so egregious that assistant coach Rocky Thompson pointed it out last week.

“I think his tracking and his reloading, from the start of camp to right now has improved,” Thompson said. “I thought in the rookie games, that he wasn’t doing those things well.

“Whether you’re a top line player who’s skilled (or not), you still can back check, you can still track, you can still be disruptive. We’re not expecting physicality out of him. but we’re expecting guys like Bobby to be able to do those things effectively.”

To Brink’s credit, he’s improved substantially in this area, and the issues from the rookie game have been nowhere to be found over his last three stellar preseason games.

But if the Flyers are judging Brink on his performance during the entirety of camp, they’ll remember that it hasn’t been all sunshine and roses, even he has serious momentum now. There’s some bad habits left in his game, and those could easily re-emerge if his scoring dries up to start the regular season. Foerster hasn’t had the same highs as Brink during camp, but his lows haven’t been nearly as low.

3. It’s not like Foerster has been bad.

Look, it’s undeniable that over the past four days, Bobby Brink has outplayed Tyson Foerster. Tortorella acknowledged as much on Monday when — believing that his club was a bit flat to start the game — he pushed Brink up to the top line and relegated Foerster to Line 4.

“It’s hard from me to keep Bobby Brink away from a top-six spot right now, as far as how many plays he’s making,” Tortorella noted.

But that doesn’t mean Foerster has been actively poor.

Foerster looks both quicker (especially in terms of straight-line speed) and stronger than he did last season, a testament to the hard work he put in over the summer. He’s won puck battles. He’s flashed his underrated passing ability. He’s backchecked hard. He’s not yet operating at peak powers, but it’s not like Tyson Foerster has flopped at this camp.

“I thought Tyson’s five-on-five play was good,” Tortorella said after Monday’s game. “I think he’s fighting it a little bit on the power play. Although he makes a really good cross-ice pass to Cam (Atkinson) on it.”

If Foerster did indeed enter main camp with a significant lead over Brink — justifiable given the fact that Foerster had a much better 2022-23 campaign and wasn’t a defensive nightmare in the rookie games — it’s not outlandish to argue that he should still be ahead, even absent a signature offensive performance. Based on the last four days, Brink is better. Based on the last nine months, Foerster is. The latter sample is likely to be significantly more representative of true talent than the former.

Brink’s case

1. Brink has clearly been better in preseason.

Foerster’s strongest argument for inclusion in the Flyers’ opening night lineup is built around what he did months ago.

For Brink, it’s what he’s done over the past four days.

Based solely on the three games he’s played since Friday, Brink deserves to be in the NHL. He had a goal and an assist in Boston (with a shootout tally tacked on for good measure). He added another assist the next night back in Philly on a gorgeous backhand pass. And while he was held off the scoresheet on Monday, it wasn’t for lack of effort — Brink nearly had two primary assists in the first five minutes (both Travis Sanheim and Noah Cates proved unable to bury their golden opportunities), and got the unofficial third assist on Joel Farabee’s second period deflection, given his role in the passing buildup on the play.

But it’s not just the stats. Brink has been everywhere on the ice during his recent surge, drawing penalties (two on Monday), threading high-difficulty passes and carrying the puck through traffic.

From an offensive standpoint, he’s been right there with NHL vets like Konecny, Atkinson and Farabee in terms of chance creation over the past three games. And he’s done it despite being the only Flyer to appear in all three of them, fighting through fatigue in the midst of a grueling camp.

“He’s been one of the better ones, so far in camp here, as far as not so much scoring the goal, but just creating offense,” Tortorella noted. “So we have to keep looking at him.”

Foerster, on the other hand? One measly secondary assist in four games — and that came on a play where Brink himself got the primary helper.

If preseason play is going to be the primary deciding factor for NHL roster decisions, then Brink pretty much has to be in the Flyers’ lineup for Game 1. He may not have been as impressive as Foerster was with the Phantoms last season, and as a result, he didn’t get the chance to wow during a late-season NHL audition like Foerster did. But Brink has been significantly, measurably better during the exhibition slate. That has to count for something.

2. The Flyers desperately need playmaking creativity.

It wasn’t too long ago that the Flyers’ forward corps was filled with all passers and no shooters. But that’s not the case anymore.

Owen Tippett is a shooter at heart. So is Atkinson. Konecny and Farabee both have plus shooting ability. Really, aside from Morgan Frost, the current Philadelphia top-nine doesn’t have a forward with plus playmaking ability — and at least thus far, Frost’s passing acumen has yet to manifest itself in power play situations.

Foerster, for all of his offensive strengths, is yet another shooter. Brink, on the other hand, is a pure creative passer. The Flyers actually may need one of those right now more than they do a sniper.

For the last two seasons, Philadelphia has finished dead last in the league in PP efficiency, and have proven woefully unable to replace what was lost when Claude Giroux was shipped to Florida. The big problem? The power play lacks an identity, in large part because it doesn’t have a clear-cut distributor.

Foerster isn’t going to be that type of player, even if he hits his ceiling. Brink could be.

“Really good on the power play,” Tortorella raved about Brink. “You can see he thinks the next play, you can see that. This is what he is, this is why he was drafted.”

In fact, on Monday, Brink set up shop on the left half-wall — Giroux’s old spot — and looked quite comfortable there. On the PP, Brink’s physical limitations (small size and lack of an elite skating gear) will have less of an impact, and he can lean on his vision and creativity. Brink’s inclusion on the final roster could help the rest of their young, developing forwards as well, by turning the power play back into a booster of confidence rather than the black hole of misery it has been for the past few seasons.

It’s not that the Flyers couldn’t use another goal scorer, especially one like Foerster who is also an adept passer. It’s just that given the shape of their current forward mix, they probably need a facilitator a little bit more.

3. The merit argument.

One could certainly make the case that Foerster deserves to secure the final remaining spot in the Philadelphia top-nine based primarily on his work last season. After all, that’s a much larger sample size than less than a week of very impressive exhibition games.

The counterargument? If the Flyers hold that jobs can truly be won or lost at camp, then keeping Brink off the final roster due to work that Foerster put in months ago flies in the face of that contention.

And Tortorella did reiterate last week — when asked about the backup goaltender battle — that the fear of appearing hypocritical or inconsistent is present in their camp thinking.

“It’s kind of unfair, when we want to talk about merit, and not stay with merit right on through, no matter what position it is,” he noted.

Foerster very well may be a better prospect than Brink. He absolutely has the superior pro track record at this point. But at this particular camp, Brink has shown more. And unless the Flyers can figure out a way to fit both players into the top-nine for Game 1 — and if they’re adamant on keeping this new-look fourth line together, it’s hard to think of a scenario where both Foerster and Brink can make it — they’ll most likely have to choose one or the other.

Simply based on camp work, Brink has the stronger case for that spot, at least on merit. Whether that’s enough to overcome his pre-camp standing on the organizational depth chart? Stay tuned.