Foerster could miss start of Flyers season due to elbow infection

Forward injured during World Championship; scored 25 goals in 2024-25

Tyson Foerster could miss the start of the season for the Philadelphia Flyers because of an infection in his elbow.

Foerster sustained an injury to his elbow playing for Canada at the 2025 IIHF World Championship in April, and further examination showed the infection.

"He had an injury at the World Championship that wasn't supposed to be anything really serious," Flyers general manager Daniel Briere said Tuesday. "Came back here and there's some infection that set in to the elbow, and then it just got worse. He came and saw us, our doctors, and decided they had to go in and remove the infection. What I'm finding out is it takes a long time for all the samples to come back negative, and that's what we're still waiting on.

"We don't know (a timeframe), and at that point we'll reevaluate and see if more needs to be done, or if we're lucky enough, that's the end of it, and he can move on and be ready for the start of the season. But there's no guarantee of that. So we're sitting and waiting right now to see how serious it is, or not."

Foerster was second on the Flyers with 25 goals in 81 games last season, and the 23-year-old signed a two-year, $7.5 million contract ($3.75 million average annual value) on May 29.

Selected by the Flyers in the first round (No. 23) of the 2020 NHL Draft, Foerster has 83 points (48 goals, 35 assists) in 166 games. He tied for third among NHL rookies in 2023-24 with 20 goals in 77 games.

The Flyers signed four players Tuesday, the first day of free agency: goalie Dan Vladar, center Christian Dvorak and defensemen Noah Juulsen and Dennis Gilbert. Briere said the Flyers didn't pursue a potential replacement for Foerster, in part because Briere believes he won't be out long. He also is confident the Flyers have potential replacements in-house, including Porter Martone, the No. 6 pick of the 2025 NHL Draft.

"He's not going to miss the whole year, or I hope he's not going to miss the whole year," Briere said. "You're going to need that [salary-cap space] at some point. We have some young guys, maybe if he does have to miss early in the season, that maybe they step up. Maybe it's an Alex Bump, maybe it's a Porter Martone. [Devin] Kaplan played at the end of the year for us. There's other guys that perform that maybe they get a look early in the season, if they have a good [training] camp. We just didn't feel that we can spend his money not knowing how long, or if he's going to be out, or how long he's going to be out at this point."