Tyson Foerster has plenty of time to reach his talent ceiling. We have to remember that he’s still 21. He has good size and I have no issue with his skating. That’s not to say it can’t be improved but I can see a path where he can still score if he has plateaued in that area.
To see how much a player has improved, I go back to his draft year and after that, read my notes to see how he’s doing. I had him ranked 29th in the 2020 NHL Draft. So, I still believe the Flyers got good value. Five or six spots different isn’t a big deal. Ridly Greig is someone the Flyers probably had interest in and Foerster is keeping pace with him but behind JJ Peterka. He will be a better all-around player.
It’s fine that Foerster picked up the finer points of the game first like forechecking and winning puck battles along the wall. InStat has him winning 46% currently.
As far as his scoring goes, it’s nice they have him back on the correct side of the power play and there’s one difference that I noticed. I went back and looked, and his one-timer was okay, but his wrist shot was special because he could wire it high into the back of the net, and the puck gets off the stick quicker. So how did he score on the power play in his last game? His wrist shot. Many times, going back to basics is what works with young players.
His takeaways are at 11, and giveaways are at 4. He’s somewhat physical, but I don’t want him to get too carried away with that. They still need him to score more than those other things. John Tortorella gets some credit here, but the offense has to continue to come for this to be considered a successful development by the coach.
Foerster is shooting more, and that’s good too. He averaged 3.88 shots per game in juniors, and now he’s up to 3.4 with the Flyers.
One last item. Foerster has had 20 shots blocked. If he can avoid that a bit more the points will go up.
The sample size this year is small, but he’s plugged back into what has worked in the past. To me, that means he should be able to sustain this good play.
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