PITTSBURGH — At some point in every pregame warmup, the Flyers mostly mill around the perimeter or at least stay to one side of the net while James van Riemsdyk is at the other side with a pile of pucks. Just outside the goalie’s crease, he flips one by one top shelf from his office.

He’s one of the best net-front-presence forwards in the league and the Flyers had another one in Wayne Simmonds. Since around the time of them trading Simmonds to Nashville, van Riemsdyk’s gone on a hot streak. Starting with Simmonds’ last game, the outdoor match against Pittsburgh, van Riemsdyk had nine goals in 10 games entering Sunday’s rematch with the Penguins.

Considering van Riemsdyk missed 16 games with an apparent knee injury in the second game of the season, he's been scoring at the same pace as his career-high 36 goals from last season.

“I try not to worry about that too much,” he said. “Obviously it’s a tough way to start the season, getting hurt, but trying not to worry about that now. That’s something you more reflect on maybe at the end of the year when everything is all said and done.”

There’s also something to getting hurt when he did. Only two games into the season the Flyers were still trying to find a spot for him. He was with Simmonds and Mikhail Vorobyev for those first two games and had to find a role when he returned.

The former Toronto Maple Leaf admitted that even though he spent his first three seasons with the Flyers, he had to readapt after spending six seasons north of the border. He returned to the lineup and played 13 games before the Flyers fired Dave Hakstol and brought up Scott Gordon, who was an assistant in Toronto and coached van Riemsdyk for two seasons there, from the minors. That brought about more change, including an elevated role for van Riemsdyk.

“I think being out that time and not really…he almost didn’t have a role with the team for a while there,” Gordon said. “He wasn’t playing as much power-play time, not playing as much top-six ice time and so now I find he’s skating more consistent, getting involved in the play up and down the ice and just has the puck more often. Getting to the front of the net more often obviously, whether it’s a tip or a rebound, that’s critical for anybody but to do that you’ve got to be around the net and he’s been around the net more.”

Last season, van Riemsdyk was mostly on a third line with Toronto and had 11 of those 36 goals on the power play. It looked like the Maple Leafs might’ve found the right formula for how van Riemsdyk would be most effective, but Gordon thinks it’s more about who van Riemsdyk is playing with as opposed to how much ice time he’s getting.

Before Sunday’s game, van Riemsdyk had spent most of his time at even strength this season playing with Travis Konecny and Claude Giroux, according to NaturalStatTrick.com.

What style of linemate does van Riemsdyk think makes him the best player?

“I don’t know. That’s a good question,” he said. “Looking back at some of my most successful stretches, particularly in Toronto, (Tyler) Bozak was my centerman there for a long time but also there were very different styles of players on the wings. We had (Phil) Kessel a little bit there, who obviously does what he does very well. Then you have Mitch Marner who does a lot of things different than him, but does a lot of things really well and we had Connor Brown last year, who fit in really nicely with us too. Those were the three guys that I played for extended periods of time with, me and Bozy, and we had success with all three of them.

“I think you just like to play with smart players, ultimately and we have a lot of those in this room. It’s a chance to find chemistry with a lot of different guys in here. That’s been a lot of fun.”

Dave Isaac; @davegisaac; 856-486-2479; disaac@gannett.com