For the select fans who have fond memories of watching the Philadelphia Flyers in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, this current rendition is doubly hard to watch.
Between their inaugural season in 1967-68 to 2011-12, the Flyers missed the playoffs only 8 times; twice in their first 3 seasons, 5 straight seasons between 1989 and 1994, and once more in 2006-07. That’s all.
It was a team that was always in the mix for the top players in free agency, they were in every major trade rumour, and the playoffs were a near foregone conclusion. It was rarely ever a question of if they were going to make the playoffs, rather how deep could they go.
All of that has since been washed away over the last 15 years, and it’s safe to say we’re currently in the darkest period in franchise history. Not only have they matched their franchise-long playoff drought, they can top it this year, on top of the fact that they’re tracking towards missing the playoffs for the 7th time over their last 8 seasons – which has never been done before.
Those who got to enjoy Eric Lindros, Keith Primeau, Simon Gagné, Mike Richards, and even Claude Giroux can agree that they might’ve taken them for granted.
Primeau’s playoff heroics happened 22 years ago. Richards’ famous playoff goal against Montreal took place 16 years ago. Giroux’s shift to start Game 6 against Pittsburgh happened 14 years ago. Even the Flyers sweeping the round robin tournament in the playoff bubble happened 6 years ago. Compared to what we’re seeing now, it feels like an entirely different lifetime.
After a decade of ups and downs, the Flyers finally embraced a rebuild, something they tried once before but never saw things through. While I don’t agree with a lot of what Ron Hextall did during his tenure, he had a 5-year plan that was about to come to fruition before it was taken away and handed to Chuck Fletcher.
Hextall’s master plan had to do with unloading the bad contracts and alleviating the Flyers’ cap problem, which was coming to a head in the summer of 2019. Unfortunately, it was Fletcher who got to use the $34 million in cap space that he created, and it’s always a “what if” that I’ve thought about after seeing how Fletcher used it all up in one offseason.
That “plan”, whatever it was going to be, was put to a halt and a new regime instituted a completely different pathway, which in turn wasted another 4-5 years. Daniel Brière then came in and has tried to steer the ship towards a rebuild, but things don’t look any clearer today than they did in years past.
Fast forward to today and it seems like the Flyers are no better off than they were maybe a decade or so ago. There are remnants and scraps remaining from Hextall’s tenure and bits and pieces left from Fletcher’s time, but overall it’s not an overly exciting landscape.
They’ve accumulated a lot of draft picks over the years and have a nice pipeline, but not much that would get you out of your seat. The Flyers are still a team without a top-flight centre or a top-pair defenseman. Goaltending hangs in the balance, but they do have high hopes for Carson Bjarnason and Yegor Zavragin.
That level of futility has definitely crept into the fanbase, which is why if you frequent social media, there’s ongoing feuds between them and the beat reporters. In turn, the reporters are chiming back believing in the process, getting annoyed with the fanbase’s pessimistic viewpoints, and wanting to wait things out. There’s a middle ground somewhere in there, which makes it that much worse, because it perfectly symbolizes the Flyers being stuck in the middle, or a purgatory-like state.
The new regime has been insistent from day 1 of not going through a traditional rebuild, and while you can applaud their valiant efforts of trying to do things their way, it has led to a lot of mediocrity, especially in their pipeline. A lot of picks, a lot of prospects, but very little high-end projected talent. That can change on a whim with proper development, but we’ve rarely seen that with this organization either.
Then you focus on the NHL roster and see how they’ve been handling things there. They did get great value on Scott Laughton, they held onto Rasmus Ristolainen a little too long as the injuries continue to pile up, and they’ve recently extended Christian Dvorak, who many were hoping would be moved at the deadline for future assets – or if signed to an extension, not to 5 years.
With Dvorak in particular, it might’ve been a necessary signing when you look at the available centres on the market, but therein lies the problem. The Flyers have no depth at the position in the minors to make an impact at the NHL level, their prospects are far away from being NHL-ready, and they’re still trying to remain competitive.
Would a Chicago-style rebuild have been any better? Tough to say, but you would be picking top-3 talents on a consistent basis rather than stacking picks in the low-teens and banking on their two-way play rather than their high-end offensive skill that this team desperately needs.
Either way, the route they chose has nearly the same end date as a traditional rebuild, except you’re banking on the Jett Luchankos and Jack Nesbitts of the world to shatter their pre-draft scouting reports.
People can point out that Buffalo’s tear-it-all-down rebuild led to even worse results, but they seem to be more of the anomaly. San Jose is already reaping the rewards from Macklin Celebrini, the Blackhawks have a transcendent talent in Connor Bedard making the rounds, and the Anaheim Ducks finally took positive steps this year.
Patience is going to be key because this is a 5-6 year plan. However, it’s not a good sign that they’re trying to potentially get out of it midway through. Keith Jones and Dan Hilferty’s preseason press conference intimated just that and then some.
All signs are also pointing to a quiet trade deadline because it doesn’t sound like they’re going to be selling off pieces with Dvorak having been extended. The rest of their roster is either locked up or are pending RFAs with the exception of Nicolas Deslauriers, Carl Grundström, Noah Juulsen, and the injured Rodrigo Ābols.
They’re also being thrown into rumours regarding Artemi Panarin. DFO’s Anthony Di Marco mentioned it first a couple of weeks ago that the Flyers would have interest in the Russian winger, but they don’t want to join a bidding war at the deadline or in free agency.
Additionally, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman has mentioned the Flyers as well, with the insider having said it wouldn’t be surprising considering their past interest in another budding Russian star, Kirill Kaprizov.
The Flyers are currently 9th-last in the NHL after having dropped their third straight game on Thursday, but there is a four-way tie at 57 points, and the Flyers are a win away from potentially catapulting from 24th to a tie for 15th.
It’s tough to say how things will unfold from now to the end of the season, but they’re not acting like a team trying to lose, and they’re certainly pushing for a playoff spot. If they end up missing out, they’re likely ticketed to another pick in the 10-13 range, or if they make it through and lose in the first round, we’re likely targeting a high-teens pick.
Based on their current trajectory, it doesn’t sound promising to a team that is dire need of young prolific talent.
You look league-wide at every team’s best homegrown talent and you compare that with the Flyers, and you realize how far away they are. Travis Konecny is arguably their best drafted and developed player, and he’s only better than what the Calgary Flames, Seattle Kraken, and maybe the St. Louis Blues have drafted and/or developed.
The Flyers need a top-10 or top-20 player more than any team in the league right now, but they’re more content with finding plug-and-play players and sticking to two-way talents who “play the right way.” They left a lot of talent on the board when they selected both Luchanko and Nesbitt, and they will forever be under the microscope for their decisions for years to come.
Matvei Michkov can be that guy, as can Porter Martone, but no Stanley Cup contender’s best talents have been wingers. The Flyers want to make the playoffs, that part is obvious, but in doing so they’re continuing the same tried and failed method of playing at 100% effort, despite the lack of positive performances.
This is a team that can only bank on effort, which is why they’ve already hit a wall. The Flyers are usually good for a few early-season spurts, where they look like a really good team that can hang, and then all of a sudden the wheels fall off and they look hopeless.
They’re gassed, they’re tired, and they can’t rely on their talent because there’s very little of it on this team. Outside of Michkov, Konecny, and Trevor Zegras, the forward group leaves a lot to be desired. On the back-end, there’s very little there outside of Travis Sanheim and Cam York. In between the pipes, the Flyers are relying on Dan Vladař to have a career year.
They remained competitive and never bottomed out under Hextall’s watch, they had one really poor season under Fletcher but it wasn’t a loaded draft and they eventually lost their selection to a trade, and now under Brière, you can make the argument that it’s almost a mix of both worlds.
The Flyers have pieces they can certainly build around, but if they can’t find a legitimate centre and a top-pair defenseman, then this entire rebuild will be all for naught. There’s still a few years to go in this New Era of Orange, but so far, it’s not anything to write home about.
How they go about doing that is anyone’s guess because the free agent landscape is barren, and trades for young centres and defensemen are hard to come by. They technically had their chance at Quinn Hughes but they weren’t in a position to match what the Minnesota Wild offered; but those are the kinds of trades they need to make moving forward.
If the Flyers try to bottom out, they can find a way to draft Tynan Lawrence, Chase Reid, Alberts Šmits, or Caleb Maholtra. Otherwise they’re ticketed for a selection in the mid-teens, where they’ll be hoping that Oliver Suvanto, Ryan Lin, or Adam Novotný can shatter pre-draft projections.
And doing the same thing while expecting different results would categorize them as being insane.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login