A lot of the Philadelphia Flyers’ issues this year have been appropriated to their injuries and health related to COVID, a valid argument but only to a certain extent. Their slew of injuries consist of regulars like Sean Couturier, Ryan Ellis, Kevin Hayes, Joel Farabee, Derick Brassard, and Nate Thompson among others but the sad reality is that they would still be the same team that is languishing near the bottom of the Metropolitan Division, healthy or not.
This team has no identity, no philosophy, barely a working core, and no foundation. It’s laughable that Dave Scott announces to the world that the Flyers’ core moving forward is Couturier, Hayes, Ellis, and Farabee; all signed long-term but all out long-term as well. Couturier has undergone season-ending surgery, Hayes and Ellis are to possibly follow suit, and Farabee has nursed a few injuries to date.
Even though their current NHL roster is filled with players from the Lehigh Valley Phantoms like Jackson Cates, Max Willman, Gerry Mayhew, Connor Bunnaman, and Isaac Ratcliffe, among others, the results would be nearly identical with or without these players. It’s quickly mentioned that the Flyers started the season 6-2-2 and later 8-4-3, before completely losing the plot with a 10 game losing streak, but the cracks in their foundation showed up early and quickly.
Even though they enjoyed early success in the month of October, they showed their true selves – the Flyers of mid-November to the present – during the Western Canadian road trip. They played pretty well against the Edmonton Oilers, beating them 5-3, but it was their game against the Vancouver Canucks, where they got outplayed but managed a 2-1 win that proved to be fatal. Martin Jones played on his head to earn the victory, something he hasn’t done much of since. After the Canucks game they travelled to Calgary where they had an abysmal performance against the Flames, managing to take 9 shots in the first 40 minutes. Those 2 games were the beginning of a 9 game stretch where they alternated between wins and losses that perfectly eased them into their first 10 game winless streak.
Their offense sagged, their defense started playing down to par to their 2020-21 counterparts, their goaltending dropped from their meteoric rise in October, and their coaching was stagnant. Firing Alain Vigneault and Michel Therrien made sense because the coaching staff had lost the locker room, and whether warranted or not, they had to go. Naming Mike Yeo as the interim only made sense because Chuck Fletcher didn’t have a plan A or B in line for a new head coach mid-season.
Like every new coach that comes in, there’s always a mini-spark from the team and the Flyers had that when they won 5 of 6 games sandwiched between their 10 game winless streak and their 13 game winless streak. They looked a little better than the Vigneault-coached Flyers but you could tell it wouldn’t last, since they only outplayed their opponents one time during those 6 games. They stopped their dump and chase methods during that winning streak but quickly reverted back to their old ways.
The Flyers are averaging 2.54 goals per game which is good for 27th in the league. They’re also 14.4% on the power play which is good for 30th in the league, and their shooting percentage is 28th-best at a clip of 8.3%. They’ve allowed 3.40 goals against per game which is 8th-worst, 34.1 shots per game which is 5th-worst, and their abysmal penalty killing continues as they have successfully killed penalties at a 76.2% rate, which is good for 24th in the NHL. They couldn’t score with Vigneault, they can’t score with Yeo, they couldn’t score with a healthy lineup, and they couldn’t stop the puck with a relatively healthy lineup.
Add in Couturier, Hayes, and/or Ellis and the problems would still persist. Their defense is porous with the likes of Keith Yandle, Nick Seeler, and Kevin Connauton playing on a near game by game basis. Their offensive scheme is laughable, so much so, that other team’s broadcasts are making fun and poking jokes. During Saturday’s game against the Detroit Red Wings, the Wings broadcast made fun and pointed out how bad their neutral zone game was, their porous entries 5-on-5 and on the power play, and how they looked stagnant. That is coming from a team that isn’t even in the playoffs.
Sadly it’s true though, they can’t enter the zone, whether 5-on-5 or on the man advantage, they can’t win the face-offs on the man advantage for whatever reason even though they’re still top 5 in the NHL. They can’t set up on the power play for longer than 5 seconds before an errant pass goes wayward or they fire a shot right in the breadbasket of the unscreened goaltender. They have foregone the one-timer that many teams have found consistent success with, they keep changing personnel but not the most important one, which is the quarterback of the top unit. Essentially their power play has become a disadvantage, especially when the opposing team gets just as many or more chances while shorthanded.
Injuries have played a part but the issues lie with their lack of identity, philosophy, culture, system, and schemes. This season has been lost for several months and with the deadline approaching it would be nice to see a rebuild forthcoming, even a minor one at that since Dave Scott is even more allergic to the term “rebuild” than Ron Hextall. Justin Braun, Derick Brassard, Keith Yandle, and Martin Jones at the very least should not be on the roster after the March 21st trade deadline. Rasmus Ristolainen and Claude Giroux (NMC) should be traded for futures as well but it’s still unclear how they proceed with each player.
It’s time to finally give the young players a chance to play, not just meaningless April games with the season coming to a close. The Flyers still have 35 games remaining, which is a big enough sample size to see what they have in the minors. Cam York played very well in his short stint with the Flyers, they even gave him top minutes alongside Egor Zamula against the Pittsburgh Penguins earlier in the year before sending down the latter for the “better penalty killer” in Nick Seeler. Morgan Frost, who was dealing with consistency issues, was finally playing better hockey before his previous demotion but the time has ripened again to give him the opportunity.
Your best players and most consistent players have been Claude Giroux, a player that should be traded, and Cam Atkinson, a player you just acquired, for most of the season. Certain players have found their grooves here and there, including Scott Laughton who has really played some great hockey in the last few weeks but nothing has been consistent. The big money makers like James van Riemsdyk, Travis Konecny, and Ivan Provorov have severely disappointed.
We really shouldn’t be seeing the likes of Seeler, Connauton, Jones, and several other veterans moving forward, because what is the point? The season is lost, they’re not returning or at least they shouldn’t return, and the Flyers need to know what they have in their young players like Frost, York, and Zamula. They need longer runs and longer leashes and the final 2 months of this season should be plenty. It will be good for their development instead of having to battle for a spot during training camp, while we watch the “better penalty killers” cause more disruption at the NHL level.
