There’s never a dull moment when it comes to the Philadelphia Flyers. At one point in time that meant an exciting on-ice product with big names regularly joining the franchise. But today, it pretty much means an endless steam of ridiculously crazy moments that can only happen to a team that’s cursed. 2022-23 was no different for the Flyers. They achieved national headlines multiple times for all the wrong reasons as the ill-fated franchise continues their decent into madness.
Number 5: More Injuries!
The Flyers have been atop the man games lost to injury list for the last few years now and this season really didn’t get any better. Sean Couturier missed the entire season after undergoing a second back surgery, Cam Atkinson also missed the entire season with a neck injury and subsequent surgery, Joel Farabee had offseason disc replacement surgery in his neck and even though he didn’t miss any regular season time it has greatly effected his play, Ryan Ellis was confirmed to more or less be retired despite being under contract for four more years and Samuel Morin was forced into retirement from his repeated knee problems. In fact, if nothing changes over the last five contests of the season, only three players Joel Farabee, Noah Cates and Ivan Provorov will have suited up for all 82 games.
Number 4: JVR TDL
In Chuck Fletcher’s painfully stupid last move… or lack thereoff… as GM, he failed to move pending unrestricted free agent James Van Riemsdyk at the 2023 trade deadline. The 2023 trade deadline was one of the most active trade deadlines of all time and certainly in recent history with over 50 deals being made in the weeks leading up to the March 3 deadline. Yet somehow Chucky couldn’t craft a deal to move JVR. The excuses were rampant- “it’s hard to move money, finding a dance partner, proper value” yada yada, all things that didn’t stop literally every other team in the league from moving and acquiring players. Fletcher was finally fired a couple weeks later.
Number 3: Ivan Provorov
Remember when Ivan Provorov outed himself as a gigantic homophobe and refused to wear a warmup jersey that has since destroyed pride night initiatives around the league? Leave it to the Flyers to finally have a decent effort for their pride night and they somehow do more damage than if they just kept up their track record of insultingly poor theme nights.
Number 2: Ivan Fedotov
There’s been so much head-spinning insanity this season (and really the last few years) that it’s easy to forget that the Russian military kidnapped 26-year-old goaltender Ivan Fedotov shortly after he signed his entry-level deal with the Flyers in July of 2022. He was shipped to a base in the arctic circle and no one’s really had an update on him since. Theoretically, he’ll serve his one this summer and at 26 years old should not be required to do more than that, but it’s also Russia, so something says they’re not just going to let him go where he chooses this summer and call it a big misunderstanding.
Number 1: Johnny Gaudreau
This one still doesn’t feel real. The South Jersey native was linked to the Flyers dating back to his entry to the league back in 2014 and the summer of 2022 was the time both parties could reunite. Then Chuck Fletcher committed $5 million of their very limited funds to Tony DeAngelo and failed to move James Van Riemsdyk for the first time and when day one of free agency came, the Flyers couldn’t afford to bring Gaudreau home. At a time when the Flyers need star power up front and a new fan favorite player, they had a perfect opportunity to do so but the incompetence of Chuck Fletcher struck in a big way in by striking out on a player that could’ve checked so many boxes for the desperate organization.
Honorable mention
Morgan Frost the Toilet Seat
Don’t really have any kind of witty remark here. Just flashing back to when John Tortorella compared his player to a toilet seat. On the bright side, at least he’s been up lately!
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: nhl.com
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