After the third straight season of abysmal hockey in Philadelphia, the winds of change finally started to blow, and took the old front office regime with them. The reign of Danny Briere rose up in their absence and he went to work; pushing a rebuild and a rebrand to return to the good ol’ days of Flyers hockey.
The anticipation was high and some of the accompanying rumors were among the spiciest the organization has seen in over a decade, but their rebuilding efforts during their first offseason didn’t quite live up to the hype. The Ivan Provorov trade and the first round of the 2023 draft were the only indicators of a proper rebuild in place, the rest of the moves were just varying degrees of mediocre, not quite aligning with their message of change.
It’s left a team stuck between generations with a bulk of the old guard still in place and a bunch of potential NHL-ready prospects knocking on the door without guaranteed roster spots. The battle will unfold throughout the season and give a much better insight to the plan of the team and what exactly everyone can expect from the rebuild when the rubber meets the road for the 2023-24 season.
Management
Ding dong the witch is dead! Well, ok, not really, but he’s no longer employed by the Philadelphia Flyers. Chuck Fletcher was finally fired after failing to move James Van Riemsdyk at the trade deadline which led to a level of public backlash that was too great for the front office to ignore. In the weeks that followed Comcast Spectacor Chairman and Governor of the Flyers Dave Scott would also step down, as would President and CEO of Spectacor Val Camillo.
They were replaced by new Governor Dan Hilfery, new President of Hockey Ops Keith Jones and new General Manager Danny Briere. The three collectively had zero days of previous experience in their new roles, something the organization would double down on when they hired Patrick Sharp and John LeClair in advisor roles.
The heavy reliance on the “former Flyer” gimmick instead of finding candidates with a history of front office success was a bold choice to pick for the next direction of the franchise and could very well be their undoing before the rebuild even kicked off. Leading the franchise with nothing more than passion for the history of the team is a sexy concept for the fans, but in execution, this is a bunch of inexperienced men trying to make deals with some long-standing front office talent across the league, akin to junior varsity players squaring off against colligate athletes.
Ultimately, it’s far too early to call this one way or another yet, but after the dust settled from their first offseason, and especially after the collapse of quite a few trades, one can’t help but wonder if things wouldn’t have been different if a few experienced personnel were brought in to the front office fold.
Coaching
John Tortorella and his band of hard asses will return behind the bench, despite plenty of rumored league interest in Brad Shaw, who ultimately didn’t snag a head coaching gig anywhere else.
Tortorella, who is the de facto face of the franchise, is the crux of the future of the team. He was the guy who was using the phrase “rebuild” long before the rest of the front office now has to back up his words through actions.
He’ll be the guy on the front lines tasked with developing and integrating the kids in the NHL lineup next season and in the future, and it’s where the biggest questions arise, especially in the short term for the 2023-24 season.
The roster didn’t quite receive the overhaul that was expected, and free agency led to some questionable signings like Marc Staal, Garnet Hathaway and Ryan Poehling that further compacted an already crowded roster, setting up a battle between the youth and vets, and if history tells us anything, it’s that the youth won’t win that battle for ice time.
Will Tortorella back up his own words and lay the foundation of the future by playing the kids? Or does he fall back to his old favorite veterans at the expense of the prospects getting ice time? Honestly, at this point, either seem like real possibilities. Tortorella handled (some) prospects well last season, and considering his past words of encouragement of the rebuild, maybe the old dog can learn new tricks, but it’s easier to believe he’ll default to the depth vets seeing a bulk of the action and stalling the development process even further.
Forwards
The forwards underwent minimal changes and it’s where the boxed out players are thoroughly boxed out. Given the fact that some of their “top” forwards like Travis Konecny and Scott Laughton are returning for another season, despite many trade rumors, and depth forwards Garnet Hathaway and Ryan Poehling were added to the mix, and young players like Tyson Foerster, Elliot Desnoyers and Bobby Brink could all reasonably fight for a main roster spot out of camp, the congestion at forward is very noticeable and will be quite the storyline as the trade deadline approaches.
Kevin Hayes was shipped out of town after a rocky season with John Tortorella, though the Flyers have to retain just shy of $3.6 million for the next three seasons for that honor. James Van Riemsdyk left in free agency, bringing his five-year tenure (and eighth overall) to a merciful end. Depth forwards Brendan Lemieux and Kieffer Bellows were the only two other losses up front.
Ultimately, the forward group highlights the mediocre state the Flyers are trapped in. They’re no where near good enough to score with any level of serious threat and win games with regularity, but they’re too good to make sure the Flyers are a basement dwelling team.
Centers
Youngsters Morgan Frost and Noah Cates dug their heels in on the main roster last season, establishing themselves as at least short-term building blocks that will need to be backed up by stronger play in the future Cates could very well be their two-way forward of the future, while Frost at least rehabbed a bit of his stock after years of underwhelming play.
The team also has the return of Sean Couturier to “look forward” to. The 30-year-old has missed 22 months with two separate back surgeries dating back to December of 2021. He tried to make a comeback late last season but ran out of time. They decided that it’s best he focus on a return in 2023-24 fully healthy… or as close to whatever that means these days. He’s still got seven years left on his contract at a $7.7 million cap hit.
They signed 24-year-old free agent Ryan Poehling, who excels at penalty killing and not much else. Considering Tortorella hates Tanner Laczynski, it’s no surprise they went on the hunt for a depth upgrade down the middle.
They do have 21-year-old Elliot Desnoyers knocking at the main roster door. He set a new Lehigh Valley Phantoms record for goals scored by a rookie with 23 last season and his two-way play was very acceptable as well. Given the injury history of the players above him, it may not take long before he’s receiving call ups to the main roster.
The state of the centers is highly contingent of whether or not Couturier is able to play at a high level. If he comes back and is at least able to hold his own with Cates picking up the rest of the slack and Frost carrying some of the offensive burden, this may be the best forward group the Flyers have been able to muster in years. If Couturier isn’t at an acceptable level, Cates has a sophomore slump and Frost is just a guy, well, the same old misery at C will continue.
Left Wing
There’s not much natural LW depth on the team to speak of. Joel Farabee, Scott Laughton and Nic Deslauriers represent the entirety of the left side at the moment, and two of the three of them aren’t even natural left wingers.
The abundance of bodies on the right side means at least one of them is going to have to move over to the left, not only to alleviate some pressure on their natural side, but to fill out the roster. A middle-six left wing spot is the only practical opening remaining for anyone battling for a spot.
Farabee is at the core of the success on the left side. He still hasn’t hit the 40-point plateau now four seasons into his career. Despite playing all 82 games last season, he returned early from major offseason neck surgery and took many months to get back to full strength. He should be entering the 2023-24 season at 100% and it will be his boom or bust year in terms of establishing himself as a cornerstone of the franchise.
Right Wing
How the organization chose to handle their right wing depth may be one of the more baffling displays in recent Flyers’ history. Travis Konecny, Owen Tippett, Wade Allison, Tyson Foerster, Garnet Hathaway, Bobby Brink and Cam Atkinson make up their RW group. That’s seven players, who could all reasonably play in the NHL, fighting for four roster spots.
The emergence of Owen Tippett last season is a good thing for the team. He scored 27 goals and 49 points, good enough for third on the team in scoring. The 24-year-old is in a contract year as a restricted free agent at season’s end. It will be a contract that will determine whether or not the organization sees him as a foundational piece of the team moving forward.
Their top NHL-ready prospect, Tyson Foerster, also happens to be a right wing. He could very well be ready for NHL action, but there’s no guarantee he goes into the season with a main roster spot thanks to the overcrowding on the main roster. If somebody shifts to the left side (maybe even Foerster himself, though that isn’t the best outcome) maybe he can earn a spot out of camp. Otherwise, he’ll be given the Cam York treatment of demotion then a recall down the line when they feel like he’s undeniable and some of the main roster vets lose their shine.
The Flyers chose to keep Travis Konecny after a career year in 2022-23 where he posted 31 goals and 61 points in 60 games. In an ideal world, they trade high on him for future assets and fill his spot with someone like Foerster, but that didn’t happen and now they’ve got work around him in the short term, and hope his value stays high for either the trade deadline or offseason to attempt to move him for real this time.
They did sign 31-year-old Garnet Hathaway to a two-year deal. He’s one of the higher-end depth wingers in the NHL, but with Nic Deslauriers already serving the enforcer role with upside, why did they need Hathaway? Because Tortorella demands it, that’s why.
It’s very much a past versus future battle with a heaping side of stupidity thrown in. Why not trade their best chip? Why sign a depth player like Hathaway? Why box out their top prospect? Because it’s the Philadelphia Flyers and nothing can be easy, that’s why.
Defense
Year after year, every time you think the Flyers defense can’t get worse, it sure shapes up to be uglier than anticipated. The departure of Ivan Provorov has been a long time coming, but it leaves the rest of the defense in disarray as they scramble for a replacement to eat his heavy minutes.
Cam York will be the man tasked with filling Provorov’s shoes as the top pair lefty. He hasn’t played a full 82-game schedule yet and a bulk of his NHL minutes so far have come on the right side, so his transition back to the left side on a full-time basis will very much be a trial by fire, especially since he’s pretty much alone on the mountain when it comes to having any kind of talent.
The Flyers failed to move Travis Sanheim before his new eight-year extension kicked in on July 1. That means four years of a full no-trade clause also went into effect, potentially making moving him even more of a headache that it already was. His return in an unfortunate development for a very crowded left side that could’ve benefited from his departure.
They did eventually buy out Tony DeAngelo after a late-season spat with Tortorella forced their hand. A rumored trade with the Hurricanes never materialized, so the Flyers got stuck with a $1.7 million tab for the next two seasons instead.
There are a few prospects who will be fighting for ice time, primarily Egor Zamula, Ronnie Attard and Emil Andrae. Zamula is on a one-way deal, theoretically meaning he’ll at least be on the main roster to start the season. Andrae may be main roster or back to Sweden because of a new SHL rule, and Attard should be in consideration for a main roster spot, especially now that DeAngelo is gone. He led the Phantoms in defensive scoring last season and possesses a great shot from the point that could work well on the Flyers’ otherwise anemic powerplay.
Nick Seeler is back and 36-year-old Marc Staal was signed in free agency, his addition being the most head-scratching move the Flyers made during the summer, as another random depth body, especially a left hander, wasn’t needed.
There’s at least 10 defenseman who could realistically make the NHL roster (Sanheim, Ristolainen, Walker, York, Staal, Seeler, Zamula, Andrae, Attard and Victor Mete) and that’s not even including prospects like Adam Ginning or Helge Grans.
York, Ristolainen and Sanheim are the only three more or less guaranteed to have a spot, so the remaining three openings (two righties, one lefty) are open for the taking. There’s a good chance the Flyers carry eight defenseman all season and they’re rotated in an out without much of a second thought. Hopefully the youth emerge from the crowded mess, but it’s highly unlikely.
Goaltending
Who’d’ve ever thunk that the Flyers would be rich in goaltending depth while the rest of the roster is a bottom-feeding disaster?
They didn’t make any calls one way or the other yet when it comes to addressing the congestion in net, but all three of Hart, Sandstrom and Ersson will need new contracts next summer, so there may have to be decisions soon enough when it comes to the future outlook.
More than likely, Hart and Sandstrom start the season in the NHL, with Ersson getting the lion’s share of the starts for the Phantoms, a far more beneficial role than warming the bench in the NHL, with Cal Petersen serving as a $5 million AHL backup.
They also have Ivan Fedotov, whose status as of this writing still seems unclear. His contract with the Flyers that was supposed to happen last season got tolled to this year after the Russian military kidnapped him. Then the KHL signed him to a deal, but with his NHL contract still in place, there’s an ongoing disagreement as to who gets his services next season. The IIHF is currently investigating the matter with a ruling to come later. If the Flyers win the argument, Fedotov will be a Flyer next season.
The massive elephant in the room is the impending Team Canada investigation which could effect Carter Hart’s status for the future. While nobody knows for sure if he’s involved yet or what exactly the consequences are if he’s indeed named, there’s a good chance that one way or another he won’t be on the active roster if or when that gavel comes down.
If Hart is available, he gives the team a chance to win every night. If he goes away, the tandem of Sam Ersson and Felix Sandstrom (or Fedotov) provides a decent enough platoon talent wise, but the wins may not be as likely in the short term. They could do a whole lot worse than Ersson and Sandstrom at the NHL level. Unless they’re playing Petersen every night, there isn’t much “tanking” help coming from the crease.
Special Teams
Theoretically, special teams in the NHL is where the talent of a team gets put on display- high powered offenses wreaking havoc on the powerplay and stingy defenses shutting down the penalty kill. For a group like the Flyers, who don’t have much talent to speak of, it ends up becoming a major weakness from all angles.
Penalty Kill
The penalty finished nearly identical in 2022-23 (74.68%) as it did in 2021-22 (75.74%) as both were 26th ranked in the league. The Flyers did manage to score 11 shorthanded goals last season with Travis Konecny and Scott Laughton each scoring three, their most as a team since 2010-11.
The PK is where the team is probably going to notice the absence of Ivan Provorov the most. He was averaging nearly three minutes of shorthanded TOI per game last year, a category he’s led the Flyers in basically his entire career. Nobody individually is going to fill his shoes this season, and the by-committee approach isn’t exactly enticing with the band of misfits patrolling the blueline.
There is a bit of hope, though, as the PK should get some reinforcements with Sean Couturier returning and Ryan Poehling debuting, plus an expected larger role for Noah Cates; So by percentage, it may see a bit of an uptick, but overall, it’s probably going to be another rough season when it comes to killing penalties.
Powerplay
The powerplay has been a hot mess for years now, and there doesn’t appear to be a light at the end of the tunnel anytime soon. They finished dead last in the NHL in 2022-23 at a measly 15.56%, that coming after finishing dead last in 2021-22 with a measly 12.55%. So… progress?
The team just doesn’t have the skill at forward, or a true PP QB on defense for that matter, to dig them out of their abysmal funk. If someone like Tyson Foerster makes the roster and can play the ol’ Claude Giroux role, or Ronnie Attard gets a fair shake on the point, there may be some hope for at least a slight gain in production, but otherwise, the main roster is as underwhelming as it gets when it comes to the powerplay.
Takeaways
This franchise stands at the precipice of the future, but did not make getting there an easy task for themselves. The 2023 offseason brought some change, but not nearly as much as originally hoped. The new-look front office declared a rebuild, then opted to keep things relatively status quo.
Biting the bullet on players like Hayes and DeAngelo, in a vacuum, is fine and part of the rebuilding process, but in the grand scheme of things, removing two players at great financial burden to their own cap without making any follow-up moves that are further indicative of a rebuild like selling high on Konecny and/or Laughton just doesn’t make much sense. Looking at the offseason on a macro scale just doesn’t do them any favors, despite most of their moves being at least semi-reasonable individually.
The sheer number of veterans both lingering on the roster and the new guys brought in makes it difficult to believe that the natural progression of the prospects happens at all, let alone to the level it should be during a full fledged rebuild. It’ll be the battle to keep an eye on all season long- Will the kids get ice time over the vets? The answer is probably not; at least not with regularity.
The defense is an absolute mess. The goaltending has the potential to steal games on a nightly basis, and the forward are going to be too talented for their own good, even if that bar is relatively low in the grand scheme of things. It means that a last place finish, a “tank” if you can stomach that term, is highly unlikely. There’s a good chance the team finishes similarly to what they did last season- a seven to tenth worst team that will need the luck of the lottery to snag a top prospect, because they certainly won’t get lucky with a player like Michkov falling into their laps twice.
Time will tell if the new rebuilding efforts pay off. Maybe Briere’s… unique… approach ends up working out for the better, but at face value, not making decisions on most of their valuable trade assets seems like a huge misstep that will come back to bite them later. Either way, the 2023-24 season will be interesting to watch. Not because they’re a good team, but because it is finally the leap into the future we’ve been hoping for, now it’s just a matter of whether or not they handle it right this time.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: Getty Images
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