Joel Farabee was supposed to be coronated the next top guy of the Philadelphia Flyers after Claude Giroux’s departure, even receiving a blessing from the former captain himself who told Farabee to “break all my records” on his way out the door. And while not that long ago Farabee seemed to be in line to fill his shoes, a string of various injuries and underwhelming play has thrown doubt into his ability to be the next leader of the franchise.
Last June, the 23-year-old underwent disc replacement surgery in the cervical region of his neck during the offseason and made it back in time for opening night in mid-Ocotober, despite a timeline that originally didn’t project him back until American Thanksgiving.
Shockingly, he was one of only three players to dress for all 82 games during the 2022-23 season, but finished with a disappointing 15 goals and 39 points. Naturally, it took him a few months to get his legs back, especially considering he missed all of training camp and the preseason, but he never quite got back into full stride even by season’s end.
Earlier in his career, Farabee seemed like a star in the making. His rookie year was 2019-20, and he played all throughout the lineup from top line winger to depth grinder and seemingly earned his full-time spot during the 2020 playoffs as one of their better forwards during that run. He posted 20 goals during his sophomore season in 2020-21, the only Flyer to hit that plateau, then signed a massive six-year, $30 million extension with the club, thinking they’d have their future pillar in place.
Then two seasons of endless injury problems, made exponentially worse by the complete lack of talent on the rest of the roster, have thrown his once-high ceiling into disarray. All of a sudden Farabee’s $5 million cap hit until 2028 is looking less like a steal and more like a problem.
Despite playing every game in 2022-23, he spent quite a bit of time locked in John Tortorella’s doghouse during the season. Tortorella took the tough love approach with quite a few different players last season, tearing them down before building them back up and it has made most of them better players overall. It’s all about how the player responds and Farabee didn’t quite connect the dots yet as well as some of his teammates did.
The recurring injuries he faced over the last two seasons restricted any kind of momentum he could gather. But that is also a considerable amount of excuses for a player that was earmarked as the next big thing for the franchise that’s just fallen flat. With any luck, he’ll enter the 2023-24 campaign at full health with a better understanding of his own body’s limitations and get back to some level of full strength we haven’t seen in a couple years; and those results should tell a more complete story of what the ceiling for Farabee is moving forward.
He’s still the team’s top talent on the left wing, which, in theory, should give him ample opportunity to be apart of whatever equates to a scoring line these days. His ability to play a more physical style has always made him flexible when it came to his deployment, but it there’s any lingering hangover effects from his neck problem, it may be up to Farabee to adapt and be an all-out offense kind of guy rather than attempt to be a middle-six chippy two-way winger.
Is 2023-24 the season we finally see Joel Farabee become the long-awaited star everyone hoped, or is it time to limit expectations for the former 14th overall pick? Hopefully, for Farabee’s sake, the neck injury is in the rearview and he has fine tuned his game enough where the offense is ready to break out, but after four years with the same result, it’ll be up to Farabee to earn his spot as a cornerstone on this team.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: NHL.com
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