In case you haven’t been paying attention, the Philadelphia Flyers haven’t been very good lately. But the collapse of the organization didn’t happen over night. It’s taken many years of various forms of neglect for things to decay the way they have, but there was one point in particular that can get traced back as the gasoline on the fire, and that was the highly anticipated yet overwhelmingly disappointing 2012 NHL offseason.
The franchise was desperate to keep their Cup window alive, sparked by their run to the Finals just two years earlier, and it led to a hunt for some of the game’s top players, but ultimately Paul Holmgren came back empty handed. The inability to lock down a star or two started the trickle effect that amounted to the downfall of the entire organization a decade later.
The Flyers have been notoriously stingy when it’s come to roster moves, well ever since 2012 in all reality, so why not look back on a summer that backfired for the Flyers because they tried to do too much?
Trading Sergei Bobrovsky
The Flyers opened the 2012 offseason by trading 24-year-old goalie Sergei Bobrovsky to the Columbus Blue Jackets for a cocktail of draft picks.
Bobrovsky’s numbers were relatively pedestrian during his days as a Flyer (.907 save percentage and a 2.73 goals against average through 83 games) and was stuck behind fellow Russian Ilya Bryzgalov and his ridiculous contract, meaning the opportunity for him to grow in Philly was rather limited. But his trade will go down as one of the biggest “what if” moments in recent Flyers history. Bobrovsky won a Vezina Trophy during his first season in Columbus and was among the league’s top goaltenders during his days with the Blue Jackets, ultimately winning a second Vezina in 2017.
For a team like the Flyers who desperately needed a star goaltender to tie their post-Cup run team together, watching Bobrovsky immediately succeed with the competition was painful, especially since Bryzgalov ended up being an unmitigated disaster.
JVR for Luke Schenn
The Flyers weighed the market for then-23-year-old James Van Riemsdyk for the entirety of the 2011-12 season, taking offers from all across the league from teams like San Jose, Columbus and Phoenix. Though they finally settled on an offer from the Toronto Maple Leafs, acquiring 22-year-old former fifth overall pick in 2008 defenseman Luke Schenn in a one-for-one deal on June 23.
The Flyers expected Schenn to continue to develop into one of the league’s best shutdown D, but that didn’t exactly happen. With the benefit of hindsight, Schenn wasn’t actually that bad (especially compared to some of the defenseman that would come after him) but he never evolved into a legitimate top four option on the blue line. JVR never really hit stardom either, but he did crack the 30-goal plateau twice in Toronto, a mark he didn’t manage to accomplish in either of his stints with the Flyers.
Rick Nash
When the Columbus Blue Jackets finally dangled Rick Nash in trade rumors, it’s no surprise Paul Holmgren and the Flyers did their due diligence to acquire the star winger. The reports at the time were rather vague, insinuating there was no immediate deal between the two teams to be reached. Names like James Van Riemsdyk and Brayden Schenn were thrown around as possible candidates for a return, but nothing came to be.
Nash was ultimately not dealt at the 2012 trade deadline, instead being shipped to the Rangers in July. The Flyers circled at both points, but felt the asking price was too steep. Nash ended up being the first of many misses to secure a star player during the offseason.
Zach Parise and Ryan Suter
It’s not often there are free agent pools as deep as the 2012 class, but both the UFA and RFA markets were filled with star forwards, defensemen and goaltenders. Two players at the top were New Jersey Devils forward 28-year-old Zach Parise and 27-year-old Nashville Predators defenseman Ryan Suter.
Parise had scored 30+ goals in five of his seven seasons with the Devils, and Suter was one of the league’s top left-handed defenseman.
Parise and Suter ended up signing matching 13-year, $98 million contracts ($7.53 aav) with the Chuck Fletcher-led Minnesota Wild.
Considering both players were ultimately bought out of their contracts which would’ve run until 2025 when they were in their early 40’s, accounting for nearly $15 million in dead cap for a few of those years, maybe the fact the Flyers missed out was ultimately a blessing in disguise in the long-term, but both players were some of the better of their era and could’ve been a big time solution for the Flyers in 2012 to keep their Cup window open.
Shea Weber Offer Sheet
One notable player atop the restricted free agent list was another Nashville Predator, 26-year-old right-handed defenseman Shea Weber, who was arguably the best defenseman in the league in his prime. The Flyers inked him to a 14-year, $110 million offer sheet, the richest in NHL history.
The Predators had just lost Suter to free agency, and in a stunning move, matched the offer sheet five days later.
It was the closest the Flyers had come to adding a top defenseman and the spiritual successor to Chris Pronger. The Flyers would’ve had to give up four first round picks in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 which equated to Samuel Morin, Travis Sanheim, Ivan Provorov and German Rubtsov. Three of the four are no longer with the organization and none were truly game changers, with Provorov coming closest.
Would Weber have saved the defense and ultimately kept the team afloat? How would the cap have effected the Flyers over the years? There are so many questions that come to mind, but one thing’s for sure, if the Predators didn’t match the offer sheet, the history of the Philadelphia Flyers would’ve been much different.
Losing Jaromir Jagr and Matt Carle
The consequence of going big game hunting and coming up empty was the fact they ignored their own free agents. Veteran winger Jaromir Jagr, who helped carry Scott Hartnell and Claude Giroux to career years in 2011-12, and Matt Carle, who was one of the team’s top scorers from the blueline behind only Kimmo Timonen both left in free agency.
Not only did the Flyers fail to make any additions, they walked away with a net negative losing two key contributors. Hartnell especially wasn’t the same without Jagr’s presence and Carle’s absence played a role in the Flyers icing 13 different defenseman during the lockout-shortened 48-game 2012-13 season.
Aftershocks
To dive into an offseason with both feet but come up empty was a disaster. Failing to secure any stars led to their own players leaving in free agency, and eventually led to panic signings like Andrew MacDonald, which led to Holmgren getting “promoted” which led to Hexall taking over, which led to the atrocious state the team is in today.
It’s not often some of an organization’s biggest “what if” moments all occur in the same summer, but it’s hard not to look back and think about what even one of the possible additions could’ve done for a Flyers team that was desperate for a big-time star. How different things would’ve been for a team that was destined to come off the tracks within the next few seasons. Would they have won a Cup? Would they have even hired Ron Hextall in the first place? Would things have fallen so far they were successful in their pursuits of a couple of those moves? What would this team look like today if history was different?
All we can do is sit back and wonder about the failures of the 2012 offseason.
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By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: yahoosports.com
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