On Monday during his meeting with the press, head coach John Tortorella delivered an eyebrow-raising quote when talking about rookie defenseman Egor Zamula.
“I’m not going to keep putting someone out there because we need to develop him when it may affect the outcome of a W or L.” -Tortorella
Refusing to play young players for development purposes if they’re not perfect immediately upon entering the NHL is pretty much the antithesis of what is supposed to be occurring during a rebuild.
While it has felt like the approach the organization has taken since new GM Danny Briere spent the entire summer freely using the word “rebuild” hasn’t matched with their actions, Torts just said the quiet part out loud for the first time.
Now that the idea of doing things properly has been squashed dead in its tracks, where do the Flyers go from here?
Well, the most logical step is trying to snag a few big name free agents to plug the massive holes throughout the lineup since they won’t be properly addressing them through the draft. The biggest problem here is that it’s nearly 2024, there’s a salary cap that’s been flat for years and between just minor growth and the fact both Chuck Fletcher and Briere haven’t made the smartest financial decisions over the last few seasons, the team has practically no money to play with this summer, compacted further by the fact that both Carter Hart and Owen Tippett need new contracts.
If this were pre-salary cap and they intended on throwing $30 million a season at William Nylander as a desperate attempt to salvage their offense, fine! But the Flyers clearing out the $10-12 million they’ll need to sign him will be virtually impossible.
And the other side of that coin- there’s a chance the Flyers aren’t interested in his services anyway… Because being a mediocre bubble team is the goal all along.
John Tortorella’s previous stop in Columbus ended up very similar. They played a strong work ethic style with very limited star power and relied heavily on goalie Sergei Bobrovsky to pick up the slack.
They made the playoffs in four of the six years he was behind the bench, but were eliminated in the first round in three of those years. The only notable accomplishment was when they swept the President’s Trophy-winning Lightning in the 2019 postseason, only to lose to Boston in six games in round two.
With the Flyers working hard and over-exceeding expectations but starved for game-changing talent, it sure feels like a playoff bubble team that won’t make it out of the first round is where they will ultimately top out. Which, if you remember, a decade ago when this rebuild started under Ron Hextall, this was the exact scenario they were aiming to avoid.
It’s pretty clear that John Tortorella is in control of the entire organization- for better or worse. When the trade deadline rolls around in early March, we’ll get a much better idea of what it is they are looking to accomplish. If they’re still hanging around on the bubble, do they sell? Do they add? Do they do absolutely nothing notable in either direction?
They just refused to sell the same players during the 2023 offseason, so the likelihood that stance has changed a few months later is slim. They’ll undoubtedly pull the “we’re rebuilding, we’re not going to add” card, which is a flat out lie. Meaning the path of least resistance of doing absolutely nothing of substance in either direction is the probably outcome. Briere taking a page from the Chuck Fletcher playbook. In fact, he may as well just start calling it an “aggressive retool” because that’s significantly closer to what’s actually going on.
Then the same question emerge for the 2024 offseason. Do they just hope Cutter Gauthier signs and just run it back? And to take this back to the beginning- what happens if Gauthier isn’t NHL ready immediately? Will Torts bench, scratch and demote him too? Will anybody be outraged over that or will he just be the latest development failure in a decade-plus of accumulating names?
But as long as the rest of the team is working hard, regardless of results, who gives a damn about developing the prospects and rebuilding, right?
When Danny Briere took over, it momentarily felt as though the Flyers would finally figure their situation out and build for a brighter future. But in reality they’ve continued to leave the train in neutral long after it careened off a cliff. The “New Era of Orange” the franchise has been pushing is really starting to feel like the same old shit, and much like Ron Hextall’s atrocities, it seems like most people won’t catch on until it’s too late.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: nhl.com
brotherlypuck.com 