When Danny Briere and Keith Jones took over last summer, they promised a rebuild. Then they spent the entire season attempting to compete for a playoff spot. While they ultimately fell short of their goal, it seemed like progress was on the horizon. But they stuck to their “rebuilding” guns yet did virtually nothing to further their playoff aspiration OR make serious progress in a rebuild during the 2024 offseason.
There were a few rumors surrounding the team leading up to the draft that they may move up, but that never materialized, and no other moves of substance did either, for that matter. Now, with the organization left in neutral for the time being but promising a bountiful 2025, the question of whether or not they can keep the ship steady for another full season becomes the main storyline of the next 12 months.
Management
The front office and coaching staff remain in tact from the previous season and their “rebuild” message stays the same.
Danny Briere is a fascinating character right now. As a beloved former Flyer, there are naturally folks who are giving him as long a leash as possible before any doubt, skepticism or criticism lands at his feet. But objectively speaking, Briere has yet to prove he is capable of being a proactive NHL general manager and the questions far outweigh the answers right now.
He hinted at some decent GM skills with the Provorov trade last summer and an ability to take risks by drafting Matvei Michkov in 2023, but other than that, questionable decision after questionable decision continue to pile up. Some moves, like the DeAngelo buyout or the Hayes retention can be chalked up as losing some battles in an effort to win the war, but after a stagnant summer where all they did was buyout Cam Atkinson, adding even more dead money to the books, one was to wonder what exactly Briere has up his sleeve, if anything at all?
The organization lost top prospect Cutter Gauthier and could very well be on the verge of losing top goalie prospect Alexei Kolosov under the watch of Briere. While the real story behind the disgruntled prospects may never be known, at the end of the day, the responsibility falls on Briere’s shoulders as the general manager of the team. Poor communication between player and front office, and front office to fans has not improved under Briere, a lot of the similar problems that have stricken the organization for over a decade now.
His choices (or lack thereof) will at least reach a crescendo in 2025. Something spectacular will happen next summer, be it the biggest offseason the franchise will have in well over a decade or a massive failure like 2024 proving he’s incapable of doing his job.
Coaching
John Tortorella returns for his third season behind the bench with a shtick that will enter a critical year. Will the team buy into his hard-nosed approach for a third straight season? Can he keep his culture immaculate if there’s on-ice struggles? Can he actually do enough to carry the team to a postseason berth? Will the pop and circumstance of his personality grow old? The thing about Torts is you know exactly what you’re going to get when it comes to his character and behind the bench antics, it’s just a matter of whether or not it sticks with the players and fans.
Unlike last season, there were no rumors suggesting other teams were scoping out assistant Brad Shaw for any head coaching vacancies. It’s a big win for the Flyers, because Shaw seems to be the brainchild of their penalty kill and team defense success. As long as he’s here, the belief that that team will be capable of at least remaining a bubble team is kept alive.
For some ungodly reason, the front office decided to keep assistant coach Rocky Thompson around. Thompson, who is responsible for the power play and two of it’s three consecutive dead last finishes, will return to that role again in 2024-25. Considering they did nothing to overhaul the roster or address their power play weakness and Thompson proving he is incapable of making an impact from the bench, expect the power play to once again be a miserable failure.
Forwards
The offense finished the 2023-24 season 26th ranked in the league and dead last on the power play, so naturally they decided to run back a near identical roster. The essentially swapped Cam Atkinson for Matvei Michkov, which is a big upgrade, but when it’s the only move they made it’s still slightly disappointing.
Center
The Flyers have to have the worst collection of centers in the league. Sean Couturier, Morgan Frost, Scott Laughton and Ryan Poehling has to be the least intimating foursome in the NHL. It’s inconceivable the team didn’t even make an attempt to correct any of this. Their fifth stringer is Elliot Desnoyers, who went on a 42-game goalless drought in 2023-24 and Noah Cates wasn’t even good enough to beat out Laughton on the main roster. Maybe Ryan Johansen miraculously recovers from his career-ending hang nail and makes the main roster, but at this point, even if he were to return, it’s highly unlikely he’s much better than any of the other goofs.
There still doesn’t appear to be any short or long term plan to address their center depth. They did drafted Jett Luchanko in the first round, who is years away from an NHL opportunity and their immediate pipeline is barren otherwise.
Players like Trevor Zegras and Martin Necas are still theoretically available as of this writing this summer, but it’s unlikely they’ve got any tricks up their sleeve this summer. With Michkov now in tow, finding a young, offensively dynamic top center to play with him. Hey, maybe that’s what they’ve got up their sleeve in 2025?
Left wing
There’s still not a ton of natural left-wing talent on the roster. Owen Tippett, Joel Farabee, Tyson Foerster and even Travis Konecny have taken reps on the left side. Olle Lycksell, Noah Cates and Nic Deslauriers are their three in-house options. Their overflowing RW has led to an excess on the roster as a whole and the least of their problems at the moment.
Right wing
The Flyers have somehow worked themselves into a roster with seven natural right wingers on the main roster. While most have taken reps on the left side over the last couple years, the jam packed RW group got no relief during the offseason, and in fact, got even tighter with the addition of Matvei Michkov.
Theoretically, Michkov should be their 1RW for the season, but as long as John Tortorella’s in charge giving a 19-year-old the reins as the top guy is anything but a given. The still unknown status of Konecny’ future will be a situation worth keeping an eye on during the season, and whether or not they pass the baton to Michkov if they actually choose to move on from their veteran winger will be a subsequent storyline.
How does the depth chart shake out on the wings? Well chances are it’s a revolving door on a night-to-night basis, especially if they don’t win much. It’s not exactly a prime strategy as much as it is throwing everything at a wall and hoping something sticks, but if the Flyers were actually rebuilding, it’s a fine strategy in the short term.
Defense
The defense remains a congested mess. There’s 10 or 11 bodies under contract that could theoretically carve out a spot on the NHL roster, and with the exception of Cam York, there’s nobody on the roster that particularly stands out.
The return of Erik Johnson is particularly infuriating if you’re on the “give us something new” boat. Sure, he won’t play *every* night, but he’ll play often enough where everyone will be sick of him by year’s end and guys like Ronnie Attard and Egor Zamula will pay the price for his presence.
Tortorella wasn’t afraid to play seven defensemen a night last season, so expect that trend to continue in 2024-25. It’s their way of playing a technically playing a younger guy while having their veteran fallback option on the bench as well. Hopefully this is the last season of their quantity over quality approach, but considering six defenseman plus RFA Cam York are already inked for 2025-26, that might not be a strategy they change up soon.
Goaltending
Considering they ran the entire roster back, the biggest lynchpin of the 2024-25 season will be the goaltending. Sam Ersson and Ivan Fedotov (along with Felix Sandstrom and Cal Petersen) had the league-worst team save percentage after Carter Hart’s arrest in January, which throws some serious concern about their ability to hold down the fort for the 2024-25 season.
Ersson has had spells of lights out hockey at both the AHL and NHL levels in small sample sizes, but he has yet to prove he can hold down the starting gig for long stretches effectively. In a sense, it’s a good thing Fedotov is his tandem partner, because it’s feasible both players benefit more from a 50/50 split than either would in a 70/30 starter/backup role.
Cal Petersen remains on the roster after a putrid season in the AHL. He did manage to clean up his game late in the season and served as the starter through the entirety of the Phantoms’ playoff run, but flashing stints of brilliance then falling back into mediocrity is more or less the story of Petersen’s entire career thus far.
Alexei Kolosov appears to have thrown in the towel when it comes to the NHL, but nothing is certain as of yet. He’s under contract to the Flyers for two more years, but if he wants to take his ball and go back to Russia, there’s really nothing the organization can do about it. Why exactly he wants to leave is not known, but apparently he was expecting to play in the NHL and with the unexpected arrival of Ivan Fedotov, that killed those plans dead, and after Petersen held down the AHL fort, he must’ve realized his options for improvement were limited.
Special Teams
The Flyers’ special teams are polar opposites of each other. The power play has been dead last in the NHL for three consecutive seasons. Meanwhile the penalty kill finished the 2023-24 season ranked fourth in the league with a 83.4% success rate, plus they led the league in shorthanded goals during the season with 16. For reference, they only scored 31 power play goals.
Power Play
The Flyers have finished dead last in the league on the powerplay over the last three seasons. What have they done to address that? NOTHING! Rocky Thompson is coming back, as is the exact same boring roster. Maybe Matvei Michkov can provide a modicum of a spark, but there’s virtually no way he can overhaul the entire until by himself. Maybe he can lift them from 32nd to 31st. That’s the kind of progress they shoot for in these parts. And the worst part is they’d champion that as serious progress.
Penalty Kill
In an area that has historically been their Achilles heel, the Flyers’ penalty kill ended up being their their brightest spot during the 2023-24 season. They finished fourth in the league with a 83.4% kill rate. It’s the first time they broke the 80th percentile since 2019-20 and their first top ten finish since 2013-14. Assistant coach Brad Shaw deserves quite a bit of credit with an assist to the team defense mindset John Tortorella instilled.
Not only did they not allow many goals, they also managed to score a league-best 16 shorthanded goals, with Konecny’s six shorties also leading the league.
What does their PK dominance mean when it’s literally the only thing the team excels at? Well, not much. But as long as Shaw and Tortorella keep up their hard-nosed method of coaching, they will probably have an above-average powerplay for the foreseeable future.
Takeaways
The Flyers managed to smother the anticipation of Matvei Michkov’s arrival by doing quite literally nothing else during the 2024 offseason after overachieving during the 2023-24 season. Short and sweet, that’s the story of the last few months of the Philadelphia Flyers.
The 2023-24 roster looked like it had the makings of a potentially competitive team. But some goaltending struggles partnered with their complete lack of scoring ability did them in right before the finish line. They really didn’t attempt to remedy any of their struggles or shortcomings.
Obviously the question becomes what exactly is their vision and plan over the next year? They’ve punted the ball to the 2025 offseason, but haven’t exactly shed any light as to what exactly they’re “cooking” for next summer. Are they expecting the team to suck? Are they expecting a playoff bubble team? Are they going to trade up in the draft? Are they going to sign free agents? Is it all just a massive ploy to justify not making a single move to the masses?
History indicates that when the Flyers have an unexpected above average season that doom will follow. 2017-18 followed by 2018-19. 2019-20 followed by 2020-21. It’s a trend that could very well stay the same this season too. If the goaltending isn’t up to snuff, the team is dead in the water before anything else is even considered.
But, maybe that’s the big 20205 plan- a super secret tank to get them a better pick next draft. Hoping their goaltending fails and not selling a few roster players to encourage failure isn’t exactly a prime strategy if that is indeed the front office’s plan, but if it gets the job done and there’s a top five pick in their future, then it is what it is.
It’s going to be a slog to get to next summer, and it’s hard to even get excited for Michkov when the rest of the on-ice product is so predictable. But if we’re actually to believe next summer is the light at the end of the tunnel, then maybe it’s the last sub-par year of Flyers’ hockey we’ll see in awhile. But will the front office actually bring that change in 2025?
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: nhl.com
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