If you polled 100 members of the Flyers fanbase about the team’s odds at winning the Stanley Cup during the 2024-25 season, chances are you’d get 100 different answers, with most stating they have no chance. But not us! The 2024-25 NHL season will be the Flyers’ year for success! According to FanDuel, the Flyers have +7500 betting odds to win the Cup this season. Bunch of naysayers.
2025 will be the 50th anniversary of the Flyers’ last Stanley Cup victory, and now is as good a time as ever to end the drought. Are they finally poised to bring Lord Stanley back to Broad Street? First, some things are going to have to go right in order to reach that goal.
Number 5: The Goaltending
The Flyers will live or die by Sam Ersson and Ivan Fedotov during the 2024-25 season, and if they want any chance to win the Cup, they will have to choose to live. There’s reason to believe both can be viable NHL-caliber goalies and form a solid tandem despite what they were showing during the last few weeks of the 2023-24 season. And if one falters, Alexei Kolosov is waiting in the wings for his turn. One of the three has to be able to step up and backstop the team to victory.
Number 4: The PK
The Flyers had their first notable special teams performance in years during 2023-24 when they finished fourth in the league on the penalty kill with a 83.4% kill rate. Team defense has been a priority under John Tortorella and Brad Shaw has been the mastermind for the defense. It may not be the most fun hockey of all time, but if they can continue to shutdown other teams’ power play and offense in general, there’s a path to success.
Number 3: The East is Easier
For a long time the Eastern Conference was a battle of epic proportions with both the Metropolitan and Atlantic divisions producing quality teams. Now, that tide seems to be turning quite a bit as some Cup windows cross across the east are coming to a close. Both Pittsburgh and Washington seem to be on a downward swing, the Lightning weren’t quite as unbeatable last season as they were in the past, and the Bruins’ near perfect run with just 17 total losses from 2022-23 couldn’t hold up during 2023-24. If some of those teams remain “mid” as the kids say, then maybe if the Flyers over-perform, or even just hold steady from their mid-season pace last year, then a postseason run is a possibility.
Number 2: John Tortorella
The veteran head coach is going to drag the most out of his team whether they, or anybody else, like it or not. He carried them to 38 wins and 11 OT losses last season, and they concluded the 2023-24 campaign 4 points away from a playoff spot. The overall Flyers’ roster stayed the same but they added Matvei Michkov, which will help carry the otherwise mediocre offense. If some teams in the East dip and the Flyers can turn half of those OTLs into wins under Tortorella’s leadership, they’ll be significantly closer to a playoff spot than most “rebuilding” teams could dream of.
Number 1: Matvei Michkov
The Flyers and prospect integration go together like oil and water. But their only one that really matters is Matvei Michkov and he’s here and ready to put the team on his back. He as balling out during the preseason against weaker competition, which is at least a good starting point but he’ll have to prove he can maintain a point-per-game pace against NHL competition over the course of a full season, but if he can it could very well lead to that new era of orange.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: nhl.com
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