The holiday season is upon us! It’s a time for giving, and the Flyers have quite the wishlist this year. So Danny Briere sat down on ol’ St. Grit’s lap and disclosed what he’s most hoping for during the Gritmas season for his hockey club!
Number 5: Fix the Power play
The Flyers’ power play has shown minimal signs of life once again this season. They currently sit 27th ranked with a 15.6% conversion rate through 35 games, which is slightly better than their three consecutive dead last finishes, but there’s still plenty of time to fall further! The fact they didn’t fire Rocky Thompson at the end of last season or add anybody to the roster to help fix it other than Matvei Michkov means these results shouldn’t be overly surprising, but that by no means makes this an acceptable pattern to still be stuck in.
Number 4: A Bit of Cap Relief
One of the many downsides of signing everyone on the roster to long-term big money extensions is that it makes navigating life in a salary cap world fairly difficult. They’re going to have to get creative just to give one of their own players, Cam York, a lifetime extension let alone going outside the organization for help. Maybe they should start thinking twice before signing players to extensions… nah.
Number 3: A Competent GM
Turns out Danny Briere’s “masterclass” of an offseason where he literally didn’t do anything has blown up in his face. Now he’s got a huge mountain to climb at the 2025 trade deadline and offseason to get his team on track. The pieces he needs to add and the moves he needs to finagle would be tough for the best minds in the sport, and they need to be made by a second year GM who hasn’t done a single notable thing yet during his tenure. What could go wrong?
Number 2: Play the Prospects
It may take a Christmas miracle for John Tortorella to play Emil Andrae, Olle Lycksell and their fellow prospects banished to Lehigh Valley. The high-profile flogging of Andrae in particular has started to open some eyes around the fanbase that has turned a blind eye to past prospect problems. Maybe with a little help from Ol’ Saint Grit, Tortorella will wake up on the right side of the bed for a change and realize that the kids are the future. Or he stays a grinch forever and goes down with the ship with Erik Johnson by his side.
Number 1: Adding a Top Center
Who’da thunk that an important position the Flyers largely ignored for nearly a decade now would still be their weakness? They voluntarily rolled into the season with Sean Couturier, Morgan Frost, Noah Cates and Ryan Poehling as their top four centers (the same group that failed last season) and it’s having the expected disastrous results anybody with a brain could’ve been able to see coming. But hey, maybe the Flyers finally break their decade-plus long stagnation pattern and make a blockbuster trade to help the center position in 2025… or they run back the same mediocre group for a third year in a row.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
brotherlypuck.com 