The 2024-25 Philadelphia Flyers season was the most recent installment in a decade of never ending disasters. They played all the hits this year too! A late-season collapse, failed prospect integration, a miserable power play, a coach sabotaging his own team and more off-ice drama that would make most reality shows jealous. We looked at some positive takeaways yesterday, so let’s recap some of the negatives from the 2024-25 season today!
Number 5: Don’t Look At PuckPedia
For a team whose struggles persist and overwhelming change is needed, the front office (both current and former) has done a great job locking in a miserable roster for years to come. There’s only one unrestricted free agent on the entire main roster and that’s Rodrigo Abols. Plus four RFAs in Cam York, Noah Cates, Tyson Foerster and Jakob Pelletier. The natural overturn is virtually nonexistent in 2025.
Recent projections expect the cap to skyrocket over the coming years, so maybe dumping cap without giving up your firstborn child to do so may be easier than it has been in a post-pandemic world. But one thing’s for sure, the Flyers are going to need to get creative to give this team the significant change it’s going to need and they’ve got no one to blame but themselves.
Number 4: Offensive/PP Struggles Persist
Spoiler alert: you win hockey games by scoring goals. Considering that is the objective here, the Flyers sure do a lackluster job of it. The offense is ranked 24th in the NHL and the power play will finish the year 30th ranked, both slight upticks from last season (27th and 32nd ranked respectively) but still dreadful in the grand scheme of things. This is one of those problems that hopes to sort itself out with John Tortorella out of the picture and Rocky Thompson hopefully soon to follow, but the roster is going to need some serious upgrades to see a real bump up the scoring standings. Travis Konecny and Matvei Michkov were the only players to hit the 50-point mark, with (as of this writing) Sean Couturier the only player to even sniff 40. That just isn’t going to cut it if they hope to make the playoffs next season.
Number 3: Non-Existent Center Depth
It’s been an on-running gimmick for nearly a decade now that the Flyers’ center depth is lacking, but it is starting to reach critical level of disaster. Sean Couturier moves like a 90-year-old, Noah Cates is fine but isn’t bona fide top six guy, Ryan Poehling is a depth plug and they’ve had Rodrigo Abols filling a spot for the half the season before undrafted collegiate forward Karsen Dorwart signed. And that’s about it. Jacob Gaucher is pretty much their only other notable center in the entire organization, and “notable” is used as lightly as possible.
For a team that is overflowing with wingers that aren’t reaching their potential, you’d think they’d put a more serious effort into finding center help at any point over the last half decade or so, but nope. Maybe that changes in 2025? Except this is shaping up to be the most infertile free agent class of centers in recent years. Briere doesn’t just need to pull a rabbit out of his hat, he’s gonna need to pull an entire herd of them to save the center position this summer.
Number 2: The Goalies Ain’t It…
All three of Sam Ersson, Ivan Fedotov and Aleksei Kolosov are under contract for the 2025-26 season, but all three have also proven they are not exactly NHL caliber goalies. If you want the Flyers to lose games, maybe it’s a positive, but if you want a successful foundation for the team to build off of, this group ain’t it. Do they go outside the organization and look for help this summer? Is the rest of the team good enough to justify spending on the position? Do any of them bounce back without Torts? It’s not exactly a great situation they’ve worked themselves into here, and there’s no easy way out in 2025-26 either.
Number 1: …Neither Was Torts
Danny Briere finally brought a merciful conclusion to the John Tortorella era. He spent nine games shy of three full years behind the bench and there were very few positives. They missed the playoffs all three seasons, the offense and power play sucked, the roster was left barren of real talent and the players that were here largely didn’t advance under Torts, including virtually every single prospect. It’s starting to feel like the last few years where the Flyers put properly rebuilding on the back burner in the name of Tortorella building a “culture” was a complete waste of time, which just means that they’re even further away from being truly competitive again. 2-3 years away for the rest of our lives!
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: Getty Images
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