The Philadelphia Flyers were headed down the wrong road by continuing to try to be a playoff team, writes Adam Proteau. They now appear to be on the right track.
Update: The Philadelphia Flyers have signed defenseman Cam York to a two-year contract worth $1.6 million per year. The article below has been updated.
Welcome once again to the latest file in THN.com’s “off-season outlook” series, where we analyze every NHL team’s recent season, as well as their strengths and weaknesses heading into the 2023-24 campaign. We’ve broken down teams in alphabetical order, and in this file, we’re focusing on the Philadelphia Flyers.
2022-23 Grade: F
Biggest Positive Heading Into the Off-Season
After their abject nightmare of a season in 2022-23, there’s nowhere to go but up for the Flyers. Before he was fired toward the end of the year, GM Chuck Fletcher had built a weak, patchwork collection of young players not yet ready for primetime and old players who couldn’t stay healthy or contribute on an elite level while in the lineup.
With the playoffs being out of the question midway through the season, Philadelphia should’ve opened up the vault and traded away as many veterans as they could. Not being able to move veteran winger James van Riemsdyk – even just for a late-round draft pick – was the straw that broke the camel's back for many Flyers fans, and Fletcher paid for that with his job.
However, his replacement, former star forward Daniel Briere, appears to be fully on board with a rebuild, dealing away veteran forward Kevin Hayes and defenseman Ivan Provorov. The Briere Era in Philly is off to a promising start, and that’s more than you can say for Briere’s predecessor.
There will still be plenty of pain ahead in the short term for Philadelphia, but at least Flyers fans can put stock in building a Stanley Cup contender the most proven way – through drafting and development.
It won’t be easy, and there will be numerous nights of despair. But at this stage of their competitive cycle, the last thing the Flyers need is a push to accelerate the rebuild and try and cheat their way back to the post-season. Even if they miraculously did make the playoffs in the Metropolitan Division, they’d be roadkill at the hands of true Cup front-runners such as New Jersey and Carolina. The best they can hope for at this point is to develop their youngsters into high-impact NHLers.
Biggest Need Heading Into the Off-Season
As per PuckPedia, the Flyers have 23 players under contract and about $498,000 in salary cap space. They also have one more RFA – forward Morgan Frost – so they’re essentially capped out until Briere dumps more veterans and their salaries.
The Flyers have a couple of contracts that are more or less unmovable. D-man Rasmus Ristolainen’s cap hit of $5.1 million isn’t attractive to any NHL teams looking to bolster their back end, and frequently injured star forward Sean Couturier is locked in at $7.75 million through the 2029-30 season.
If Briere can find takers for veterans Cam Atkinson and Scott Laughton, that will free up $8.875 million in cap space. And if the Flyers do move on from goalie Carter Hart, that will add an additional $3.979 million.
The best place for Philly to be is in a position where they can help facilitate trades for cap-strapped teams and free up roster spots to see what they truly have as building blocks for the future.
Any attempt at finagling their way into Cup contention sooner than later is the type of move that got Fletcher in trouble, but Briere appears to be a different breed, and that should provide hope to long-suffering Flyers fans.
Bottom Line for Philadelphia This Off-Season
For too many years, the Flyers deluded themselves into believing the team was much better than it proved to be. The results since 2014-15 were six seasons with no playoffs and only one post-season series win. For a rabid hockey fan base like Philadelphia’s, that’s simply unacceptable, which is why it was necessary for Fletcher to fall on his sword.
But Flyers fans aren’t so knee-jerk as to expect the team will somehow power pack into the playoffs in 2023-24. Instead, they understand that being a mushy middle team begets continuing to be a mushy middle team. It’s difficult enough to shake off the demons of the past, let alone leapfrog over the Metro’s highly competitive opposition in the standings.
Briere has the cachet to be patient, and he looks to be quite prepared to suffer some slings and arrows, so long as it means the Flyers are pushing ahead.
They may not push ahead very much in the coming year, but their old way of operating – sacrificing the future to flail away at the mirage of being truly elite – could no longer be justified. With that mindset out of the way, Philadelphia has set a smart course to be genuinely competitive somewhere down the line.