The Ended Flyers Thread

Seems like you could fill that role with a younger cheaper player.

Hilarious to me that there are Flyers fans on Twitter who are mad about the failure to get Gaudreau, and saying Mr. Snider would be turning over in his grave, as if the Flyers' entire situation isn't a product of Snider's overall philosophy and choices.

Heehee, well, the Flyers have Torts and Atkinson and the Blue Jackets will now have Gaudreau.

There's always a surprise team.

Total surprise there.

Most moves Fletcher makes seem to turn to crap. A team full of goons would at least be more entertaining.

From Fletcher:

"We'll find out this season," Fletcher said. "We'll see how we progress. We'll see which players can be a part of our future. There's a lot we need to learn about our group. Going into next offseason, we'll have more cap space than we had this offseason."

Sounds like he is starting to figure out that this is going to be a bad year. When you are talking about next offseason on the first day of free agency you arent looking to do anything other than tread water and hope that some players step up.

Heh, he broke kayfabe.

But not really - I don't think they have ever claimed the "aggressive retool" was going to lead to a playoff berth this season. Just competiveness. And the players they'd have to move to truly rebuild/tank can't really be moved this off-season given their age, health status or salary (plus they're still not ready for the white flag a Couts deal would represent). And of course they were still going to spend to the cap (and have little choice).

But the D'Angelo trade looks really bad in that light. He cost you picks, he's on a two-year deal, you could have just signed a free agent to fill that spot, maybe even a better player (or a better one next year).

I bet he did

Can we please get a young GM that has autonomy over the Clarke, Holmgren contingent. They are still signing an enforcer in a game that has totally move to speed and skill. They are so lost it's ridiculous. I'm finding it hard to even root for this team. Does Braun have incriminating pictures of Fletcher? If he is not a healthy scratch 7th defenseman every night, I'll rip my hair out. They need to play Provorov, Ellis (if or when healthy), Sanheim, D'Angelo, Risto, York, Zamula, and Attard over Braun

Just to tie a bow around both the D'Angelo signing and the Phillies' week (from the article I already posted about Deslauriers):

Tortorella looks to round out his coaching staff with the expected hiring of Rocky Thompson, according to reports. Thompson will most likely serve as Tortorella’s offense and power-play coach, as fellow assistant Brad Shaw will oversee the defense and the penalty kill.

Thompson, 44, most recently served as an associate coach for the San Jose Sharks and is known for being a player’s coach. He did not coach during the 2021-22 season because he was unvaccinated, as the NHL required for people in close contact with the players. Thompson cited a medical exemption as the reason for not receiving the coronavirus vaccine.

While with the Sharks, Thompson coached the defensemen and the power play.

Sabres seems a strange choice if you have the rest of the league to choose from. Any reason?

I'm 50 years old and been a Flyers fan since I was 10 years old...I will never be the fan of another team even if I only pay a little attention to the team...they will always be the only team I am a fan of.

Even now that I live in Wisconsin.

I attended the entire Cup run of my second-favorite team (the Stars) and was in Dallas the night they won it (in Buffalo) and let me tell you, it's still not the same. Also the case in 2020.

Also hard for me to see this particular period of incompetence as the dealbreaker when there have been so many others. (I know a few people who loved Lindros more than the Flyers,for instance and never came back.)

But really I just don't follow hockey as closely when the Flyers are bad. When they're in the playoffs regularly I don't stop watching after they lose, but when they are barely in the mix I end up being disconnected from the whole league. I was at that crazy Penguins playoff game in 2012 which was ultimately meaningless (they folded in the next round) but probably the high point of every season since 2009-2010.

And yet - you can't really blame Fletcher for trying to run it back with the COVID season team. You can for everything he's done since it didn't work. And the entire regime change was a botch as usual.

Quite a summary from O'Connor

None of the Flyers’ stated goals hold up under scrutiny. They want to be “harder to play against,” but the players they’re acquiring to do so (Ristolainen, Deslauriers, MacEwen) have historically made it significantly easier for the other team to have the puck the majority of the time. They want to be building for the future, but they’re still burning draft picks on DeAngelo with the aim of … protecting York and Ronnie Attard from tougher minutes as rookies? They want to improve now, but after an offseason that — assuming there are no more big moves looming — they didn’t improve the team much on paper, they’re banking almost entirely on the impact of their new coaching staff and a questionably constructed blue line corps to drive said improvement. Both are legitimate unknowns.

Maybe a west coast team? You could watch both.