The Ended Flyers Thread

VoteForKalas 2023-03-02 14:08:30 UTC #1445

I continue to believe it is much more poor development, coaching & roster management than poor drafting by Hextall.

The vast majority of real talent we have came from Hextall's regime: Hart, Konecny, Provorov, Sanheim, Cates, Ersson, Farabee, Frost etc.

The only players I can think of we got from Fletch are York & Tippett who have shown growth this season. We'll see if Gauthier is a stud or not.

The problem is they were either rushed to the NHL level, mismanaged when they got to the NHL, surrounded by mediocre talent or shifted around so much they never were able to establish a consistent role.

Hart has been the most consistent, but he was rushed to the NHL level and then left to fend for himself playing in front of crap teams for most of his tenure. Konecny & Provorov have been the next most consistent, but have had their roles and linemate/d pairings change almost every year. Sanheim was pretty consistent until this year when he has struggled playing on a horrible roster and under Torts.

Farabee had one strong year in the NHL, but has faded since due to many of the same issues and injuries. Cates and Ersson are doing well this season and may be salvageable.

I would say Patrick & Frost were the two players that never have developed and may have been draft misses although Patrick was a complete consensus talent that many expected to go #1 that year. I think the Flyers failed him and had bad luck with injuries. Frost, OTOH, I think was probably a bad pick who has never been able to elevate his level.

We also do need to accept the reality that injuries have helped derail this organization under both Hextall and Fletch unfortunately. If we had Couturier, Ellis, Atkinson et al. we may have seen better development and performance from some of these young guys.

Austinfan 2023-03-02 15:29:46 UTC #1446

I think the Hextall picks were overrated, but they also had some bad luck, Patrick should have been a solid 2C, for example.

Right now they're in a hole b/c they've been eroding talent for a decade due to a "win now" mentality. The rebuild should have occurred after the Carter/Richards trade, even Hextall, after trading his available assets in 2014 basically sat on his hands other than the Schenn trade, signing Weise and JVR and trying to make the playoffs instead of committing to a rebuild. Fletcher was hired by Holmgren to win now, so he made short-term moves that got them back in the playoffs before G and Voracek slid from their peaks and SImmonds cratered. But that just continued the long-term talent erosion.

Torts has pulled off the bandaid, and the organization has finally accepted the need for a rebuild, but it has to start with the FO, fire Fletcher and put the senior advisors out to pasture and replace Scott, who is a failure as a CEO.

zambonir 2023-03-02 15:42:56 UTC #1447

I wasn't even considering whether Fletcher has drafted well (too soon but also, not really probably, save for the no-brainers).

Any GM was going to get some talent during those years. And Hextall also has to shoulder some of the blame for poor development, coaching and roster management, even if he probably was never able to transcend the poor institutional culture that also got him fired.

But yeah: that is a decent list but most of that real talent is still largely disappointing, and that group was also preceded by Hagg/Morin, Ghost, and Lindblom/Aube-Kubel (in Sanhehim's year). Plus they drafted no impact players between JVR and Couturier. And Rubstov was the #1 Hart's year.

I'd say it's surprising things aren't better but it's not really. They doubled down on mistakes and flawed plans multiple times even before Fletcher got here (not tanking a little bit circa 2014-2016, firing Hextall) and Fletcher has done it multiple times himself. And it seems like no matter who is the GM there was always one really bad and expensive signing a year (if not two), always in the service of thinking the team is better than it is, and because they don't have enough good young talent.

The reality is that even though Hextall was hired to do more of a rebuild, so long as Mr. Snider was alive that wasn't going to happen. They literally tried to make the playoffs in 2016 so he could know they did.

bigegypt0417 2023-03-02 18:06:47 UTC #1448

Ok...so any time anyone says that a franchise is 8-10 years away from competing...that isn't really a realistic timeline...even if you look at the sixers, the process took about 3-4 years.

If the flyers are able to shed the salary, draft well and cultivate the young talent they have, they will have money to accelerate the process through free agency and trading youth for better players.

If your argument this isn't the right group to do it, we're aligned on that.

Docs 2023-03-02 18:07:45 UTC #1449

100% accurate. Prior to the salary cap the Flyers flexed a higher payroll advantage and could out-sign most of the league. In the salary cap era they tried the same reload approach and have been hampered by bad contracts. Snider, Clarke, and Holmgren and I guess now Scott set the organizational philosophy - and they brought in a GM who is just as clueless as they are (Hextall tried but was hampered by their constraints to compete). And this organization doesn't value draft picks, but you need young talent on controllable contracts to balance the roster.

Austinfan 2023-03-02 18:11:51 UTC #1450

Hockey is more like baseball, but with a hard cap.

You draft 18 year olds, a small number can play within a year, but most take 3-4 years or longer to develop, and peak between ages 22-26, and decline between 30-32 years old.

So a rebuild often takes 5-6 years, longer if you screw up the first few years (see NJ, Detroit 7 years missing the playoffs, etc).

That means anyone over 25 on the Flyers should be trade bait the next couple years.
Because when this team is competitive in 4-5 years they'll be 30+ years old and headed toward the downslope of their career.

Docs 2023-03-02 18:12:37 UTC #1451

Its probably easier to rebuild an NBA roster though - and draft picks play right away. Most NHL draft picks are 3 years from the NHL, so to fill our a roster I think it's fair to say it takes more than 3 years. That said, the Flyers won't ever compete until they change their organizational philosophy.

bigegypt0417 2023-03-02 18:26:57 UTC #1452

That we agree on.

I don't trust this group to rebuild.

zambonir 2023-03-02 18:58:59 UTC #1453

I'm just afraid that if they trusted Fletcher to trade Giroux and hire the head coach and built this season's roster and manage this trade deadline, are they really going to cut him loose after? And then, of course, even if they do, why did they waste the last 12 months?

bkeich 2023-03-02 21:31:20 UTC #1454

BE,

Yea, you hit in it at the end. The first step is to fix the Front Office, and that won't happen quickly. That is going to take AT LEAST 2 years. Not only does an evaluation need to be made, but it will be very hard to impossible to get quality FO personnel to come to a bad franchise that is actually going to get worse.

Trade for picks or very young talent. Fletcher's last off-season might be the worst I have ever seen for any franchise. He actually traded picks for guys that we now want to move. There is little doubt left at the length of the bus Fletcher took to school.

Draft, draft well and hope to build from literally nothing. At least 5 years.

So yea, I really believe 8-10 years is reasonable. There is literally nothing to save and we are going to go downhill first. Honest an expansion team would be better off with an empty roster even without the expansion draft.

We know they are going to hold on to some of these players, and we can reasonably assume that no one on the current Flyers will win a playoff series with this franchise. Sad.

I hope I am proven wrong.

Docs 2023-03-02 21:46:53 UTC #1455

still nothing - the Flyers may want to order a wellness check to Fletcher's house to make sure everything is ok

zambonir 2023-03-02 23:00:12 UTC #1456

Fun week to read about the Flyers!

Austinfan 2023-03-03 00:42:29 UTC #1457

Thing to remember is if this is a five year rebuild (I don't think it should take longer with a good GM, b/c they actually have a bunch of solid under 25 players and prospects, what they lack are the 3-4 top end players), then you can take your time moving out the players who will be over 25 next year: Hayes, Laughton, Atkinson, Allison, Laczynski, TDA, Risto, Provorov, Sanheim. Trade them when their value is high or the right deal comes along - don't do a fire sale.

The players 26 and older next year will be 30+ in five years and entering their downslide when the team is contending again (cross fingers).

zambonir 2023-03-03 02:38:16 UTC #1458

But how do they get one of those?

I don't necessarily agree people won't want to work for the Flyers, there's only 32 jobs and it's still a strong brand and good hockey market. But will the people making the hire know who is a good hire? Will it really even be anyone other than Briere or Dean Lombardi? I don't think Scott is the problem per se, it's just that his advisory team is still the same old guys, even if Fletcher technically replaced Holmgren (does that mean Fletcher would have to fire himself?)

Austinfan 2023-03-03 03:30:33 UTC #1459

Scott is the problem. A good CEO teaches himself what he needs to know to evaluate his subordinates.
Scott is retired, he was the Comcast CEO and this is his sincere.
He's too lazy to do his homework.

zambonir 2023-03-03 03:36:59 UTC #1460

I really don't think that's the case. He's passionate about the team and Snider's legacy. And so is the Roberts family. He's just not that good at the job (Luuko was much better) and Comcast are not good owners w/o Snider as the point man (flawed though he was). You can't trust Comcast to hire someone better than Scott, and Scott still defers to Clarke and Holmgren (and Barber still has a job too).

Do we even think Fletcher is truly the guy who wanted Torts?

VoteForKalas 2023-03-03 12:32:47 UTC #1461

That was the mandate from TPTB. Hextall, like every other Flyers GM, had to continue to be "competitive" i.e. win while rebuilding or retooling. It is an impossible task.

It is the main reason why we've never been able to get out of the hole you mention. We were never allowed to truly rebuild. And we will not be able to this time either. Torts will talk about it, but there is no way the Flyers will ever bottom out like the 76ers did in order to build something good from scratch. They cannot wrap their heads around that approach; to them it equates to giving up and they are deathly afraid they will lose their fanbase.

Aquapong 2023-03-03 12:41:47 UTC #1462

Laughton could be a player teams want. Well rounded and can fit in anywhere in a lineup. I have a feeling the proposed returns for JvR have been underwhelming, but we’ll have no choice but to accept something today.

I will add for all the consternation, the NHL is the pro sports league with the most parity imo. The addition or subtraction of a few players, a few plays made or missed, or a head coach can be the difference between a competitive team and a basement team. The NBA is based on having two or three stars. The NFL is based on having a good qb. Baseball is really difficult to have a deep roster.

Docs 2023-03-03 13:50:37 UTC #1463

Fletcher's best trade was June 14, 2019 - sending Radko Gudas to Washington for Matt Niskanen. His second best trade may have been the G trade or swapping Voracek for Atkinson. But while we wait for him to at least pull the trigger on the expiring contracts, what do you all think was his worst trade?

Option 1: 2019 draft - moving down 3 spots in the first and then moving up 11 spots in the second, netting a loss of a 3rd round pick (65th) (ie passing on Caulfield)

Option 2: Trading Nolan Patrick and Philippe Myers for already injured Ryan Ellis. Even if they wanted to dump Patrick and Myers, they lost the opportunity to trade them for someone else by trading them for an injured player. Should he have been more aggressive for Elkholm.

Option 3: dumping Shayne Gostibehere, 2022 2nd rounder & 2022 7th rounder to Pheonix for the cap space. (does this mistake compound in light of how the cap space and additional assets were used for other defense-man?

Option 4: sending a 2021 first (14th overall / Isak Rosen), 2023 second (currently 40th) and Robert Hagg to Buffalo for Rasmus Ristolainen, and then signing him to a 5 year 25.5m contract (higher cap hit than ghost).

Option 5: Sending a 2024 2nd, 2023 3rd and 2022 4th to Carolina for Tony DeAngelo and a 7th.

Its a real tough call to say which of these really poor five trades was his worst move - what do you all think?

Last year at the trade deadline Fletcher flipped a couple of expiring contracts for a 3rd and 4th round pick.

andyb 2023-03-03 14:20:40 UTC #1464

The Athletic dives into it and the bottom line is that the Flyers don't have great assets to move. The players that other teams might want require more complicated negotiations. The Caps down here in DC did not really have that. They had expiring contracts and a willingness from the organization to pick up cash in the deals to make them happen. Not that I truly believe the Caps can pull off the quick rebuild that they promised Ovechkin, but at least they are making the moves to make that possible.