2022-23 Flyers: How about just less suck?

[Maverick426h]

This is a completely different team in the last 2-3 games.

We no longer play any defense.

I feel bad for all three of our goalies. We're not short on talent in net, but when we let teams go tic-tac-toe in our zone repeatedly, they have zero chance.

Konecny should've probably had a couple goals, so he remains very dangerous offensively, which is really the only positive.

 

[awaz]

This is a completely different team in the last 2-3 games.

We no longer play any defense.

I feel bad for all three of our goalies. We're not short on talent in net, but when we let teams go tic-tac-toe in our zone repeatedly, they have zero chance.

Konecny should've probably had a couple goals, so he remains very dangerous offensively, which is really the only positive.

Goes back to the lack of talent IMO. Team-wide consistency is an overblown topic to me. The "consistent teams" have the talent to win games when they don't bring their A-game and don't deserve a W. Their talented guys do stuff that gets them the W. No team can bring their A-game every night. And the Flyers don't get W's unless they bring their A-game.

Lost 8 of their last 10 now (3 in OT, but still).

 

[Maverick426h]

Goes back to the lack of talent IMO. Team-wide consistency is an overblown topic to me. The "consistent teams" have the talent to win games when they don't bring their A-game and don't deserve a W. Their talented guys do stuff that gets them the W. No team can bring their A-game every night. And the Flyers don't get W's unless they bring their A-game.

Lost 8 of their last 10 now (3 in OT, but still).

This was a consistently good team for about two months straight (mid Dec through mid Feb). Yeah, we lost some games in there, but most of them were hard-fought, one-goal games. Now that suddenly feels like the distant past and it seems like we're never going to snap out of this current sleepwalk.

I guess we'll find out today and tomorrow night.

 

[awaz]

This was a consistently good team for about two months straight (mid Dec through mid Feb). Yeah, we lost some games in there, but most of them were hard-fought, one-goal games. Now that suddenly feels like the distant past and it seems like we're never going to snap out of this current sleepwalk.

I guess we'll find out today and tomorrow night.

I'm just hoping for some lottery luck. Unfortunately that's the only hope I have for this team right now. I don't think Fletcher (and the rest of the FO), have it in them to get dramatic with future looking trades. I don't expect them to cash in on Laughton/Konecny, they'll just keep them and re-sign them. I don't expect them to cash in on Seeler becuase he's too "heart and soul". Just a sad state right now. Maybe they'll move Provorov and get a good return for him.

Jealous of the Blues getting some assets to start a rebuild with. 3 first rounders in what's being hyped as the best draft in a while. Could've/should've been the Flyers after last years fiasco. Instead, we have Risto/Sanheim signed for 5+ years and Tony Deangelo.

 

[Chris p Bacon]

I'm just hoping for some lottery luck. Unfortunately that's the only hope I have for this team right now. I don't think Fletcher (and the rest of the FO), have it in them to get dramatic with future looking trades. I don't expect them to cash in on Laughton/Konecny, they'll just keep them and re-sign them. I don't expect them to cash in on Seeler becuase he's too "heart and soul". Just a sad state right now. Maybe they'll move Provorov and get a good return for him.

Jealous of the Blues getting some assets to start a rebuild with. 3 first rounders in what's being hyped as the best draft in a while. Could've/should've been the Flyers after last years fiasco. Instead, we have Risto/Sanheim signed for 5+ years and Tony Deangelo.

 

[awaz]

Torts’ message can’t grow stale. They need to find stars at parts of the draft when it’s not reasonable to expect stars will be unearthed. Player development and the medical department need to come through in a big way. A front office that just constructed a maxed-out cap team that’s in the bottom third of the standings needs to turn into cap wizards capable of finding undervalued talent and signing them to contracts that maximize surplus value. It won’t be enough for one or two of these outcomes to play out. The Flyers need all of them.

So do the Flyers have a plan? Yes, they do. It’s just one that looks highly unlikely to succeed.

The Flyers' apparent plan to build a contender, and everything that's wrong with it

The Flyers do have a plan to return to relevancy, it's just one that looks highly unlikely to succeed.

theathletic.com

 

[awaz]

Sanheim scratched today. In his hometown no less.

 

[Maverick426h]

Sanheim scratched today. In his hometown no less.

They all need to improve or it's an overpay, obviously. That said, nobody is really being paid like a top defenseman either. 26 Nhl defenseman cost more against the cap than Provorov does.

Even without Sanheim, we go into Calgary and get the win today. The offense was definitely better. Very clutch goal by Allison late to seal the victory.

Ersson sure as hell comes away looking like the savior though. The Flames stormed out looking to blow us away and he completely shut them down, which allowed us to grab the lead and hold it for most of the game.

Imagine where we'd be at now if he had taken Sandstrom's place all season long. Ersson is 6-0-0 with better gaa and sv% than Hart. Sandstrom is 1-8-1 with a horrific 3.52 gaa and .880 sv%.

 

[Maverick426h]

Konecny scored and assisted today, but left later with an upper-body injury. If it's a serious injury, we might as well all pack things up for the season and go home. Idk why Farabee only played 4 minutes in this game. Was he benched or did he get injured too!?

If we cash in on Konecny and Laughton so to speak, who are in my opinion probably our two best forwards this season (that are on good contracts too), what are the odds that we develop the returning picks/prospects into better players and then how long will that take!?!

I'm just saying, do we really want to blow up the team now and not only wave goodbye to the playoffs for at least the next 3-5 seasons (probably a conservative estimate), but be one of the worst teams in the Nhl for much of that stretch too!?

 

[Maverick426h]

I wouldn't trade Konecny unless we get offered a slam-dunk prospect, two 1st round picks (one in '23) and a 2nd to replace the one we fumbled away.

If we do that though, why keep anyone? Sell the whole fucking team away if you can...Lol

 

[awaz]

Konecny scored and assisted today, but left later with an upper-body injury. If it's a serious injury, we might as well all pack things up for the season and go home. Idk why Farabee only played 4 minutes in this game. Was he benched or did he get injured too!?

If we cash in on Konecny and Laughton so to speak, who are in my opinion probably our two best forwards this season (that are on good contracts too), what are the odds that we develop the returning picks/prospects into better players and then how long will that take!?!

I'm just saying, do we really want to blow up the team now and not only wave goodbye to the playoffs for at least the next 3-5 seasons (probably a conservative estimate), but be one of the worst teams in the Nhl for much of that stretch too!?

I'm willing to wave goodbye to the playoffs for 3-5 seasons. I just don't see how they get to cup contention without it at this point. If Fletcher can't figure out how to get Gaudreau here last summer, how the heck does he get impact talent in the door? And it's not like it snuck up on him. It was broadcast all over the place like 3 years ago that Gaudreau wanted to sign with the Flyers. He had plenty of time to prepare the cap to accommodate that signing and he pissed it away. Just like he pisses cap space away now. And it's not like they're a single piece away. To be a legitimate contender they need probably 3 top 6 forwards (beyond getting Couturier and Atkinson back) and 2 top pair dmen. The roster needs a major infusion of talent and I don't see any way to get there without sucking for a few years.

The only way to speed that up is to turn guys like TK and Laughton in to multiple shots at getting high quality players in return. If you can get a high-end prospect and a 1st for TK, there's a chance that 2 years from now you have 2 top 6 guys instead of 1. If you can capitalize on Laughton's good year and turn him in to a 1st, maybe you get a legit top 6 guy out of that 1st instead of a guy that's best suited on the 3rd line for a contender. You have to start trying multiply these guys by taking on the risk of draft/develop. And they have to figure out how to draft/develop.

There's just no cap space to add impact free agents. They don't have enough high draft picks to expect a quick infusion of impact draft picks. And they don't have the prospect pool to just be patient and wait for those impact guys. And Fletcher and the FO seem OK with that. They just want to keep plowing down this road. That's what so depressing. They want to piss away the next few years chasing a needle in a haystack. At least if they blow it up there's something to hope for.

 

[awaz]

Here's how I see the Flyers organization, slotted where I think they'd fit on a cup contender caliber team. Guys not listed I don't think should be night-in-night-out guys on a cup contender roster.

1st Liners
Couturier (if he comes back 100%)

2nd Liners
Konecny
Gauthier
Atkinson

3rd Liners
Hayes
Laughton
Tippett
Frost
Allison
Farabee
Brink
Foerster

4th Liners
Cates (maybe a 3rd liner depending on who else is on the 3rd line and how is offensive game comes around)
Desnoyers
Wisdom
Laczynski

1st pair

2nd pair
Provorov
Sanheim
York

3rd pair
Risto
Deangelo
Zamula
Attard
Andrae (maybe could develop to a 2nd pair)

Starting goalie
Hart
Ersson (if he keeps trending this way)

Backup goalie

 

[awaz]

HockeyBuzz.com - Ryan Wilson - What else is there to say?

www.hockeybuzz.com

At least the Pens are floundering. Going to be hard to live with las if Hextall botches the Pens GM job too .

But at least the Pens will be bad!

 

[Maverick426h]

Here's how I see the Flyers organization, slotted where I think they'd fit on a cup contender caliber team. Guys not listed I don't think should be night-in-night-out guys on a cup contender roster.

1st Liners
Couturier (if he comes back 100%)

2nd Liners
Konecny
Gauthier
Atkinson

3rd Liners
Hayes
Laughton
Tippett
Frost
Allison
Farabee
Brink
Foerster

4th Liners
Cates (maybe a 3rd liner depending on who else is on the 3rd line and how is offensive game comes around)
Desnoyers
Wisdom
Laczynski

1st pair

2nd pair
Provorov
Sanheim
York

3rd pair
Risto
Deangelo
Zamula
Attard
Andrae (maybe could develop to a 2nd pair)

Starting goalie
Hart
Ersson (if he keeps trending this way)

Backup goalie

As of right now, Konecny is a legit top line guy, yes, even on a contender. You could even argue that he's carrying the entire offense on his back because I agree that there is no other top line forward that's healthy. A career-high 27 goals (with no help) despite missing games due to injury (perhaps more coming) and having a 13 game goal scoring drought. Nobody else on the team is even close and most of them have played in more games too.

I mean, if Hayes and Laughton are two-third's of my 3rd line, I have one of the top teams in the Nhl.

I think guys like Tippett, Frost, Allison, Farabee, Brink, Foerster and such are too young to just be labeled 3rd liners forever. Gauthier, we absolutely have no clue.

Then you have York, who definitely could develop into a top pairing defenseman yet.

We're actually strong in net, which means we potentially have an extra piece there, or can get away with some defensive liabilities.

 

[awaz]

As of right now, Konecny is a legit top line guy, yes, even on a contender. You could even argue that he's carrying the entire offense on his back because I agree that there is no other top line forward that's healthy. A career-high 27 goals (with no help) despite missing games due to injury (perhaps more coming) and having a 13 game goal scoring drought. Nobody else on the team is even close and most of them have played in more games too.

I mean, if Hayes and Laughton are two-third's of my 3rd line, I have one of the top teams in the Nhl.

I think guys like Tippett, Frost, Allison, Farabee, Brink, Foerster and such are too young to just be labeled 3rd liners forever. Gauthier, we absolutely have no clue.

Then you have York, who definitely could develop into a top pairing defenseman yet.

We're actually strong in net, which means we potentially have an extra piece there, or can get away with some defensive liabilities.

The bold is exactly the goal though. If they want to win the cup they need to be one of the top teams in the NHL. And right now they're a bottom 10 team and they're capped out because while Hayes and Laughton would make a great 2/3 of your 3rd line, 10M for 2/3 of your 3rd line is a problem. Just like a 10M 3rd pair is if Risto and Deangelo are slotted where they should be on a contender.

And for the younger guys. Tippet (24), Frost (23), Allison (25), and Farabee (22), aren't THAT young. If they were 18-19-20 and playing the way they are now you can have higher expectations of a serious jump in production. But I think it's a long shot for guys in their mid-20s to go from 30-40 pt guys to 80-90 pt guys. Is it possible? Sure. Would you bet your house on it though? Brink (21) and Foerster (21) are pretty young, but they haven't cracked the NHL yet. If they were going to be 'cup contender caliber top 6 fwds', they probably would've cracked the NHL by 21. They might be top 6 forwards in the NHL, but I think that team looks a lot like this one does. Not talented enough to contend.

York, maybe gets to 1st pair guy. But I don't think we have a McAvoy/Makar/Slavin/Hedman level guy on our hands here. The cup contender 1st pair-type guys.

Which leaves the TK topic. Maybe this year is who he can be given the TOI and PPTOI he's gotten this year. I'm skeptical though. I don't think he's in the Marchand/Pastrnak/Rantanen/Svechnikov/Marner/Kucherov class of cup contender 1st liners. Maybe TK and Couturier can be 2/3s of a cup contending top line, but IMO you need that 3rd guy to be a superstar if that's the case. What's the Flyers path to that?

 

[Retroram52]

Perhaps one of the development factors resides with youngsters playing a goodly portion of the season under the disciplined hand of Tortorella!

 

[chy1127]

I watched the first period and thought the team was giving a really good effort. Not sure why Brown is taking a FO in the defensive zone with 6 seconds left in the period. I would think we would have someone better. Looks like the team didn't have enough gas in the tank for the third.

 

[lasgop8]

I watched the first period and thought the team was giving a really good effort. Not sure why Brown is taking a FO in the defensive zone with 6 seconds left in the period. I would think we would have someone better. Looks like the team didn't have enough gas in the tank for the third.

We were playing just fine about 6 minutes into the third getting the better of the play just like the first two periods we were shutting them down Then Lyksell takes a stupid 4 minute high sticking penalty where they scored the tying goal and got the crowd into it and just took over from there.

 

[Maverick426h]

The bold is exactly the goal though. If they want to win the cup they need to be one of the top teams in the NHL. And right now they're a bottom 10 team and they're capped out because while Hayes and Laughton would make a great 2/3 of your 3rd line, 10M for 2/3 of your 3rd line is a problem. Just like a 10M 3rd pair is if Risto and Deangelo are slotted where they should be on a contender.

And for the younger guys. Tippet (24), Frost (23), Allison (25), and Farabee (22), aren't THAT young. If they were 18-19-20 and playing the way they are now you can have higher expectations of a serious jump in production. But I think it's a long shot for guys in their mid-20s to go from 30-40 pt guys to 80-90 pt guys. Is it possible? Sure. Would you bet your house on it though? Brink (21) and Foerster (21) are pretty young, but they haven't cracked the NHL yet. If they were going to be 'cup contender caliber top 6 fwds', they probably would've cracked the NHL by 21. They might be top 6 forwards in the NHL, but I think that team looks a lot like this one does. Not talented enough to contend.

York, maybe gets to 1st pair guy. But I don't think we have a McAvoy/Makar/Slavin/Hedman level guy on our hands here. The cup contender 1st pair-type guys.

Which leaves the TK topic. Maybe this year is who he can be given the TOI and PPTOI he's gotten this year. I'm skeptical though. I don't think he's in the Marchand/Pastrnak/Rantanen/Svechnikov/Marner/Kucherov class of cup contender 1st liners. Maybe TK and Couturier can be 2/3s of a cup contending top line, but IMO you need that 3rd guy to be a superstar if that's the case. What's the Flyers path to that?

We're a bottom 10 team. Still true, but barely. Why is that!?! Oh, maybe it has something to do with over $20 million or 25% of our cap spent on players who have not played a single fucking game for us this season. Do you think!? Lol

We're really, truly not a capped out team at all when you factor in all of the injuries. JvR and his $7 million will be gone shortly too. Yes, Hayes is overpaid. We get that. Let's not lump Laughton in with him, who is very much not overpaid given everything he does for this team.

Risto, that bed is made and now you have to sleep in it. What more can be done other than trying to get him to consistently perform better? Only one more season left of DeAngelo. Maybe he gets traded next season at the deadline.

Even without Konecny, our squad of no-talent youngsters who apparently aren't THAT young had McDavid, Draisaitl and the rest of the highest scoring team in the Nhl pretty much locked down last night until they got a four minute power play in the 3rd. For anyone who didn't watch the game, it looks like another easy Oiler win, but I thought we deserved to win that game. Props to Provy, Cates, Seeler, Tippett, Laughton, Hayes, Allison and others who really played well. It will largely go unnoticed or be completely forgotten.

Nobody is saying everyone you have pegged as a 3rd line guy is going to suddenly turn into an All-Star, but could some of them become second line players on a good team? Absolutely. Tippett and Farabee, if anyone, probably have the inside track for that. The ones who have yet to make the Nhl, we really have no idea yet.

To get what we need, we either have to draft well and develop those players quickly or become an actual competitive team that starts making the playoffs. Then, we are a more attractive landing spot for superstar free agents or just superstars in general.

 

[awaz]

We're a bottom 10 team. Still true, but barely. Why is that!?! Oh, maybe it has something to do with over $20 million or 25% of our cap spent on players who have not played a single fucking game for us this season. Do you think!? Lol

We're really, truly not a capped out team at all when you factor in all of the injuries. JvR and his $7 million will be gone shortly too. Yes, Hayes is overpaid. We get that. Let's not lump Laughton in with him, who is very much not overpaid given everything he does for this team.

Risto, that bed is made and now you have to sleep in it. What more can be done other than trying to get him to consistently perform better? Only one more season left of DeAngelo. Maybe he gets traded next season at the deadline.

Even without Konecny, our squad of no-talent youngsters who apparently aren't THAT young had McDavid, Draisaitl and the rest of the highest scoring team in the Nhl pretty much locked down last night until they got a four minute power play in the 3rd. For anyone who didn't watch the game, it looks like another easy Oiler win, but I thought we deserved to win that game. Props to Provy, Cates, Seeler, Tippett, Laughton, Hayes, Allison and others who really played well. It will largely go unnoticed or be completely forgotten.

Nobody is saying everyone you have pegged as a 3rd line guy is going to suddenly turn into an All-Star, but could some of them become second line players on a good team? Absolutely. Tippett and Farabee, if anyone, probably have the inside track for that. The ones who have yet to make the Nhl, we really have no idea yet.

To get what we need, we either have to draft well and develop those players quickly or become an actual competitive team that starts making the playoffs. Then, we are a more attractive landing spot for superstar free agents or just superstars in general.

All I'm trying to say money wise, with Hayes/Deangelo/Risto in particular, is that the Flyers are going to struggle to add significant salary (aka superstar free agents) with those guys eating up as much money as they do playing in the bottom half of the lineup. So why not maximize the time you have by loading up on draft picks and trying to find stars in the draft? Even if you don't purge the roster, I don't think this team is better than 50/50 to make the playoffs for a few years. Even if they do make the playoffs and go out in the 1st round, does that experience gained get them close to cup contention? Personally, I'd rather load up on picks/prospects to come out the other side with a young team full of potential than to stay the course with this group of players.

Doesn't have to be an out and out tank. But they should be trying to have multiple 1st round picks in the next few drafts. 2024, they do. Can they figure out how to get another 1st in 2023, the supposed deep draft? They have to draft well and develop well, agreed. More lottery tickets increases their chances though.