Photo Credit: FNG’s Rob Windfelder
The Flyers exit interviews offered some interesting insight into the players and where they are mentally after this challenging season. The interviews were candid, honest, and gracious. One reoccurring theme with many of the players is the belief that the rebuild may go quicker than a lot of people have been predicting. I happen to agree. I am not saying they are going to be a force to be reckoned with right out of the gate but they should be a much improved team this coming Fall.
This time last year I remember not being able to find even a glimmer of hope. I’ve been following this team since I was in grade school and I don’t ever remember a Flyers season ending with the future looking so bleak. Where would they even begin to pick up the pieces? They started with a really big move in the right direction. They hired John Tortorella as head coach.
It’s a good thing the Flyers did not go into this season with an interim coach still in place. That could have been a disaster for many of the young players and their development. This season proved to be a big step forward in so many ways and John Tortorella was a very big part of that. This was the start of the rebuild no matter what the front office wanted to call it. With Torts in place this tumultuous season became both a litmus test and a learning experience for everyone involved.
Ryan Ellis, Cam Atkinson, and Sean Couturier never even touched the ice this season. By the end of October other players started dropping like flies due to injury and that trend continued all throughout the Fall and into December. Guys were coming up from the Phantoms to fill slots. The young players who were already here were playing in top six spots because they had to. Everyone was moving up and getting experience and ice time that they would not have seen under regular circumstances.
Tortorella was forced to utilize his younger players, see what they had, and help develop them into NHL roles way ahead of schedule. This is one of the key reasons the rebuild could be a bit shorter than projected. Tortorella did a fantastic job getting the most out of his young players. Many of them really stepped up to the responsibilities that were foisted upon them. With the new head coach already in place all of this had a constructive purpose to it. It wasn’t wasted time and effort, it was all working towards the future of the team.
The Flyers record was better this year than last but it was still a losing season. It may be more helpful to look at some individual players to get a bead on where some of the key improvements took place.
Morgan Frost started this season as a classic example of a guy who had to learn that some of the moves that got him to the NHL may not work once he got there. It’s not his fault, you see it all the time. A lot of moves that may have worked like a charm against lesser opponents just fall flat at the NHL level. Frost started to look a bit gun shy as that lesson was sinking in. About mid-season he really started to come into his own. He learned to pick and choose when and where to turn it on and he was stealing the show by the end of the season.
Owen Tippett came to the Flyers as part of the Claude Giroux trade. Most did not know what to expect out of Tippett when he got here. I don’t think anyone expected him to score 27 goals his first full season as a Flyer.
Travis Konecny is another player who really stepped it up this year. He was a mainstay of the Flyers offense all season long. TK always brings it but this year he had a career high 31 goals. Add to that 30 assists and take into consideration he missed 22 games. Konecny and Ivan Provorov both joined the Flyers in 2016. They are both only 26 years old.
Carter Hart recieved the Bobby Clarke Trophy as the team’s Most Valuable Player. He ended this year with a 2.94 goals against average and a .907 save percentage. Hart has been here since 2018 is still only 24 years old.
Tyson Foerster, Elliot Desnoyers, and goalie Sam Ersson all were quite impressive when called up near the end of the season. All three of them looked right at home on the big club and could very well have finished the season up here if they had not been needed by the Phantoms who were in a run for the playoffs. Foerster in particular took the ice with such cool confidence you would have thought he’d been up here all year.
Cam Atkinson and Sean Couturier are both ready to go. They now have all summer to condition and get ready for training camp. These are two really big pieces of the Flyers offense that were unavailable this year.
Joel Farabee looked more like himself by the end of the season but he too will greatly benefit from off season training and camp that he didn’t have last year.
Chuck Fletcher has been replaced by interim general manager Danny Briere. Dave Scott will move aside to make way for new Flyers chairman Dan Hilferty today. The medical staff has been restructured. The Flyers entire organization is being rebuilt. They will get their chance to make a first impression this summer leading up to the NHL draft.
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The draft is not until June 28th – 29th. Until then there will be plenty of great NHL playoff hockey to be played starting tonight! Next year hopefully we will have a horse in the race. The difference between the beginning of this off-season and last is like night and day.
Boy you are easy to fool. The quick rebuild is wrong and will fail. This makes the true rebuild a decade on the time table. Just making the playoffs is easy. Being a true cup contenders is much harder. They still refuse to do the rebuild things so get used to mediocre.
Great article Rob. The comprehension is that with the younger talent like Tippett, Foerster, etc, the Flyers have a building block to begin with. Let’s go Flyers.
I like the rebuild,I see it a little differently however.I like to see Danny Briere get his chance and be named as the GM of the Flyers.I don’t see Torts being the head coach of the Flyers next season,and I see a search to replace Torts as the head coach will be under way soon.I like Torts as the coach,but I see him being named director of hockey operations.I can see several veteran players being replaced by younger players,HayesJVR and several other veterans with those bad contracts will be moved.I think that the pieces are beginning to fall into place with Scott stepping down,Fletcher gone,and Clarke,Barber,Holmgren who are all three living in the 70’s if not fired getting a much less degree of the workload.Goid luck Flyers with the rebuild.We as fans have been waiting a long time for this.