Photo Credit: Zack Hill
The Flyers are rocking and rolling, as they are now 7-2-1 in their past 10 games. Sean Couturier is on fire as he has registered 4g,4a during the month of February in seven games played. Moreover, JVR now has 5g,6a in his last 10 games played, as well. Talk about a hell of a playoff push. Without further delay, here are our answers to your questions.
Nolan Patrick still is not yet full contact, but the Flyers are hoping he is able to practice full-time beginning Monday. When the Flyers return home, Fletcher will meet with trainer Jim McCrossin, and they could outline Patrick’s progress from there. The hope is he will become full contact soon.
Patrick has made tons of progress, and he has ramped it up here as of late. This is great news, and he would be the best trade deadline acquisition the Flyers could make. Patrick will partake in a conditioning stint in Lehigh more than likely, as well.
Shayne Gostisbehere is still technically injured, as he was having some pain in his knee due to the scar tissue from the surgery. With that being said, it’s unlikely a General Manager will offer a top-six Forward, or even a solid bottom 9 Forward for an injured player. The Flyers may be able to get a bottom 12 Forward for him, and that’s about it. If I’m Fletcher I ride this out this season, hope he plays well the rest of the season, and prove he is 100% healthy. The Flyers then could use him in an off-season trade. There is absolutely no reason for the Flyers to sell him low with his value being at the lowest right now.
Injuries also happen throughout the course of the season. Ghost could be used for the playoff push in case of injury, there is nothing wrong with carrying seven defensemen on the roster. Again if I’m Fletcher, I don’t trade any defensemen, the more the better for the playoff push.
Metro-
Washington
Pittsburgh
Flyers
Isles
Carolina
Atlantic
Boston
Tampa Bay
Toronto
Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky is just a mess this season. It will be hard for Florida to overcome the bad goaltending that they have received from him this season. That does not mean his career is over, this is just one bad year.
Central-
St. Louis
Colorado
Dallas
Winnipeg
Pacific-
Vancouver
Edmonton
Vegas
Arizona
Arizona has a young team, and Winnipeg will turn up the playoff push here.
Nolan Patrick still is not yet full contact, but the Flyers are hoping he is able to practice full-time beginning Monday. When the Flyers return home, Fletcher will meet with trainer Jim McCrossin, and they could outline Patrick’s progress from there. The hope is he will become full contact soon.
Patrick has made tons of progress, and he has ramped it up here as of late. This is great news, and he would be the best trade deadline acquisition the Flyers could make. Patrick will partake in a conditioning stint in Lehigh more than likely, as well.
I believe 100% Patrick will come back, and I have operated under such since his injury took place.
Chris Stewart- UFA
Justin Braun- UFA
Tyler Pitlick- UFA
Brian Elliott- UFA/Re-sign
Nolan Patrick- RFA/Re-sign
Oskar Lindblom- RFA/Re-sign
Philippe Myers- RFA/ Re-sign
Mikhail Vorobyev- RFA/Will not be tendered, possibly head to the KHL
Andy Welinski- UFA/Re-sign (Experience)
TJ Brennan- UFA
Kyle Criscuolo- UFA
Kurtis Gabriel- UFA/Re-sign
Alex Lyon- UFA/Re-sign
J.F. Berube- UFA
Mark Friedman- RFA/Re-sign
Out of all the players that may walk this off-season, Tyler Pitlick is the hardest Flyer to let walk. Pitlick is fantastic, but he will command a pay raise. The Flyers have to be careful, as they have a total of 48 contracts right now, as well. There are many prospects within their system that need ELC’s, or ATO’s. They also have some players within their farm system that could do the job that Pitlick is currently providing (Carsen Twarynski, David Kase to name a few).
For once the Flyers don’t have to look for a defenseman in the off-season, and could let one walk like Braun. Friedman can take over full-time for Braun next season. The Flyers are very fortunate to be in this type of position that most NHL teams are not in regards to their prospects, and a lot of kudos goes to former General Manager Ron Hextall for this. They could save a lot of money against the cap, by using some prospects properly within their system.
Playing in a tough conference like the Metropolitan Division, there aren’t many easy nights. This prepares teams for an extended playoff run. All the Flyers have to do is get in, and anything could happen. Look at the 2012 Los Angeles Kings they won the Stanley Cup as an 8th seed. What most fans, and the NHL world know now is that the Flyers are very well coached. Coaching is a huge key for an extended playoff run, and the Flyers have that.
This always seems to happen, and it’s not just Flyers fans. It’s fan throughout the entire NHL. The problem herein lies with the cap, it’s becoming more difficult in the sport of hockey for teams to maintain. Flyers fans are just concerned, and it’s great these players have worked out accordingly.
Unfortunately, the Flyers are already in that cap crunch. They currently have $1.22 million in cap space at the moment, but when Patrick returns the Flyers will need $925,000 in cap space to fit him in. There are some contracts that are going to be difficult to part ways with in the off-season because of such with the likes of Justin Braun and Tyler Pitlick. Pitlick will command a raise for sure, but the Flyers have some bottom 9 and 12 players within their farm system that could fill the void of losing Pitlick.
The expansion draft will afford the Flyers the possibility to lose a big contract like JVR or Jake Voracek. At least that is the hope, only time will tell, but I trust Fletcher. Fletcher did a great job in just one off-season as Flyers GM, let’s see what he can do in his second off-season.
If you would like to see your questions submitted in our weekly mailbag. Just submit your question on our Twitter page @flyersknitty using #Flyersmail, or @JameyBaskow. Thanks to all the fans for another great mailbag, and Let’s go Flyers.
Keep pitlick for sure he’s way better then Patrick don’t let him go would be huge mistake.
Let Elliot go have one of the young European goalies we have back up hart would save money there pitlick needs to be resigned. Pay him Elliot’s salary he’s a spark plug
ghost to sharks for burns. add 3 late round picks if needed. sharks i’m sure would love to get out form under his contract. if not resigning braun burns would take his place next year
ghost and 1st to minnesota for matt dumba
We should try to turn Justin Braun back to assets, which we in my mind wasted on him! Next summer is a really deep draft, so we must try to get assets for that, and Braun is expendable, just like Ghost who we should trade at the draft, when his value has risen a bit! Hopefully Nolan Patrick can be our only upgrade at trade-deadline ! I also hope that we don”t need to sign Pitlick, because we have other youngsters like NAK coming, and instead we should sign Wade Allison to ELC along with Tanner Laczynski! Especially Allison will hopefully take Pitlick”s place in our line-up, sooner rather then later!