What a 2019 offseason it turned out to be for the Flyers, and their proud faithful. On Monday June 3rd, 2019 at approximately 8:40 p.m. the Flyers traded for the rights of Center Kevin Hayes from the Winnipeg Jets for a 5th Round Pick. A little over two weeks later the orange and black signed Hayes to a 7 year-$50 million deal, worth an AAV of $7.14 million per season.
His most important attribute for the orange and black was his familiarity with now Head Coach Alain Vigneault. In 2017-18, Hayes played under Vigneault for the New York Rangers, a year in which he tallied a career high in goals with 25. Moreover, Hayes and Vigneault developed a good relationship and one that rubbed off on the locker room. Hayes has helped with this group of Flyers to better understand Vigneault’s system. Fletcher tried to make this locker room less toxic, by putting his own stamp on the roster, and boy Hayes definitely delivered and had these Flyers riding high.
“I signed with the Flyers last year because I knew they had a great team. Some could argue that we did a little better than expected. I thought we were going to be a great team. Now, we’ve kind of put our names out there for the league. Everyone knows when they enter our building, in front of our fans, obviously there’s no fans this year, but it’s a tough building to get two points in. Hartsy feels comfortable playing on that ice. We’re a tough team at home. Obviously we have some shoes to fill that we didn’t last year. We put our name on the map. I think everyone kind of relished it. They were really excited with how our season went. I think AV said yesterday that everyone should be really, really excited, players, coaches, fans and media. Philly is a sports town when your team is winning and I don’t see anything different this year.”– Kevin Hayes
Hayes is also a very good Penalty Killer. He helped tremendously in an area that has been an Achilles heel for the Flyers for the past few seasons. Like previously mentioned he is also a scoring threat on the PK, and he has continued to mold this unit into a successful one. The Flyers owned the 11th best Penalty Kill with a success rate of 81.8% for the 2019-20 season.
“Nisky is hard to replace,” Hayes said, “What he brings on the ice, everyone knows. It’s more so what he brings off the ice. He doesn’t say a lot, but the way he plays, if you can’t get behind that guy and if you can’t work your hardest in order to look that guy in the eye in the locker room, this isn’t the right locker room for you. He’s definitely going to be missed. He’s a great guy. It’s a personal decision that he wanted to make. I’m happy for him. He’s had an incredible career.”
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The addition of Hayes was a missing glue piece that the Flyers have lacked for the past few seasons, and both him and Matt Niskanen had ever lasting impressions on the Flyers locker room. This season the Flyers will lean heavily on Hayes’s leadership to guide the youth, more so than ever, as this will be a weird season:
“Obviously, the re-alignment of the divisions is weird. Experts are saying it’s the safest route possible. It’s going to make for some interesting games. Playing the same team over and over again, eight times, there’s bound to be bad blood. There’s bound to be some big hits and bit plays. There’s a lot of chance for some bad blood to turn over into the next game. Obviously we’re going to get used to each other, system-wise. Come the third or fourth time we play each other, everyone is going to know every player on the ice and the ins and outs of the systems they run. What I’m excited about is that it’s all going to come down to work ethic and making sure whoever works harder is going to be winning at the end of these games.”– Kevin Hayes
For his efforts, the team is now a legit threat in the Metropolitan Division, and contenders for once. Fletcher gets an “A” for this addition.
Oskar Lindblom and Nolan Patrick update from Flyers’ General Manager Chuck Fletcher:
“Oskar, I’ll start with him. He’s doing really well. Obviously, he was cleared to return to play in the bubble and he played two games in there. Since that time, he’s had a tremendous off-season. He’s been able to rebuild his body, if you will, and regain some of the muscle mass he lost during his treatments last spring and summer. He’s in really good shape physically. All of our players will get their pre-season physicals in early January and at that point, we’ll find out if there’s any issues. We’re anticipating no problems at this point. Oskar looks good. Nolan, I watched him skate today. He’s an amazingly talented young man. He looked great. Feels good. Again, we’ll wait for the doctors to meet with him for the pre-season physical. Life is unpredictable. We certainly saw that last year. I can’t make predictions on anybody. I think we’re in a good shape going into camp and we’re excited to get these two players back.”
More on Patrick, “I guess we’ll have to wait and see how things going with Patty and how he feels. I don’t know that you take it slowly. If anything, everybody’s basically on the same page right now. Nobody’s in mid-season shape. In some ways, this might be the right time to re-introduce players back in. I know he hasn’t played in a while, but at the same time there’s seven teams that haven’t played games since last March. It’s going to be a different start for a lot of players and a lot of teams. Clearly, everybody will be in better form by mid-season than what they are at the beginning. It’s going to be relative even that way. It might be a good opportunity for everybody to get going on the same page.”
