Photo Credit: Mark Blinch/NHLI via Getty Images
Taken with the 22nd pick in the first round of the 2006 NHL Entry Draft, the Flyers’ long-time captain Claude Giroux has been suiting up for the Orange and Black for 15 seasons now. After the completion of this season this now 33-year-old will be an unrestricted free agent for possibly the last time of his playing career. But sadly, although he has played in 963 NHL regular season games and managed to score an impressive 875 points during that time (where he is still breaking Flyers’ records with each passing game), he has yet to capture the one thing all young players growing up dream about- Lord Stanley’s Cup.
Over the years Giroux (like him or not) has been the model of consistency: Year in and year out he has been one of, if not “THE BEST” Flyers player. Over that time, he has been given a less than stellar supporting cast to help him achieve his goal where, if you look back through the past winners of the Cup, you can see that they did not just have one star player- they usually came in pairs. Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos had/has Nikita Kucherov, Washington’s Alex Ovechkin had/has Nickolas Backstrom, Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby had/has Evgeni Malkin, and Chicago’s Jonathan Toews had/has Patrick Kane. Giroux has never even had the kind of help that would ever compare to the type of talent that teams around the league currently have with duos like the Oilers’ Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl or Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen. The best player Philadelphia ever gave Giroux to play with for an extended period of time was Jakub Voracek who is a good player in his own right but fails in comparison to the likes of these previously mentioned one-two punches listed above.
Over those 15 years now the Flyers have relied heavily on their Captain to carry this team. Until this past offseason, management has gone forth with the same basic blueprint of: Giroux will score most of the points. We will give him a few good but not great players to play with up front (Voracek, Simmonds, Hartnell, and Couturier). Keep one exceptional defenseman on the roster at all times (Ivan Provorov, Kimmo Timonen before that) and play them so much they are unable to compete at the level they are capable of. Then, fill in the rest of the defensive core with either a bunch of underperforming youth or big name veterans who are now well beyond their prime. Which then, to cap it off, set up for failure a long list of mediocre goalies that have come through the organization during that time!
To his credit this year, the team’s general manager Chuck Fletcher looked to try and break this mold by shipping out some underperforming youth (Nolan Patrick and Philippe Myers). This was an effort to acquire a proven first pairing defenseman (Ryan Ellis) who, at the time, seemed to have plenty of tread still left on the tires. He also dumped Shayne Gostisbehere’s contract on the Coyotes so he could create cap space and traded away the team’s first round pick (and more) in order to bring in some defensive depth with some much-needed grit by acquiring Rasmus Ristolainen. Then, he returned Jakub Voracek back to sender (Columbus) after a nine-year trial run and obtained proven goal scorer Cam Atkinson for his efforts. But, through a slew of prolonged injuries (Kevin Hayes, Ryan Ellis, Wade Allison, Patrick Brown, Derick Brassard, and now Nate Thompson) the team currently finds themselves not only on a six game losing streak (currently out of playoff contention) seated in seventh place in the Metropolitan Division, but largely in the same mess they were in last season: unable to score on the power play. Counting on second or third pairing defenseman to play top pairing minutes for extended periods of time and have to now rely on an uninspiring list of call-ups (Willman, Frost and Bunnaman) to stand in until others get healthy is again proving to be insufficient.
With the Flyers’ schedule not seeming to get any easier any time soon, this slide the team is currently on could very well continue. If it does, by the time the majority of the players on the injured reserve list return to the lineup, Philadelphia may just be in a hole too big to crawl out of! So, I ask you, come the trade deadline: if the Flyers are out of contention, should they do Giroux a favor and ask him to lift his no trade clause so that they could try and ship him to a contender and give him a chance to win the cup? Philly could certainly stand to use some proven NHL ready prospects since they struggle to develop their own.
Think about it, this team is in trouble when Giroux hangs them up or decides he’s wasted enough of his career here. Since the Flyers drafted Claude way back in 2006 who have they selected that is worthy of being named the next face of the franchise? A not just good but ELITE player that will draw people in to come see games when they place his face on a 200ft banner outside the stadium. I’ll wait….
How about Tyson Foerster? Well, thirteen of the thirty-one players drafted in the 2020 first round have already played NHL games and/or are now serious contributors to their team’s success; he has not. 2019’s Cameron York? Right now, through 16 games played down in Lehigh Valley, he sits at a -5. In 2018 the Flyers had two first-round picks, one being Joel Farabee who has looked pretty darn good through roughly 130 NHL games played, but is scoring 20 goals in a season enough to call him elite? I mean the Flyers used to have a slew of guys do that every season, remember? Jay O’Brien is still in college. In 2017 the Flyers were gifted the number two overall selection and they chose Nolan Patrick who turned out to be a bust. Then later in that same round selected Morgan Frost- a player who most fans are left hoping turns into some phenomenon but I’m not holding my breath. He certainly looks bigger and stronger than in previous years but to date has played in less than 25 games in the NHL and has scored only eight points. He’s hardly someone you’re going to plaster on billboards throughout the city. How about Isaac Ratcliffe, the former 50 goal scorer in juniors? Through parts of four seasons in the American Hockey League (AHL) he has managed to score just 20 professional goals for his career. How about 2016’s first and second round picks German Rubtsov and Pascal Laberge? When selecting these two, management might have done better if they were blindfolded and just chose to throw darts at names on a wall to make their selections. Then there’s Carter Hart, right? As good as we think he is (or could be) here in Philly, the fact still remains that he is a below .500 goalie. To be more precise: in 114 games played, he has outright only won 54, which leaves him with a career 0.473-win percentage. 2015’s Ivan Provorov is overused by the Flyers and therefore will likely never have his name placed upon the James Norris Memorial Trophy. Konecny has turned into more of a gritty trash talker now as opposed to the player who once achieved three consecutive seasons where he scored 24 goals. Speeding it up now: 2014’s Travis Sanheim, 2013’s Sam Morin, 2012’s Scott Laughton are ok at best. 2011’s Sean Couturier (who the team just signed to a huge contract) has won the Selke Trophy for being the league’s top defensive forward before but is not a name you think of when selecting an All-Star Team. How about 2007’s number two overall selection James van Riemsdyk, who the team re-signed a few years back to a contract that pays him $7 million dollars a year? He’s got a whole two goals this season.
In pointing this out it was not meant to try and slander the team but to raise the question of what’s broken? Is it scouting? Is it player development? Why, after 15 seasons, are the Flyers still so reliant on what a 33-year-old player does? At this point in his career Giroux should be transitioning to more of a supporting cast member who, while he can still produce at a high level, should not be solely depended on to be the player who determines whether his team wins or loses on a given night. The fact of the matter is that, after more than a decade and a half, the Flyers have yet to find his heir. Philadelphia still lacks the type of size, speed, and skill that it takes to truly compete these days in the NHL- traits that other clubs currently possess.
Let’s not forget that during training camp this fall Giroux refused to continue negotiations with the team’s general manager Chuck Fletcher on the possibility of an extension. To fix this, the Flyers have to find a way to get ready for life after Claude Giroux. For if this season continues to get away from Philadelphia and they don’t make the playoffs, that time may be closer than you think!
