Photo Credit: Jose Moreno/Philadelphia Inquirer
The Flyers just completed one of their worst seasons in franchise history, and everyone in the front office is safe at the moment. This comes to some shock to some fans, another fans not so much. What is mind boggling is that the Flyers front office is trying to get back to the level of the 2019-20 season, season in which they made it to the semi-finals of the playoffs.
“You go back to that ‘19-20 season where we played really well and played the right way,” Chuck Fletcher said Tuesday. “To the pause, we were one of the best teams in the league. The process was good and the results were good. We were clicking and clearly the last two seasons for various reasons, we just haven’t been able to get back to that level. Certainly, that is our goal.”
Personally, it would be nice to hear him say ‘We need to get back to contending for the Stanley Cup, our goal is to win a Stanley Cup.’ Unfortunately, that that wasn’t the case once again at this season ending presser with Fletcher. What the fans and media did hear was getting Sean Couturier and Ryan Ellis back healthy would be valuable additions to the lineup. Note the key word, additions.
It appeared Fletcher grouped Couturier and Ellis as additions to the roster this offseason. Even with a healthy Couturier and Ellis this team would have been a fringe playoff team at best, at best. I don’t even think they would have made the playoffs with this tough division. Power Play was brutal (12.6%), and the Penalty Kill was bad for the last three to four months of the season, “We have to defend less and come out of the D-zone better,” Fletcher said. “I’d like to think that healthy Ryan Ellis would help in that regard. He is an elite puck mover. Cam York, I thought showed some really good signs this year. Provorov and Sanheim are obviously players that are good with the puck on their stick. I think we have some players that are currently on our roster that can help us get to a better point in that regard, but we are going to take some time in the next few weeks to look at those issues.”
Fletcher continued about this “Aggressive Retool,” “Another element will obviously be the return to health of certain players. Sean Couturier and Ryan Ellis are players that would be hard acquire in the offseason. It is hard to acquire a top defenseman with a $6 million cap and it is hard to acquire a number one centerman. We are going to be hopeful that those players can return and play well. This is slightly different circumstances, but this offseason could be a lot like offseason in 2019. If you look at that year, we traded back in the first round, got an extra pick, traded picks for players, and acquired picks at the deadlines. You are constantly doing what you can to improve your team. That is what I guess I call a retool.”
If a person has watched this Stanley Cup playoffs, and it’s only the first round. The Flyers are light years away of competing with any one of the teams that made the playoffs this season. Playoffs are more grueling, faster, higher paced, unfortunately, that is not the case for the Flyers, that is not how they play, at least for the last two seasons.
“An aggressive re-tool to me is being aggressive in every area,” Fletcher said. “I think we have already started. We moved three quality, veteran players at the deadline. Picked up Owen Tippett, picked up a first round pick, third round pick, fourth round pick and able to sign three of our unsigned college kids. It is being aggressive in all phases. Certainly, part of it is we need to get younger; we have to get more talented. We have to get faster. We have to aggressively look at trades, free agency and can we add a couple players to supplement what we have here and make this team better.
Flyers’ General Manager Chuck Fletcher continued, “The good thing is we will have a lot more depth in terms of young assets. Obviously not all of them can make our team, nor not all of them may be good enough to make our team, but some of them will. That is going to be a big difference next year when we hopefully will have a few more internal options to plug some holes.”
The Flyers are really against the cap, especially with some players that will see raises next season with the likes of Couturier and Joel Farabee. One of the only ways to do what Fletcher mentions above is getting rid of a hefty contract, a la James van Riemsdyk. It’s not impossible to move on from van Riemsdyk, although it would take Fletcher more creativity to do such.
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“I think we did add some tougher players this year,” Fletcher said. “I’m not sure toughness was an issue, but going back to what I said earlier, when you defend all the time you create problems. You are constantly battling in front of the net and are stuck in the corner. Our ability to get the puck and have better puck support will allow us to play with the puck more often. That is where we were in ‘19-20 and that is where we have to get back to.”
What will happen this offseason is anyone’s guess, but it appears that Flyers will be aggressive this offseason again. The question becomes how much can the Flyers actually do, when they are pressed against the cap already.
Cf can call it a retool. I call it horse manure. They lost g so they are way behind getting to the 19 level. Also the 2019 level was not winning anything so it a low bar set. What a joke this team is. We just need to stop going to games and spending any money until things are fixed. It’s already started where attendance fell to around 86%. Without g it should fall further. I hope no one goes