What can you really say about the Philadelphia Flyers at this point that hasn’t been said already?
They’re miserable to watch. They have barely any skill. They have no direction. The organization is a mess from top to bottom.
The Flyers just got out from under their third 10-game losing streak in the last year. THIRD. That’s an alarming 30% of the 10-game losing streaks they’ve suffered in the entire 56-year history of the franchise.
They are a laughingstock to the other 31 fanbases, and they’ve become a burden to even think about for the one that cheers for them.
The biggest reason is the main person making all the decisions that have helped dictate their awful on-ice product. Chuck Fletcher has ruined the Flyers.
When Fletcher took over as general manager in December of 2018 after the Flyers fired Ron Hextall, he wasted no time reshaping the team. Fletcher fired head coach Dave Hakstol and recalled goaltender Carter Hart on the same day, and it seemed as if a new era of Philadelphia Flyers hockey was finally in store.
The Flyers uncovered a smidgen of new life and went on to accomplish a few noteworthy things before the season closed out. Hart ended up earning the victory in his NHL debut on December 18th, 2018 over Detroit. The Flyers went on an eight-game winning streak in the middle of the season that was capped off by the franchise’s 2,000th all-time victory on February 4th, 2019 against Vancouver. Philadelphia also came from behind in the waning moments of the third period to force overtime and defeat Pittsburgh in the 2019 Stadium Series.
But despite those great moments, the Flyers finished their disappointing 2018-19 season out of the playoffs, and big changes were afoot. Alain Vigneault was tabbed to be the new head coach, with Michel Therrien and Mike Yeo serving as assistants. Kevin Hayes was brought in on a massive seven-year, $50 million contract. Radko Gudas was shipped to Washington for Matt Niskanen. Justin Braun was brought in from San Jose for three draft picks. Ryan Hartman’s rights were traded to Dallas for Tyler Pitlick. During the 2019-20 season, Fletcher traded for Derek Grant and Nate Thompson to boost the team’s bottom-six group.
The moves seemed to pay off as the revamped Flyers had a solid 2019-20 season. They finished the year winning nine of their last ten games before COVID-19 shut down the season. When the season resumed in the Toronto bubble, the Flyers swept Boston, Washington, and eventual champions Tampa Bay to clinch the top seed in the Eastern Conference. They went on to win their first playoff series since 2012 after disposing of the Montréal Canadiens in six games, and then they bowed out in the Eastern Conference Semifinals after a hard-fought seven game series with the New York Islanders.
Despite winning a playoff series and trying to learn from their experience and take the next step forward, Philadelphia did regress a bit in the postseason from their regular season selves, and that regression was just the tip of the iceberg for what would happen next.
In the offseason, Matt Niskanen suddenly retired, leaving a gaping cavity in the Flyers’ defensive corps after he spent the entire season next to Ivan Provorov on the top pairing – in which they were phenomenal together. The Flyers did all of about nothing that offseason to make themselves better or address their roster’s flaws. They signed Erik Gustafsson to a one-year deal when they already had a younger and similarly stylistic player in Shayne Gostisbehere on the blueline. Among the NHL regulars, they let Tyler Pitlick, Derek Grant, and Nate Thompson walk in free agency. Philadelphia also re-signed Nolan Patrick and Phil Myers. That was the extent of their moves.
The 2020-21 season started out relatively well as Philadelphia started off 11-4-3 heading into March, and the team seemed to be rebounding nicely after their early playoff exit a few months before. Unfortunately, the wheels started to fall off and did they ever fall off quickly.
The Flyers’ losses began to pile up, and in a lot of those losses they were getting heavily outplayed and were getting blown out on the scoreboard. The lowlight of this was when the Flyers were utterly destroyed 9-0 by the New York Rangers on March 17th, 2021. Philadelphia set a new franchise record for most goals allowed in a single period at seven after the Rangers poured it on during the second period.
13 of the Flyers’ 23 regulation losses came by three or more goals that season. They went on to finish sixth in the temporary East Division and missed the playoffs. Fletcher again decided that he needed to create big chances and make a statement during the offseason.
After giving his coaching staff a vote of confidence, he went all-out in revamping the roster for the second time in three years. Nolan Patrick and Phil Myers were sent to Nashville in a blockbuster for a stabilizing offensive defenseman in Ryan Ellis. Longtime Flyer and fan favorite Jakub Voráček was swapped out for Cam Atkinson from Columbus. Shayne Gostisbehere was dumped to Arizona for two draft picks, and then the Flyers used the open cap space to get Rasmus Ristolainen from Buffalo for two picks and Robert Hägg. Veteran Keith Yandle was signed to a one-year deal. Nate Thompson was brought back after spending a year away in Winnipeg. Martin Jones was signed to be Carter Hart’s backup after Brian Elliott signed with Tampa Bay. Derick Brassard was also given a one-year deal to round out Fletcher’s moves.
The Flyers began 2021-22 in the same fashion as the season before, starting out red-hot and seemingly putting to rest the questions about them. Of course, we know that didn’t last long and after a 6-2-2 start, another collapse came to be. They lost ten straight from November 18th to December 8th, in which Alain Vigneault and Michel Therrien were fired following a 7-1 thrashing in front of their home crowd by Brian Elliott’s Lightning during that stretch.
Shortly afterwards, after a couple of wins, the Flyers embarked on the longest losing streak in franchise history. No other timeline of ineptitude had been this prolonged and may very well not be ever again in the history of the franchise. From December 30th, 2021 to January 25th, 2022, Philadelphia lost 13 consecutive contests. THIRTEEN. Ten of them alone came in regulation, and five of them were by at least three goals. It was, and likely always will be, the lowest point in franchise history.
After snapping that embarrassing streak with a 3-2 win over Los Angeles on January 29th, they displayed more mediocrity and played with little energy or fight. Cam Atkinson said at the end of last season that the Flyers were “a pretty soft team to play against”, and it showed every single game.
The team’s misfortunes reached such a boiling point that franchise icon, fan favorite, and longtime captain Claude Giroux ended up waiving his no-movement clause to be traded to the Florida Panthers to join them on their playoff run basically right after he skated in his 1,000th NHL game with the Flyers, knowing that the Flyers wouldn’t be contending for a Stanley Cup anytime soon as he would continue to age.
Morale had reached an all-time low from just about anywhere you looked within the organization, especially from the fanbase. The Flyers limped to another postseason-less year by dropping 15 of their last 21 games after the trade deadline, and now here we are in almost the exact same spot over seven months later in terms of how mismanaged the team is, how bereft of talent they are, and how angry the fanbase is.
Let’s not forget the fact that Fletcher extended Rasmus Ristolainen and bought out Oskar Lindblom and signed Nicolas Deslauriers and traded for Tony DeAngelo. Those moves were laughable enough with how far out of contention the Flyers are or how shortsighted they were, but the fact that Fletcher is just slapping Band-Aids onto a roster with proverbial gaping bullet holes and still believes they can be a playoff contender is just astonishingly moronic.
John Tortorella is doing his best with the group he was given, and it shows on the ice. The Flyers are playing much harder and giving a much better effort than we’ve seen in the last few years, but the talent just isn’t there and it will take time to grow as a club. He has voiced that multiple times and he’s absolutely correct. His boss, however, can’t seem to get that through his head.
On Thursday, Tortorella said, “I feel very strongly that you just get stuck in the mud if you continue to put Band-Aids on and gimmicks to get people in the building and whatever it is. You get people in the building and get it right by winning, and the only way you can win is building it the proper way, and that’s how we’re going to go about it.”
Tortorella understands that this will be a process that could take multiple seasons. Meanwhile in the front office, Fletcher still has his mind on the playoffs.
”I think there’s a path forward here to be more competitive, and I expect to be more competitive the rest of the way. We’re five points out of a Wild Card spot now. We’ll see. We’ll see if we have the capability of staying in that race and competing.”
Those were Fletcher’s words on Thursday; a complete 180-degree turn from what his head coach has in mind. The disconnect there alone should scream about the delusion and incompetence that Fletcher and the front office are displaying right now.
And it’s not just Fletcher that likely has that mindset, it’s the entire front office. Brent Flahr, Barry Hanrahan, Dean Lombardi, Bobby Clarke, Paul Holmgren, and even Danny Brière, and Dave Scott and Comcast are enabling them by not doing a single thing about it. They don’t understand that this team isn’t built to compete for the playoffs and that they won’t win many games as they stand right now. The fans certainly understand, and even the head coach knows and has been incredibly vocal about the process, but the people running the team upstairs still have their sights set on a far-fetched postseason berth.
Even if they do somehow miraculously make it – which they won’t – what’s going to happen? They get blown out in every game and get swept? Maybe they steal one game thanks to Carter Hart and still get trounced in the first round? They are not built for playoff hockey. It’s a mishmash of grinders, prospects, and frankly AHL talent that’s supporting a handful of good but not great players.
Do you know how soul-crushing it is to tune in to every game knowing your favorite team is likely going to lose, and probably by a wide margin, because the roster was constructed by a general manager that has never experienced sustained success and has only won three playoff series in 13 seasons as a GM? None of his teams have ever made it past the second round either, and the horrid laundry list of trades he’s made since joining the Flyers is a staunch reason why they’re still in this purgatory.
Fletcher traded Wayne Simmonds for a 2020 fourth round pick and 19 games of Ryan Hartman. Hartman’s rights were then shipped away in the offseason to Dallas for Tyler Pitlick. The pick was traded to Anaheim at the 2020 trade deadline along with Kyle Criscuolo for 22 games of Derek Grant. Pitlick and Grant were both free to walk to free agency and signed elsewhere, leaving the Flyers with nothing remaining from that trade. Hartman has become a key forward in Minnesota’s top-six and racked up 34 goals last season. Grant is coming off a 15-goal, 29-point campaign last year, which would’ve placed him 6th and 9th in those categories on the Flyers last season.
Fletcher signed Erik Gustafsson as a last-ditch replacement for the suddenly-retired Matt Niskanen ahead of the 2020-21 season. Gustafsson quickly became one of the worst defensemen on the roster and was traded to Montréal for a 2022 7th round pick. That pick was traded to Arizona in the Shayne Gostisbehere cap dump last summer, leaving the Flyers with a grand total of nothing as a result.
Fletcher traded Shayne Gostisbehere to Arizona to alleviate cap space after a disappointing 2020-21 season. He waived Gostisbehere during the season but no one claimed him from Philadelphia, and Fletcher had to settle for adding sweeteners to the contract for someone to take it without getting anything back in return. The Coyotes received a 2022 2nd round that they used on Artem Duda, and they received the 2022 7th rounder that Montréal gave the Flyers in the Erik Gustafsson deal and traded that pick back to the Canadiens for a 2021 7th that landed them Samuel Lipkin.
That’s all on top of Gostisbehere leading all Coyotes skaters in total ice time last season to accompany his 14 goals and 37 assists for 51 points, good for third on the team in total scoring. His totals if he were still on the Flyers would have placed him fifth in goals, first in assists, and second in points last season. As of the time of this writing, he has 4 goals and 10 assists for 14 points in 20 games this season while standing second in total ice time behind J.J. Moser. He’d be fifth in goals, tied for third in assists, and second in points in Philadelphia right now and would be the leader among defensemen in all categories.
Fletcher traded for Rasmus Ristolainen with the cap space he gained from the Gostisbehere deal. He sent a 2021 first-round pick, a 2023 second-round pick, and Robert Hägg to Buffalo. Ristolainen, notoriously one of the worst defensemen in the league based on the eye test and analytics, was later re-signed by the Flyers to a whopping five-year, $25.5 million contract during last season. The Sabres in turn drafted Isak Rosén in 2021 with the Flyers’ pick, and they later traded Hägg to Florida for a 2022 6th rounder that they used to select Gustav Karlsson. The Sabres still have Philadelphia’s 2023 2nd round pick in their back pocket, which is shaping up to essentially be a super-late first rounder, and Ristolainen is still one of the worst defensemen in the National Hockey League.
Fletcher traded Nolan Patrick and Phil Myers to Nashville for Ryan Ellis. Ellis was supposed to be a saving grace for the Flyers on the backend. He was a smooth skating two-way defenseman that could log heavy minutes and play in all situations. He played a grand total of four games for Philadelphia before suffering a mystery injury that is thought to be a psoas tear along with hip and adductor issues. His injury has unfortunately been deemed career-ending.
Myers lasted all of 27 games with the Predators and 16 AHL games on loan with Toronto before being traded this past offseason to Tampa Bay along with Grant Mismash for Ryan McDonagh, and he was waived and is now currently playing with the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch. Patrick was immediately dealt from Nashville to Vegas for Cody Glass and appeared in just 25 games for the Golden Knights last year before suffering another concussion, and he will not play at all this year either as a result unfortunately. Glass has 4 points in 22 games for Nashville in two seasons and has spent the majority of his time in the organization with the AHL’s Milwaukee Admirals. Even in a deal where Fletcher seemed to hit a home run, he lost, as did pretty much everyone else in this deal.
Fletcher traded Jakub Voráček to Columbus for Cam Atkinson. It was seen as a move needed to shake the locker room up and also give the Flyers a goal-scorer versus a playmaker. Voráček played in 79 games for Columbus and fetched 56 assists to overshadow his measly 6 goals for 62 points, which made him the Blue Jackets’ season leader in points and assists. Atkinson scored 23 goals and 27 assists for 50 points in 73 games for Philadelphia, and both teams seemingly got what they wanted out of the trade. Unfortunately, both players have missed significant time with injuries this season. Voráček is dealing with a concussion and may never play hockey again with the lingering effects after playing in 11 games this year, and Atkinson has yet to suit up in a game for the Flyers since April 12th, 2022 as he is dealing with an upper-body injury right now. Let’s call this trade a wash for now, though the Flyers certainly didn’t win it.
Fletcher traded for and signed Tony DeAngelo to a two-year, $10 million contract at the NHL Draft this past year. The Carolina Hurricanes received a 2022 4th rounder that they used on Simon Forsmark, a 2023 3rd rounder, and a 2024 2nd rounder. Fletcher gave up three picks for a player with great offensive abilities that is not as solid on defense, and he has an extremely checkered past to put the cherry on top.
Fletcher bought out Oskar Lindblom to save some cap room this season despite the fact that his contract will make a $666,667 dent into the Flyers’ hit next year. Lindblom, who was nothing short of an inspiration in Philadelphia after defeating Ewing’s sarcoma and winning the 2021 Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, went on to sign a two-year deal in San Jose. He currently has one goals and just four assists playing mainly in a fourth-line role for the Sharks, but that number of assists still has him tied with Owen Tippett, Zack MacEwen, Scott Laughton, and Nicolas Deslauriers, and his point total would have him tied with Deslauriers, Morgan Frost, and the currently injured James van Riemsdyk.
Nicolas Deslauriers was signed with the bulk of the Flyers’ cap space after Lindblom was bought out. He has 45 goals and 45 assists for 90 points in 531 NHL games. Lindblom has 51 goals and 51 assists for 102 points in 290 NHL games. Lindblom has appeared in six playoff games to Deslauriers’ five, and Lindblom would have even more of everything if he hadn’t been battling cancer. Did I also mention that Chuck Fletcher handed Deslauriers a four-year contract worth $7 million with a modified no-trade clause for the first two seasons? Yeah, he gifted that to a player with more career penalty minutes than career games played.
Let’s not even get into the fact that he basically blew off Johnny Gaudreau’s wishes to play for his childhood team in Philadelphia or that he couldn’t muster a package to land Alex DeBrincat from Chicago this offseason. He purposely turned down better talent to construct this version of the Flyers’ roster.
All of these moves that we’ve witnessed should be more than enough proof for the organization to breathe new life into the team and have someone else make the decisions, because what this franchise has gone through over the last several years is absolutely disgraceful.
Remember that “blank check” comment that Dave Scott made last year, and how he was going to let Fletcher right the ship?
“We’re going to get this right. Whatever we need to do. Don’t want to wait, want to deal with it now.”
Well we’re dealing with ”it” now, with “it” being looked down upon by the rest of the league. A once proud franchise reduced to tatters. The “blank check” went to a bunch of depth fillers instead of star power that could actually help the team win games.
Scott also said something else at that infamous press conference a year ago. “I’m sorry. You deserve so much better than what we’re dealing with right now. This isn’t what anybody signed up for.”
We do deserve better as fans of these team. We deserve a team that has an actual plan that is managed by competent front office executives that know what it takes to build a team and sustain the success that an entire generation of fans have lost out on.
A more egregious display of incompetence could never even be thought of at this point. The Philadelphia Flyers need to clean house as soon as possible before it’s too late.
