There was one major takeaway from Chuck Fletcher’s press conference on Tuesday, and it was his flipping of the script on the aggressive re-tool as he rebranded it as an aggressive rebuild. He made sure to point out that the young players who played primarily after the trade deadline are going to have a big role next year and there will be plenty of spots for them on the NHL roster. Having the fourth-best odds for the first overall pick helps set the “aggressive” rebuild in motion, but according to Fletcher, that began the moment the Flyers traded Claude Giroux to the Florida Panthers for Owen Tippett and 2 picks, one of which is a first round pick in 2024.
All we heard from January onwards was that the Flyers were about to embark on another retool behind Dave Scott’s blank check book. So, it was a little surprising to see him revert back on that retool as he rebranded it as a rebuild. There are probably two major reasons as to why it’s now a rebuild: 1) I think Fletcher has noticed the backlash in relation to another re-tool when the Flyers are in dire need of a rebuild and shuffling of the deck and 2) a lot hinges on the availability and health of Ryan Ellis.
The backlash wasn’t coming from just Flyers fans on social media, it was coming from national media members, whether it be from NHL Network or even nationally televised games on ESPN or TNT. The Flyers had way too many games airing on national TV and nearly every single one of them had a segment on how bad things have gotten and how they need to rebuild and forego another re-tool. The NHL Network has also had several segments from the trade deadline-onwards on what to do next in Philadelphia but it seemed like everyone was in unison on the Flyers and their much needed rebuild.
So to see the script flipped with the season finally over and a bunch of reporters asking questions about what went wrong this season and how he plans to fix the mess, I guess it’s not all that surprising after all. The deplorable state that the Flyers found themselves in from the very get-go helped them finally do something that seemed improbable for years and that was vetting a lineup of young players looking to make the next step to the big leagues. They also didn’t have a choice as the Flyers’ depth was really tested without Ryan Ellis, Sean Couturier, Kevin Hayes, and Nate Thompson for a very large chunk of the season. That also doesn’t include the amount of games lost between Joel Farabee, Rasmus Ristolainen, and Scott Laughton and then the departures of Claude Giroux, Derick Brassard, and Justin Braun.
The mainstays of the lineup included James van Riemsdyk, who played in all 82 games, Travis Konecny, Travis Sanheim, and Ivan Provorov who missed a combined 8 games, and Cam Atkinson who played in every game before being shut down for the season after taking a hit from Tom Wilson on the 12th of April. That’s not necessarily a list of superstars or top-end talent that is going to steal you a game or two when it most matters. In their stead we saw Morgan Frost suit up for 55 games, Cam York was in the lineup for 30, Owen Tippett appeared in 21 games as a Flyer, Noah Cates played 16 games, Ronnie Attard played 15 games, Bobby Brink and Yegor Zamula played 10 games, and Linus Hogberg played in the final 5 games of the season. Felix Sandstrom also got some much needed ice-time as he suited up for 5 games and although he never got his elusive first career NHL victory, he played well enough to earn at least one but he faced a whopping 177 shots on goal in just 5 games.
In trying to map out the off-season, the Flyers could be well off in fielding a bottom-six consisting of very youthful players. We saw a lot of good things from the likes of Brink, Cates, Tippett, and Frost, while Fletcher also mentioned that he’s very exciting about the prospects of Tanner Laczynski and Wade Allison and sees them battling it out in training camp. If most, maybe even all the names mentioned, make the team then it would help the Flyers field a very aggressive top-six with the money they’d be saving. Allison, Frost, and Tippett need new contracts but they are RFAs and shouldn’t break the bank as the Flyers have around $8 million to work with.
Their off-season spending hinges on James van Riemsdyk being traded and then seeing what they can get for Oskar Lindblom and Travis Konecny. The last two seem trade-able if the Flyers want to make drastic changes but also alleviate money for players they deem more useful. Oskar Lindblom played banged up near the end of the season but also played a lot of 4th line minutes with a $3 million AAV, while Konecny has been on the trade block for a few years, was almost traded last summer, and represents the only trade-able asset that can bring back something of value for the Flyers. Trading Couturier, Hayes, Farabee, Ristolainen, Laughton, and Carter Hart seem off limits for a variety of reasons that include cap hit, no-trade clauses, and players the Flyers value with utmost respect.
The rumours for Provorov and Sanheim must’ve hit a snag with Ellis’ situation still not having any clarity. Fletcher had mentioned at his post trade deadline press conference that he was already working on the framework for summer deals and essentially pointed without actually pointing his fingers at Provorov, Konecny, and Sanheim. There were rumours about Ellis being unhappy and maybe not being ready for training camp but those were debunked at the end-of-season press conference when he gave clarity about his injury, whether or not he required surgery, and his timeline for a return.
The Flyers need to make sure they have a backup plan or a safety net in case the wheels fall off again on defense, because that was definitely their biggest downfall this season. Having Ellis, Provorov, Sanheim, Ristolainen, Braun, and Keith Yandle looked good on paper and on the ice for the few games they were able to field that entire defense. Once Ellis went down, they didn’t have another lifeline to put on the top pair other than Justin Braun, mostly due to familiarity from the season before. Doing that meant that Keith Yandle was then tasked to anchor the third pair with either Nick Seeler or in-season waiver claim Kevin Connauton, which was a horrendous pairing however you iced it.
Ronnie Attard looked good offensively but definitely needs to craft his defensive game in the minors next season, Cam York looked really good as well after being on the top pair with Provorov before his injury so he should be penciled in for next season, Yegor Zamula will have to battle for a spot at training camp, and Linus Hogberg should get a good run of hard minutes in the AHL and represent one of the early season call-ups. They really want to give the Ellis-Provorov pairing another run to see if it actually meets the criteria of a 24-25 minute top pair, they have loved and raved about the Sanheim-Ristolainen pairing and extending the latter had a lot to do with his play alongside the former, and York seems like a roster lock, so finding a dependable 2nd-3rd pair type defenseman will be critical come the NHL Draft and free agency.
If the Flyers field a forward group with the likes of Frost, Tippett, Cates, Brink, and Allison and/or Laczynski, it would be a very inexperienced but youthful, exciting, and very cheap young core. If they find a trade partner for van Riemsdyk’s final year, that would open up a lot of money for a top-six free agent. Trading van Riemsdyk and even Lindblom would give the Flyers over $18 million to patch things up and a lot of that money would go towards the offense since they seem content with their (healthy) defensive pieces. Ivan Fedotov and Felix Sandstrom are going to compete for the backup position, which once again alleviates cap since they wouldn’t have to fetch a veteran backup that could cost upwards of $2 million.
The list of upcoming free agents is plentiful and full of skill as it includes players like Johnny Gaudreau, Nazem Kadri, Filip Forsberg, Kris Letang, Vincent Trocheck, Andre Burakovsky, Valeri Nichushkin, Rickard Rakell, and Bryan Rust, among others. There’s a chance that some of these players re-sign with their current teams but for players like Gaudreau and Kadri, who have had career years, they’re going to be eyeing the open market and licking their chops at the amount of money they can fetch.
Others players include Evgeni Malkin, Claude Giroux, and Patrice Bergeron, but it’s most likely that Malkin and Bergeron re-up with their respective teams, while Giroux seems like an unlikely option to return to Philadelphia. They are going to have the opportunity to nab at least one elite player, but they’re going to have to have the cards fall perfectly for a player like Gaudreau or Forsberg to even think about Philadelphia at the moment.
Even so, it’s something to think about now that the Flyers season is over and the playoffs have begun. The Flyers won’t be having many newsworthy days outside of the hiring of a new head coach, the draft lottery, and then of course the draft itself, where they will most likely draft a really good young player. It’s going to be a lengthy couple of months but as Fletcher kept reiterating, the next 4-6 weeks are going to be paramount for the future of the Flyers organization and with the youth movement apparently having already begun, it can prove extremely beneficial to roll with the young players while also spending the right amount of money on the right players for the top 6 to complete the aggressive rebuild that the Flyers are now re-branding.
