Season Recap: How will this Flyers season be remembered?

Well… that was a season.

One year after fighting until the final day to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Philadelphia Flyers ended the year as one of the four worst teams in the NHL. There were a lot of storylines from this season.

We saw Danny Brière made trades. A lot of trades. There was an old friend-turned-bitter enemy who made his first trip to Philadelphia this year. Two Flyers players won a midseason championship. We saw the birth of a superstar in real time. One of the greatest coaches in NHL history is no longer employed. And the Flyers yet again almost bottled a top five pick in the upcoming draft.

Now usually I do a season-long recap where I go over the “Good, Bad, and Weird” from the season, but not this year. There was a LOT that happened this year, and almost everything will be remembered in 10 years time, but what will be remembered MOST from this year? Here is the Flyers season recap, with the biggest headlines and stories that surrounded the team this season.

The Arrival of a Russian Superstar

I’m pretty sure most Flyers fans will remember the first time they heard the news. Whether it was from a family member, a friend, a co-worker, one of the NHL Insiders, or even here at Flyers Nation, we all remember the excitement we had.

Now the in-between time from the first insider report to the pictures of Danny Brière and Keith Jones with Matvei Michkov at the airport was when the dread maybe kicked in for some Flyers fans. I know I went through a ton of thoughts in that window.

First was “What if the Ivan Fedotov thing just happens again?” Now remember, Fedotov was all ready to come over to the NHL from the KHL in 2022. He had a contract signed and was going to hop on a plane to head over to the states. That didn’t happen as he was detained (kidnapped) by the Russian Government and forced into military service and then forced to spend another season in the KHL before Brière got involved. Thankfully that did not happen to Michkov.

Second was “What if SKA just decides to change their minds?” They had the right to do that, as Michkov’s contract wasn’t up for another two seasons. They could have easily said “well actually no” and kept Michkov there for two more years. Thankfully that did not happen to Michkov.

Third was “What if the insiders all got duped? It’s been days now and still no official word from the Flyers.” This was my last thought I was stewing with for a while. We know how unreliable sources out of Russia can be when it comes to hockey players. If there was even a chance that he wasn’t coming over, it made sense to be worried.

However, none of those things happened and we got our first full season of Matvei Michkov hockey… and it was a fun one.

That same Russian Superstar living up to the hype

The excitement level surrounding Matvei Michkov heading into the regular season was where you would expect it to be on a scale from 0-100… 2,386. Fans were locking in to the Flyers for the first time in years. The Phillies had just lost in heartbreaking fashion to the New York Mets in the NLDS, and the Eagles were pissing everyone off, so fans turned to the Flyers to see if they could provide for the void in their souls.

Longtime Flyers fans knew differently:

Now the Flyers being bad didn’t mean the season was a bad one. We got to see the future right in front of our eyes. Or darling Russian teenager turned 20-year-old had a rookie season that in most years would’ve had him run away with the Calder. He ended the season with 26 goals and 37 assists for 63 points. He was also producing at this level while only averaging 16 minutes and 41 seconds on ice per game.

Unfortunately, Michkov is not Canadian, nor does he play center, nor does he play for the Montréal Canadiens, nor does he stat-pad secondary assists on the power play while also being bad at defense, nor does he play goalie and collapse down the stretch, so he’s not allowed to win, or come in second place, or come in third place for the Calder (even though he led all rookies in goals, primary points, and points per minute while also being tied for second in total points).

That doesn’t mean he won’t be a star in the league for years to come, because he definitely will.

The Flyers (and fans) welcome the Ducks to Philadelphia in the first glimpse of this budding rivalry

“Wait, the Ducks and the Flyers are rivals?,” you’re saying to yourself right now if you have lived under a rock for the past 18 months. Cutter Gauthier’s story has been beaten into the ground, so I won’t bore you with the details here.

Now what I WILL do is have you stop reading, and have you start watching and listening to what took place that Saturday night on January 11th in South Philly:

Even the players were making jokes in the locker room after the game.

The game ended 6-0 Flyers, Michkov scored, Jamie Drysdale scored, Scott Laughton rang Gauthier’s bell, and the fans showed how fun Flyers games could be once this team makes the playoffs again.

If you want a full thread of all the chants from that game look no further:

Flyers win a Championship

Ok so… this was kind of a lie. THE Flyers didn’t win anything, but FLYERS did.

Travis Konecny and Travis Sanheim both had incredible years. Konecny ended the season at a just under point per game with 76 points in 82 games, and had the highest point total in his career. Sanheim finally took the next step this year and finally looks like a top pair defenseman. Both of these guys also took home some hardware this year.

Konecny and Sanheim were selected to represent Canada for the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament this season, which ended with a 3-2 overtime win by Canada over Team USA in the gold medal game. Sanheim played all but the opening night game for Team Canada, while Konecny was scratched the opening night game, and the Championship game, trading spots back and forth with Seth Jarvis.

In the end, Konecny ended with zero points, as he was put on the 4th line when they did play him, but Sanheim did have an assist in the tournament and looked like he belonged with Team Canada every time he stepped on the ice.

Congrats (I guess) to the Travii on the gold medal (See you in Italy for the Olympics).

Danny Brière hits the giant red button on his desk

Yes, after a year of evaluating the team to see who would and would not be a part of the future of the team going forward, Danny Brière finally blew up the forward group making two major trades involving fan favorites.

Joel Farabee, Morgan Frost, and Scott Laughton were all traded away after spending multiple years in the organization. Farabee and Frost were sent to Calgary, while Laughton was shipped to Toronto. Brière was able to get back some good pieces for the future including a 1st round pick, 2nd round pick, 7th round pick, Jakob Pelletier, Nikita Grebenkin, and Andrei Kuzmenko (who Brière then flipped for a 3rd round pick).

This was Brière cleaning out three former first round Flyers picks while recovering what he could to help the rebuild move forward. The fanbase was shocked by the Farabee and Frost trade, while the writing was on the wall with Laughton. The trades on the surface already look like a win for Brière, but we will have to see what he does with those picks and how Frost and Farabee turn out in Calgary.

We’ll see what Brière’s plan moving forward is, but these were big moves that cemented the Flyers as a team in a rebuild.

Cam York gets John Tortorella fired

Honestly, as much as we as fans could say we saw this coming, the way it happened was not what we were expecting. Even right now, we don’t know exactly what happened between Cam York and John Tortorella.

Whatever happened between York and Tortorella, it just felt like that spat was more so the straw that broke the camel’s back more than anything else. Torts had already been getting on the nerves with some fans for how he was handling personnel on gamedays. The team was losing and he seemed checked out. After the game in that already mentioned night in Toronto, Tortorella in his press conference basically said he did not want to be the coach of a team like the Flyers.

“When you’re in this type of situation and you’re losing all the time, and there’s nothing at the end of the tunnel for you, there’s certainly going to be some frustration. But, this falls on me. I’m not really interested in learning how to coach in this type of season, where we’re at right now. But I have to do a better job. So this falls on me, getting the team prepared to play the proper way until we get to the end.”

There also was also this report from Daily Faceoff:

“According to a source, a series of consistent events since the Trade Deadline led to Tortorella’s eventual dismissal. Becoming increasingly combative with everyone in the organization, from management, to coaches, to players, to staff, Tortorella’s antics wore on everyone… Tortorella did not step down – he was let go by the Flyers. But his behavior following the Trade Deadline led some to believe the third-year bench boss was almost looking to get fired, a source told Daily Faceoff.”

Look, Torts is a Hall-of-Fame coach, there is no argument there, but his coaching style has a shelf life, an especially quick one too on teams that keep losing. We saw some growth in some players under him that we had not seen from Dave Hakstol or Alain Vigneault, but overall the Torts experiment was to weed out players who would not be contributors for the future.

I’m sure in 20 years after York is retired for enough time he’ll sit down on Spittin’ Chiclets and talk about that night in Toronto and what was said between the two of them, but for now everyone will just have to wonder.

The Flyers win the Tank War (sort of)

Ok, obviously there were three BAD teams this year. The Sharks, Blackhawks, and Predators all had the three worst records in the league, by a wide margin. This draft, however, has a defined top-six before it falls off a cliff. The Flyers have had a history of making late seasons runs to position them in worse spots in the draft, and after Torts got fired it looked like the Flyers were going to do the same.

For the last two weeks of the season, the Flyers were racing to the bottom, battling the Bruins, the Penguins, the Ducks, the Kraken, and the Sabres for the fourth spot in the draft lottery. The Flyers didn’t make it easy.

Michkov had a couple games right after the coaching change where he just decided to score like crazy, and missed an empty net hat trick by a post in one of them. The Flyers won both of those games. They then hosted the Predators, a team they had a chance of catching at the time if things went the right way. They beat the Predators basically ending the chance of landing in the third spot in the lottery. They then lost to the Canadiens which put them back on track; however, Tyson Foerster went crazy late too, scoring a hat trick in a win against the Rangers at MSG, then potting two more the next game against the Islanders, which resulted in a shootout win.

At this point the Flyers controlled their own destiny. Since they had the lowest amount of regulation wins between the Bruins, the Kraken, the Sabres, and themselves, they would “win” the tiebreaker and finish below all of them.

They lost against the Blue Jackets in regulation and all that was left was a game in Buffalo to decide their draft location. A regulation loss would have the Flyers in the fourth slot. An OT win/loss would have the Flyers in the sixth slot. An outright win would have the Flyers in the seventh slot. It isn’t crazy to say that a loss in regulation would be one of the most important outcomes in Flyers history.

Michkov and Foerster again tried their best to drag the Flyers down, with three goals and two assists between the both of them. Thankfully (depending on what type of fan you talk to) the Flyers gave up four goals early in the game, making it almost impossible to come back against, lost the game 5-4 in regulation, and secured spot four in the draft lottery.

In a season with so many storylines, which ones will be remembered the most? In fifteen years Flyers fans will look back and there will be two storylines that will be remembered above all.

First: Matvei Michkov becoming a superstar in front of Flyers fans’ eyes and living up to the hype. He is a phenomenal hockey player, and fans saw that first hand this season. Michkov was also restrained a bit by the coaching staff with play style, power play struggles, and lack of minutes. He is going to be a superstar for many years in this league. The Flyers finally have a superstar to build around. Let’s hope they don’t Giroux him.

Second: the Cutter Gauthier game. Now this game really didn’t mean much when it happened. Two bad teams that wouldn’t usually have bad blood had a game that will be talked about by Flyers fans for years. Fans got a feeling of a home playoff atmosphere again, the players recognized how electric the Wells Fargo Center can be in an atmosphere like that, and the Flyers won 6-0. (I also accidentally met Michkov after the game too, so like, super cool).

Objectively speaking, this season stunk. It wasn’t fun most of the time, but it was also the first sign of there being a light at the end of the tunnel, with that light being Matvei Michkov and the seven draft picks Danny Brière collected across the first two round of the draft (including hopefully a top four pick in the draft… please lottery gods). This will be a big summer for the Flyers, and hopefully they have an offseason that propels them to a playoff battle.

Baby steps in the right direction.