After their disappointing run in 2020-21, the Philadelphia Flyers and Chuck Fletcher vowed there would be big changes upcoming and to his credit he delivered. Before the season ended, Elliotte Friedman and other media members had field days talking about the Flyers because there was so much to discuss about this once venerated and successful franchise. He used terms like negativity and pessimism that reigned supreme in the locker room. To Flyers fans, that wasn’t big news, we saw it on a nightly basis and you could pinpoint the exact players who would be on the move.
In a perfect world, the moves that Fletcher executed would’ve worked to a tee. Jakub Voracek, Shayne Gostisbehere, and Nolan Patrick had developed tarnished relationships with Alain Vigneault and the Flyers coaching staff. The writing was on the wall for all 3 players beyond last season, with the former two having been in trade talks for years. Fletcher backed his hand-picked coaching staff and gave them his vote of confidence as he shipped all the disgruntled players away. In return, he traded for and signed grizzled veteran leaders who would help the seemingly lost and dysfunctional locker room achieve new heights, on and off the ice.
It depends on your stance but at least at the time of the trade, acquiring Ryan Ellis from the Nashville Predators for disgruntled Nolan Patrick and oft-scratched Phil Myers looked like a steal and a win-win. He carries a cap hit of $6.25 million until the end of 2026-27 but he was exactly what the Flyers and Ivan Provorov needed. Swapping Voracek for Cam Atkinson made sense as well. Atkinson does have an additional year to his contract over Voracek but he represented something the Flyers didn’t have, and that was a shoot-first goal scorer and so far he’s been far and away one of the best players this season.
As for the rest of his moves, they were all essentially reclamation projects. Rasmus Ristolainen struggled mightily at the end of his tenure in Buffalo, and at the time the argument could’ve been made that nothing grows in Buffalo but mediocrity and disdain. He’s a big body defenseman who can skate pretty well for someone his size, but he’s very aggressive on and off the puck and can sometimes forget his defensive assignments. He wouldn’t play the top pair minutes that he was getting in Buffalo and that was probably going to be a blessing in disguise.
Whether he stays or not, he will always be remembered for the price of acquisition rather than his actual on-ice play and that is warranted because of the hefty price tag. If you trade a first round pick and a second round pick for a soon-to-be expiring contract and a player whose numbers have been dramatically decreasing by the year, you better have a better reasoning than “he’s a right shot defenseman”. The other major factor behind the increased price tag was that Fletcher had mentioned there was a bidding war for his services and the Flyers’ first rounder superseded the other teams.
With Ellis going down early, Ristolainen was thrusted into a much larger role and to his credit he has played well. This is another season where it’s tough to pick out the positives. The negatives far and away outweigh the positives, but the Ristolainen and Travis Sanheim pairing really picked up their play once they finally got accustomed to each other. At the beginning of the year, Sanheim was playing as the net-front presence guy and Ristolainen was being used as the more offensively minded one. Once they reversed their roles and returned to playing their actual game, the pairing looked pretty good.
Contract talks have been mentioned in the rumour mill and Ristolainen has expressed interest in both staying with the Flyers but also wanting to test the free agent waters. For a right shot defenseman, who can play a rugged style, and has offensive pop, there will be teams vying for his services regardless of his analytical numbers. If there was a bidding war for his services from Buffalo, where you had to trade future assets to acquire him, there will most definitely be a bidding war if and when he becomes a free agent.
Fletcher has stated that he wants to keep him and understanding the hefty price tag that he paid, he isn’t going to lose him without a fight. If the Flyers were rebuilding or looking towards the future, then the odds would have heavily favoured Ristolainen hitting free agency. However with the Flyers looking to contend and re-tool again, a lengthy contract extension might be in the cards and we’ve seen this one play out before, much to our chagrin.
Keith Yandle was brought in for his leadership, his offensive capabilities, and his prior relationships with Kevin Hayes and Alain Vigneault probably helped. He was thrusted into the role once occupied by the younger Shayne Gostisbehere, who became too vocal for the Flyers’ liking. Gostisbehere and his $4.5 million cap hit was sent to Arizona alongside a 2nd round pick because Fletcher stipulated that he couldn’t find a trade partner otherwise. Believable at the time because of how desperate the Flyers were in trying to off-load him and his contract. So in stepped the recently bought out Keith Yandle.
He really fell out of favour in Florida and with Joel Quenneville, but the iron man streak prevented him from being scratched a few times. He was producing offensively, 2 seasons removed from a 62 point season; but his contract, cap hit, and playing style didn’t fit Florida’s future endeavours. So the Flyers signed Yandle to a very cheap $900K deal and he would slot in on the third pairing and play on the top power play unit. 3 games in and playing with Justin Braun, he had 5 assists. 42 games later he has only added 8 more assists, still without a goal, has been removed from the top power play unit several times, and even went through a stretch of no points in 18 games.
This is by far his worst season offensively since his rookie season in 2007-08, where he had 12 points in 43 games. The Flyers coaching staff has this inane proclivity of putting Provorov on the top unit of the power play but it hasn’t worked for 2 seasons and it doesn’t seem like it will anytime soon. Yandle was barely getting his usual power play minutes and his numbers dropped dramatically because of it. Not to say he was lighting it up when thrusted into that role, but he is much better suited than anyone else wearing the Orange and Black and wasn’t given a full shake.
Another player the Flyers signed after being bought out was former San Jose Sharks netminder, Martin Jones. His 6 year tenure with the Sharks is best represented as “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” because he was great in his first three years, but then struggled mightily in his final 3. In his first three years, he played in 60+ games, recorded 30+ wins, had a .915 save percentage, and his worst recorded GAA was 2.55. That’s on top of the fact that he helped lead the Sharks to the Stanley Cup Final in his first season there.
His final three years are reminiscent to how he’s playing now, throwing away the adage that a change of scenery was going to help. He had an identical save percentage of .896, a GAA upwards of 3.00, and essentially lost the starting gig and became a tandem with whoever the Sharks had backing him up. He started this season off pretty well, looking sharp, making the big saves, and carrying really good numbers but he lost the plot somewhere down the line and hasn’t looked the same since.
The team in front of him hasn’t made things easy but he gives up too many soft goals, plays out of position, and can’t make the big saves required to keep the team in the game. His once gaudy numbers have dropped back to his norm from San Jose; a .901 save percentage and 3.01 GAA. His start against Buffalo was a good example, where he lets in deflating goals and the team is on the back-foot to start the game, a team that is and was struggling mightily to get a win. The defense is bad and we’ve seen Carter Hart have to stand on his head and still not get the win, but Jones hasn’t even done that recently and this reclamation project doesn’t seem like he’ll be getting an extension come July.
With how the season has unfolded and all the hype that came about their changes, it seems like a huge swing and miss from Chuck Fletcher and company. While Atkinson has shone brightly, the rest of his moves haven’t swung the pendulum to where the Flyers expected themselves to be. Yandle hasn’t been the offensive power play specialist they needed, Jones hasn’t been the quality and durable backup goalie the Flyers needed for Hart, and Ristolainen has played well but not to the lofty expectations of a first and second round pick. Adding in the fact the Ellis and Derick Brassard have spent most of the season sidelined with nagging injuries.
With Fletcher all but secured for another year as the general manager, it will be interesting to see if he foregoes the same type of moves and acquisitions he made this year or if he tries to swing for the fences again on once-sought after talent.
