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19 Comments (12 conversations)
Dave Freemann
excellent stuff, as usual, Charlie
thundergunxpress
Great article, keep up the good work Charlie!
Bob MCH
The article is a lot higher quality than the apparent Flyers rebuilding plan. What is the DB plan? From this vantage point it appears that the plan is to build from the outer edges, and then in. In other words, they are more attentive to building 4th liners, then 3rd liners, and then sprinkle a few 2nd liners before getting the coveted and necessary 1-C. 1-D. and 1-G that a perennial Stanley Cup contender must have all at the same time. DB has chosen to start the rebuild by grabbing the low lying fruit, the easy grabs. Maybe Martone will be a first line wing. Great, but they failed to guarantee he will even ever play for the Flyers by not giving him an immediate ELC to avoid the college Cutter Gauthier rerun. A lot can change if Martone is away from the organization, someone can get in his head, he can listen to an agent, and decide to take the Gauthier path. That leaves DB without another potential first line talent if that happens. In the Flyers dearth of elite talent situation, you do not take this risk, especially after the Gauthier fiasco. MM is a first line wing talent, that did work out well. But again, no 1-C, no 1-D, and no 1-G, and really, without a couple years of tanking, just how is this going to happen? All I can say is, they better lose a ton of games this year and get back into the top five and nab the necessary talent for one of these elite positions. Great GMs get the key tentpole talents and then build around them. The Flyer’s current plan looks backwards to me, and is a recipe for perpetual drafts in the late teens and twenties, with mediocre win / loss results and talent, an almost playoff caliber roster, but no Cups. Pretty much the same we have endured the past 15 years. I will know they are serious about a Cup when the start acquiring elite talent for the key three positions. Until then, its all smoke and mirrors as far as I see.
Jason
Hard disagree. First of all, the Martone and Gauthier situations are night and day. Martone will end up with the Flyers, probably before the season is even over. There’s no way the Flyers would have risked a rerun of the Gauthier fiasco if they thought there was even a sliver of a chance it would happen again. Second, Zegras has 1C potential. Did you see any other 1Cs just floating around out there, especially for the price DB paid? Third, they have goalies in the pipeline that, within a couple of years, could turn into a bona-fide 1G. I agree that all three of your stated requests — 1C, 1D, and 1G — are essential to their rebuild, but they are also very hard to come by.
Your complaint seems to be, “DB isn’t addressing everything I want him to do by tanking right now!” That’s not a valid criticism, given the enormity of the mess he’s had to clean up from the disastrous Fletcher era while simultaneously trying to build for the future. You can’t build a tanking machine that runs for 5+ years without alienating your entire fan base and the players currently on your roster.
Briere’s plan is sound. Whether or not it ultimately works will be up to the players he brings in.
Timothy Peery
It has been a decade of garbage with no end in sight. I would have taken the 5 years.
reyo
Well, now that I know what you think, things are all changed.
Bob MCH
Look at Edmonton. That is the correct blueprint. DB’s plan looks nothing like Edmonton’s. Enjoy mediocrity for the next decade with DB’s plan. Zegras is not a 1-C, not even close. Great GMs do the trades and tanking necessary to get the 1-C’s, 1-D’s, and 1-G’s. Mediocre GMs aim for making the playoffs and hope for miracles. This is exactly what DB is doing. It takes guts, and the risk of a lot of criticism and empty seats to tank into the top five for three to five years, which is what has to happen to get a Cup. And when you get into the top five, you have to pick the tentpoles first, then the wings and second liners in later picks. To get the studs at key spots, gutsy overpay trades may have to happen.
crooksie22
I would say using Edmonton is a popular example to take but not a promising route to follow. Beginning in 2009 Edmonton picked in the top ten 9 out of the next 11 years. That includes 4 times picking first overall, the last of which was Connor McDavid. Where are the Oilers without him? So 3 number 1s with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to show for it. A good player but not someone to carry a team. Edmonton arrived at the doorstep of a championship in 2024. That’s 15 years of wasting in the wilderness. Again, only really getting in gear with acquiring a top 10 all time player. Perhaps Draisaitl gets them to the conference championship in a world without McDavid but that can’t be determined. So is the current plan any better than previous plans (were there previous plans?)? I don’t know. Getting to a Cup final is as much luck as it is skill and plan. Edmonton got there, undeniable. But it is not a path any fan would embrace and absolutely no GM nor coach could endure.
reyo
Go Flyers.
Timothy Peery
Bob mch is 100% correct. GMDB has no plan for 1c, 1d and 1g. He may be doing a better job than Hexy or Fletch but the main problem remains the same. Acquiring the cornerstones is just hope and luck. DB is building a first round casualty for 5 or 6 years and back to the mid lottery when he gets fired. Rinse…repeat…
dandandandandan
I dunno is this all we can hope for? A questionable plan that is being executed adequately? Sure it’s better than Hextall (a questionable plan executed poorly) and Fletcher (no plan executed horribly), but I feel like those are just making GMDB look good by comparison. We might finally start making the playoffs, but I’m not seeing a contender emerge here…
acpoponi
I don’t read Bob MCHs posts anymore
reyo
I skim them to remind myself, in case I were to forget, how some folks don’t follow hockey to enjoy themselves, but only to stay miserable and reinforce the delusion that they know more than they do. Go Flyers.
acpoponi
Excellent article Charlie. Really well documented uses of some of your past pieces and accurate characterization of the Moose made to fit the set goals that were documented in the past.
crazylunacy72
Give your balls a tug!
guadzilla
One one hand: a bunch of people online, who have never played the sport professionally, who say “keep tanking”.
On the other hand: the hockey professionals – including people who have played in the NHL – who say that culture is important, and deliberately losing for multiple years ruins this.
Hmm, who do i believe?
Michael Perez
I like to be a realistic skeptic, and would have felt better if the bottom had been deeper, im looking at you 23-24 season, but some of this game is about setting up for buying opportunities and hitting home runs when you do buy. What may in time be an example of that would be signing non tendered RFA ryan poehling and allowing that asset to grow and then flipping it for Zegras. Only time will tell you how good that swing is, but that is how you build strong teams. At this point I’m up to 70% confident that DB isn’t a complete idiot.
mbtoole
This was a great summation of the offseason, Charlie. Loved interspersing actual quotes from the leadership group with the actions they took to back them up.
It’s just a shame that so few people will ever get to read this bc it’s buried behind a paywall. I’d love to send this to a few people/Negadelphians to try and give them some perspective. It’s a shame/cheap that All PHLY doesn’t give Diehards “gift links” that you can share with friends like pretty much every other site I pay for.
David LaVeck
Charlie, this was well done, Thank you for laying out in detail the Flyers’ rebuild philosophy! It would seem that items 2, 3, and 4 are all interconnected. In order to achieve 4 they need to follow 2 which affects 3 as their way of obtaining high end talent. Simply tanking would invalidate 2 and make 4 harder to achieve, if not impossible. It is hard to have a winning culture by emphasizing losing, it is counter intuitive.