Just a little over four short months ago, the Philadelphia Flyers concluded a playoff run — their first since 2020. They won a round in front of fans for the first time since 2012. They lost to the eventual Stanley Cup champions. It was, undeniably, a successful run to provide a capstone for a successful season.
And if they thought it was going to win over all of their doubters, think again.
The Athletic’s placement on Wednesday of the Flyers in the “Window Closed” section of their Contention Cycle analysis stood as concrete evidence that the outside hockey world remains skeptical of the Flyers’ present and future relevancy. The Athletic, while a smaller newsroom than it was seven years ago, remains the largest employer of NHL hockey writers in North America, and basically functions as the center of the hockey journalism world. And their analysts just basically took a blowtorch to the Flyers’ whole plan.
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10 Comments (8 conversations)
superunoriginal
Personally, I am a skeptic because I’ve had my hopes dashed too much. “Hope for the best, anticipate the worst.” It’s a balanced mindset.
Vladar was the X factor. Flyers rode him into the playoffs and even when the offense faltered, Vladar kept them competitive. To succeed, teams…GMs…coaches…and players adapt. I don’t think the rest of the league took the Flyers or Vladar seriously, but now they’ve learned, and they will adapt, which makes it even more difficult for Vladar to sustain that high level of performance. Flyers will need help elsewhere. (Power play would be a nice place to start…)
If the Flyers make the playoffs, great. If they have a collapse that gets them a top 5 pick (or some lottery luck), well that (plus the potential Leafs’ pick) is also super swell. Goes back to just not wanting them to be that middling 8-20 mediocrity spot where they could have done a bit more either way to improve the future outlook.
Andrew Widmeier
I think it all comes down to context. Let’s say the flyers pick 10th this year. If that is because Sanheim and Vladar go down with injuries (I think we all know there’s no replacing Sanheim on this roster as it’s currently constructed) leading to giving up a lot of goals, I think that would be bad but not catastrophic to the future. As long as the kids are producing. It’s a problem with roster construction sure, but we already know they need another top D-Man and we know Woll can’t shoulder a full #1 assignment.
The nightmare is that everyone is healthy, the kids are doing fine, maybe half a step forward but not much dissimilar to last year, Vladar regresses and the improvement of other teams drags the flyers back to mediocrity while also making them unattractive to free agents. That is a death sentence. Michkov & Martone on their own can’t fix that just like Giroux and Voracek couldn’t. They have cap space sure, but if the team stagnates they likely won’t be able to convince someone worth big money to come here.
superunoriginal
Google NHL UFAs over the next 3 years and the results are unimpressive. Those #1 defensemen the Flyers would like that would be available are all closing in on 40.
Their best chance to lure a UFA is 2028 with Matthews, McDavid and Zach Werenski. Before that and after that are relatively slim pickings, and frankly I don’t think the Flyers are going to be able to get those guys if they’re competing against the rest of the league. Means they need to draft or trade for guys who are willing to move to Philly.
Samuel DiBernardo
While the athletic does in fact rate high end talent on teams adequately, they conveniently ignore that many of those teams are either coached horribly or have barely passable NHLers at all other positions.
Chris
The only way I can describe Scott Wheeler and Dom Luszczyszyn’s article is hilarious. I legit keep coming back to that wording, even though I try to go in a different direction.
Warren Broudy
Charlie I’ve supported you at athletic and Allphly but fired the athletic recently . I see flyers pu of Woll as big and more team improvement thru better special teams and full year of Martone and Foerster and a better MM. I hope I am right ✌️..
Erik Hilliard
I think the Flyers don’t get enough credit for making the playoffs in a competitive Eastern conference where teams missed the playoffs with more points that would normally get you in the playoffs.
And that is with a down Michkov year, Tyson missing most of the season and a still troubling PP. A lot of reasons for the Flyers to be better even if Vladar was a bit worse than last year who was the truly surprise breakout guy. But can the backup goalie be as bad as Ersson was? Lots of positive vibes!!
Bob MCH
The Toronto pick is a huge asset, and just might be key to finding a 1-C or 1-D, either as ammo through trade, or possibly that pick becomes a top five pick. For trade, package it with prospects or more picks for that 1-C or 1-D. For drafting in top five, pick a stud. Cap money helps as well. There is a path for a 1-C or 1-D, they just cannot screw it up. This is where a top shelf GM earns his pay. He worked around the edges, now he needs to hit the bulls eye.
Bruce
The problem with The Athletic article was the model itself. They defined certain things to measure and failed to adjust when the outcome didn’t match reality. Failure to recognize a poorly defined model is the hallmark of Dom’s work.
David LaVeck
To me the Flyers have at least 3 potential stars in Michkov, Martone, & Zegras. The problem that I see with them reaching their potential is this current offense system and power play. If either of those or both can improve then these players have potential to reach their ceilings. Add in a legit center and you have a strong core along with other good players such as Foerster, TK, and Tippett. The defense will probably never score a lot but maybe one of them can breakout like Drysdale as you suggested.