The Flyers have finally waved the white flag. It’s eight years overdue, but at least, at last, the time has come.
Kevin Hayes, James van Riemsdyk, and Tony DeAngelo all stand to be traded by Friday’s deadline. Maybe more. This will mean more losses in the team’s last 20 games or so, which means a higher draft slot, which means the Flyers will have a better chance to get better quicker.
Any veterans traded will follow Claude Giroux out the door; he was shipped to the Florida Panthers last year and now plays for the Ottawa Senators. Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher said that entering last season, the Flyers were the third-oldest team among the NHL’s 32 franchises. They stunk. They still stink, but now they’re the seventh-youngest, and they’re about to get a lot younger.
“We’re willing to listen to just about anything that makes sense,” said general manager Chuck Fletcher for the first time in his catastrophic, five-year tenure.
Hayes (roughly $19 million), JVR ($1.66 million), and DeAngelo ($6.2 million) all have lots of money left on their deals. Most teams have little cap room. Will the Flyers eat salary to snag draft picks and prospects?
“We’re open to it,” said Fletcher, the Harvard grad flashing that Ivy intellect. “We want younger assets.”
Younger assets will mean more losses in the short term, which will be tough for Flyers fans spoiled by the Ed Snider era. After going 25-46-11 last season, the Flyers are 23-28-10, on track for their first back-to-back losing seasons since 1992-94, Eric Lindros’ first two seasons with the team.
This is a marked departure from everything the Flyers have stood in their 55-year history. Patience is anathema for the Orange and Black. Going for it is their DNA. As recently as December, with an injury-addled roster that had one win in its last 12 games, Fletcher was still bullish on the postseason:
“I expect to be more competitive the rest of the way,” he said Dec. 1.
Now? No. They’re going to rebuild.
Even now, though, they can’t admit it.
They have never used the word “rebuild.” Fletcher again Tuesday refused to use the “terminology,” as he called the word: “Are we gonna gut this team? No, we’re not gonna gut this team. I’m not looking to just trade everybody and start over.”
But he’s gonna trade everybody he can, whether it’s by the deadline or over the summer. There is nothing left to do. They haven’t won a Stanley Cup in 48 years. Frankly, it might be 48 more.
“I’m not sure on the time frame. ... It’s going to be a longer process that, clearly, what we want,” Fletcher said. “We’re not looking to take short-cuts right now.”
This sort of talk has been hockey heresy in Philadelphia. Apparently, no more.
That’s good news for the guys on the trade block. That’s not-so-good news for 24-year-old franchise goalie Carter Hart, who’s wasting his prime years in a rebuild. Hart should be playing behind with a bunch of other Carter Harts. Instead, he’s playing with Nicolas Deslauriers and Patrick Brown.
C’est la vie.
At any rate, good for the guys on their way out, and, finally, good for the Flyers. After nearly a decade of denial, the Flyers have realized that they lack real star power. They’ve contorted this reality for years and years.
They had a chance to rebuild properly in 2015, when Giroux was just 27 and Jakub Voracek was 25, but they hung on to both far too long. By the time they cut bait with both — Voracek was traded in July 2021, Giroux in March 2022 — they’d paid them roughly $115 million and wasted everybody’s time. Over their final seven seasons together, the gingers combined for one playoff series win, and that one has an asterisk given it came in the COVID bubble.
The Flyers hired out-of-touch taskmaster Alain Vigneault in 2019. He lasted less than three seasons.
This summer, they hired out-of-touch carnival barker John Tortorella to sell tickets and alienate stars. Hayes is one of them, but he’s been benched at times and has been moved from center to winger.
They’ve blamed their misfortunes on injury absences, and yes, it’s tough to win without a $62 million Selke winner like Sean Couturier, and it’s a blow to have Ryan Ellis make $13 million to play four games in two seasons, and losing Cam Atkinson in December to a neck injury is rotten luck, even if he is 33 (old guys get hurt).
But injuries had nothing to do with Ivan Provorov’s sulky regression. James van Riemsdyk played all 82 games last season and managed just 38 points, his lowest total in a full season since his rookie year. And the trade in July for lightning rod Tony DeAngelo that cost the Flyers second-, third-, and fourth-round picks, not to mention a two-year, $10 million extension? It seemed absurd at the time. Now, as he carries a minus-26 rating, the third-worst mark among defensemen in the league, it’s front-office malpractice.
Tortorella was 100% on board with acquiring DeAngelo, baggage and all ... then benched him. He’s also benched Rasmus Ristolainen, a $25 million defenseman in name only who is minus-7 in his last five games. Travis Sanheim, a defenseman the organization is set to pay $50 million to starting next season also has ridden the pine and is minus-8 on the year.
So, Flyers faithful, settle in for a Sixers-like reset. For the second time in a decade the Wells Fargo Center will be the site of construction by deconstruction.
“This is a process,” Tortorella said Monday. “It’s going to take time.”
Another Process. Sweet.
Fletcher might not survive the rebuild. Same with Torts. After all, Sam Hinkie and Brett Brown began the Sixers process, and they’re watching it continue from afar.
Maybe that will be the best answer for the Flyers, too.
