PHILADELPHIA — Claude Giroux had begun to acknowledge the inevitability of his situation years ago. It was the summer of 2018, just before the Flyers’ first day of training camp. Dave Hakstol had helped him revitalize his career the season before, moving him from center to left wing. With the position change, Giroux had gone from 58 points one year to 102 the next, and Sean Couturier had become the team’s top-line center.
In a perfect world for the Flyers, the move would have been a symbolic and actual torch-passing, an indication that the team had improved enough that Giroux was no longer its most important player and didn’t have to be.
“That makes a team stronger, when a young player comes in and he’s got a little bit more responsibility than the years before,” he said that day at the Flyers’ headquarters in Voorhees. “So roles might change, but not by a lot, and you’ve just got to know your role. Successful teams, they challenge themselves on those big roles.”
