Flyers Fans It’s Time to “Embrace the Suck”

Photo Credit: (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

So, we all know Danny Briere inherited a muddled-up mess when he took on the full-time role as the Flyers General Manager back on May 11th, 2023. Ever since that time, Danny has been tasked with ridding the team of disenchanted players who failed to live up to their expectations. He did so with the hopes of acquiring as many future draft picks and or budding already-drafted prospects as he could to help rebuild this once-illustrious franchise.

So, acting with that in mind, Danny has managed to ship out guys via trade like Scott Laughton, Erik Johnson, Morgan Frost, Joel Farabee, Cutter Gauthier, Sean Walker, Ivan Provorov, Kevin Hayes, and Wade Allison.

And the guys he couldn’t convince other teams to take off his hands, Briere has had to buy out. Those players were Cam Atkinson and Tony DeAngelo, which cost the team $4,025,000 in salary cap space this season.

Unfortunately, to make sure this mass exudes of players happened, Danny also had to take on some bad contracts along the way, like Cal Petersen and Ryan Johansen.

Furthermore, let’s not forget that Briere also had to retain a portion of some of his former players’ salaries to ensure that they no longer would have to play for the Flyers, as he did for Kevin Hayes, Andrei Kuzmenko, and Scott Laughton. These moves will cost the team over five million dollars in salary cap space next season.

So, needless to say it has not been easy.

However, while I believe the much-needed deconstruction of this franchise is now complete. I feel I must urge this prideful fan base to borrow the mantra of the United States Navy Seals and motivational speaker David Goggins and “Embrace the Suck”!

What I mean by that is if you really want the Orange and Black to attain a future star to play alongside Matvei Michkov, then you must be ok with them continuing to lose out the rest of the season in order to increase their chances of making their pick fall somewhere within the first five selections of this draft.

Sure, with all the wheeling and dealing that I mentioned Danny doing above, he has managed to obtain multiple draft picks this off-season. But let’s face it, most of those obtained picks are going to be coming from playoff-caliber teams, which means they are only going to garner the organization more Scott Laughton and Morgan Frost-type guys. You know, players who will likely make serviceable NHL options but not turn out to be the kind of impact players that will be able to change the fate of your franchise.

And, even if you package those picks up and try to move up in the draft, there’s not a GM in the league (at least one that wants to keep his job) that will be holding a top-five selection that will be crazy enough to give that up for a bunch of late 1st or 2nd round picks.

I mean, think about if we are talking about building a dynasty here, the Penguins had to suck for years in order to be able to draft Marc-André Fleury in ’03, Evgeni Malkin in ’04, and Sidney Crosby in ’05. The Blackhawks had to go through some ROUGH times to be able to select Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane in back-to-back years in ’06 and ’07. And let us not forget the Tampa Lightning and the fact that they did not turn into the juggernaut that they were for so many years until they were able to acquire Steven Stamkos in ’08, Victor Hedman in ’09, Nikita Kucherov in 2011, and Andrei Vasilevskiy in 2012.

Now, in saying that, I would never wish the team that I love to tank the season purposely. Still, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings if they continued to take turns giving their NHL players a night off so that promising prospects like Emil Andre and Olle Lycksell get some experience and playing time up with the big club.

For, if they do, it might just result in the Flyers being able to draft a defenseman like:

Matthew Schaefer –

Or Forwards like:

Michael Misa- Who has 58 goals and 66 assists for 124 points already on the season for the Saginaw Spirt of the OHL.

Porter Martone- Who has scored 30 goals and 59 assists for 89 points this year for the Mississauga Steelheads of the OHL.

James Hagans- Who has scored nine goals and 25 assists for 34 points in 34 games as a true freshman for Boston College this season

Anton Frondell- A Swedish forward who has scored 11 goals and 14 assists for 25 points in 29 games played this year for the Djurgardens IF of the HockeyAllsvenskan League in Sweden.

If Philadelphia can secure one of these elite players who may be able to suit up for the Flyers as early as next season, mind you. Then, and only then, can this team even begin to be considered capable of moving into phase two of this process which is the actual reconstruction of this team. Because I don’t care how good he is, you can’t expect a 20-year-old kid in Michkov who hasn’t even mastered the English language yet, let alone the game of hockey, to carry this team on his own.

As for the multitude of other picks, Briere has managed to obtain during his short reign as the Flyers’ GM. It’s unlikely that he will decide to use all of them so let’s hope that he continues to draft smart so that he can help to rebuild the team’s depleted farm system.