Why are Other Teams out Here Playing Chess While the Flyers are Left Playing Checkers?

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In the not-so-distant past, I can remember putting in for the NHL Trade Deadline Day off work so I could sit there and watch teams scramble at the last minute to try to make their teams better. But times have changed, and nowadays, clever teams like the Carolina Hurricanes, who just went out and acquired Stanley Cup Champion Mikko Rantanen and 2010’s number one overall pick Taylor Hall in a trade for what basically boiled down to them having to give up Martin Necas (a good/but not great young player), and a couple of picks.

This trade came more than a month (six weeks to be exact) ahead of the March 7th NHL Trade Deadline.

Now, I get it; the Flyers are not in the same situation as the Hurricanes. But come on, they have not won a Stanley Cup since 1975; that’s 50 years! And they have managed to accumulate only one playoff series win over the last decade.

So, when this team finally said they were committing to a rebuild when they brought in the brash but effective John Tortorella to be their new Head Coach and hired Dan Hilferty as the new CEO, Keith Jones as the new President of Hockey Operations, and Danny Briere as the new General Manager I was excited for the possibility of them finally going to move on from their long-standing history of mediocrity.

Especially since shortly after those previously stated individuals were all hired, you saw changes occur rapidly in the way of player development personnel, the athletic training staff, upgrades to the Phantoms coaching staff, and the exodus of players at the NHL level like the very overrated Ivan Provorov, and Kevin Hayes.

But it seems as though even after they were able to discard the so-called locker room cancers and the team was able to hold down a playoff position for more than 100 straight days last season, they are right back to their same old inconsistent ways of losing just enough games NOT to make the playoffs but win just enough NOT to draft within the lottery. Hearing that I think it should also be noted that the team finds itself in this predicament despite being able to add a player of Matvei Michkov’s caliber to their roster this offseason.

This is puzzling to me. To the point I think some questions need to be raised. Like, has John Tortorella’s antiquated/manic ways of coaching run their course here in Philly? Yes, I get that he was brought in to get the most out of the guys we had and that he has two Jack Adams Awards and a Stanley Cup win to his credit, but that Cup win was way back in 2004 when I was graduating from High School some 21 years ago. With that being said, might I remind you, we live in the here and now, and over the course of the last three seasons Torts has coached in Philly, he has managed to win only .495% of his games. That is the lowest win percentage of any of the five teams he has ever coached for.

Can’t you see that this team is just reverting to their old ways? And to prove that, all you have to do is look at the Flyers power play unit, which currently finds itself right back among the worst in the league. 28TH, to be exact, with them only being able to net a goal on the man advantage 16% of the time. And I have to say the penalty-killing unit isn’t doing much better, with them only managing to kill a penalty 77.4% of the time, ranking them 20th in the league.

Now, I’m not saying Danny Briere is doing a lousy job. But there’s a difference between moving a Mountain and a Molehill! While I respect the fact he has managed to set himself up with potentially three first-round picks and three-second rounds picks this year, those picks are beginning to look less impressive when you find out Philadelphia is scheduled to get the Avalanche’s 1st pick, which, if the season ended today the Flyers would find themselves picking 21st overall and the Oilers 1st round selection which as of today has them making that selection 30th overall.

I’m sure whoever they get in those spots will probably one day be a decent NHL player, but do we really need another Morgan Frost, who was drafted 27th overall, Scott Laughton, who was drafted 20th overall, Tyson Foerster who was drafted 23rd overall, or Joel Farabee who was taken 14th overall in his draft year? There simply won’t be franchise-changing players left to select this late in the draft, so if the team really wants to bust out of the constant state of mediocrity they continue to find themselves in, they will need to get creative!

To do that, they cannot continue to put up with this inconsistent play where they are able to beat a playoff team pretty decisively one night like they did the Devils on Monday the 27th, only to get completely embarrassed by them the very next game 5-0.

That means Danny Briere must stop trying to dangle the same old stinky bait out there and keep expecting a bigger fish (team) with more to offer to bite on it. Don’t get me wrong; I respect him for trying to get the most out of what he has to offer. But let’s face it, Danny has had names like Frost, Laughton, Farabee, and Ristolainen out there for years now and has been rumored to pass on deals if prospecting teams are not trying to offer up 1st round picks plus some.

Now, maybe this is just me, but if I tried that long to trade someone and was not getting the return offers I wanted, I would switch it up a bit. For example, if Briere is not getting the 1st round picks that he wants, then maybe it would be wise to settle for a second or third-round pick and instead, in addition to that, ask for one of the opposing team’s already drafted young players within the system.

Take, for instance, the Washington Capitals. They are currently in first place in not only the Metropolitan Division but the entire Eastern Conference. And with an aging superstar like Alexander Ovechkin, they know they may not get many more chances at winning another cup with him at the helm, so why not give them a call and ask what they need?

Because at this point, if I were the Flyers, I would be willing to offer up just about anybody not named Michkov if that meant I could garner another late first-round pick or even settle for another second or third-round pick that I could combine with the other multitude of top-round selections the Flyers already possess to make an offer to a team that is due to select inside the Top 5 overall that they will not be able to refuse. So, the Flyers could make sure to get a franchise-changing center like James Hagens or Michael Misa to pair with Michkov.

In addition to that, in that hypothetical trade with the Caps, because they settled for a second or third-round pick for some of their players, they can then ask for one of the Capitals’ top prospects, like Ryan Leonard or Andrew Cristall.

Now, I know what you’re thinking; it would take a lot to get the Caps to agree to something like this, and you’re right. But, it’s like that old idiom says: You have to be willing to give up something in order to get something in return. Even if that meant having to give up a staple of your team, like Sean Couturier or Owen Tippett, or if not them, then a restricted free agent like Tyson Foerster, who scored 20 goals last year, or 24-year-old defenseman Cam York, they should do it. Because if you are truly building for the future with a championship in mind, then you should be willing to do whatever you have to in order to acquire a possible franchise-changing talent.

And don’t try to tell me that Washington couldn’t afford to take them on because they have both Nicklas Backstrom, who makes $9.2 million a year, and T.J. Oshie, who makes $5.7 million a year, who are currently on Long Term Injured Reserve set to become unrestricted free agent at the end of the season.

Remember, this is just one example. There are plenty of playoff-contending teams the Flyers should be out there contacting. For clubs are no longer waiting for the deadline to make moves. Therefore, Briere should be acting now in order not to end up like his predecessor Chuck Flecther did for so many years, when, at the conclusion of the trade deadline, he was left sitting in his office wondering why his phone didn’t ring.