PHILADELPHIA, PA – With the NHL Entry Draft less than two weeks away, the Philadelphia Flyers will be focusing on how to upgrade their current talent pool. The Flyers pick 21st in the first round and you can bet the team will not be focused on any one position in order to upgrade their team. The Flyers have very few quality prospects in their system outside of their 2007 first round pick, left winger James Van Riemsdyk, and 2006 first round pick, right winger Claude Giroux. The Flyers finished fifth in offense and sixteenth on defense. They were sixth in both the power play and on the penalty kill. The two most glaring issues for the team were face-offs and penalties. The Flyers ranked 22nd in face-offs and didn’t have a player win over 50 percent. It virtually killed them during the playoff series against the Penguins. Discipline was an issue all year long. The Flyers had the second most penalty minutes and fighting majors and they led the league in minor infractions. The Flyers strength on their current roster is up front. The team had seven players with 11 or more goals and four with 30 or more. Despite only playing in 29 games, Daniel Briere had 11 goals and 14 assists so its pretty fair to say had he played a full seasons worth of games he would have pushed the 40 goal mark. Giroux had 9 goals in 42 games so its safe to say he would have pushed 20 as well. The defense has some chinks in the armor which is why the rumors persist that the Flyers will jump on a free agent to come in and take some pressure off of Kimmo Timonen and Braydon Coburn. In terms of prospects, for the first time in a long time, the Flyers are deep in defensive prospects. The talent pool in this years draft is good for quality forwards and offensive defenseman. Despite the defensive prospects already in the Flyers system, only Marc-Andre Bourdon, a third round pick in 2008, is a gifted offensive defenseman. As mentioned before, once you get past Van Riemsdyk and Giroux, the Flyers are thin in terms of offensive talent. With the amount of offensive talent up front on the current roster, the current crop of Flyers prospects would only amount to a third or fourth liners role on the big squad. Still, someone like Patrick Maroon might get a shot on the team if the Flyers are forced to make a trade to relieve salary cap space. The Flyers have an interesting crop of goaltending prospects. They have a couple of potential diamonds in the rough like Joacim Eriksson, Jacob Deserres and Jakub Kovar. Also, if Brad Phillips gets the starters job at Notre Dame this coming season, he might be a future dark horse. The problem is he hasn’t played in two years. Since this is a poor year for drafting goaltenders, the Flyers will most likely either trade down in the first round or wait until the second round to draft a goaltender. Needless to say, the Flyers will be trying to upgrade at every position on the team. Since we are discussing what the Flyers will do with the 21st pick overall, lets take a look at some of the options might have with their pick. If the Flyers to go with offense it most likely wont be for a left winger, however, depending on who you read Chris Kreider is listed as a left winger (THE HOCKEY NEWS) or a center (Central Scouting). The top rated left winger, Magnus Paajarvi-Svennson will be long gone by the time the Flyes pick so the leaves center and right wing as the most likely offensive positions to be filled. At center, the Flyers rarely draft a Swedish play this high so the leaves Jacob Josefson out as an option. Some of the players that should be available when they pick are Krieder, Peter Holland, Drew Shore, and Landon Ferraro. In our mock draft Kreider and Ferraro are off the board but if Kreider is still on the board he’d be tough to pass up. At right wing, Ashton Carter, Scott Glennie, Zack Kassian, and Kyle Palmieri all have potential of being picked at 21, but in our mock draft Carter and Glennie are gone. In real life, the player the Flyers might want to move up for in the draft is Jordan Schroeder. If the Flyers game plan is to keep Van Riemsdyk, having JVR’s linemate on TEAM USA would be beneficial to both players. Having them as bookends around Jeff Carter or Mike Richards would make for a terrific line that could terrorize the league for the next 10 years. The Flyers might have to move up between 5-10 in order to get Schroeder but in our humble opinion it might be worth a try. If they decide to go for a defenseman, they would love to have Ryan Ellis but his stock is rising, especially after the OHL playoffs, and the Memorial Cup tournament.
Stefan Elliott (photo courtesy of the NHL)
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