PHILADELPHIA – The Philadelphia Flyers made it back to the NHL playoffs by getting in as the 8th seed in the NHL’s Eastern Conference. It’s a step in the right direction but the team will need to make bigger strides next season in order to win over a fan base that hasn’t seen a Stanley Cup champion since 1975.
Hope has sprung eternal with former Flyer Ron Hextall as the team’s General Manager ever since he came back from his stint with the Los Angeles Kings were he earned a Stanley Cup championship ring. The fans have started to see the fruits of his labor and 
that of the scouting staff with Calder Cup finalist Shayne Gostisbehere, a former third round pick in 2012 had 17 goals for the Flyers was good for fourth on the team.
The oddity of Gostisbehere isn’t his talent which was evident at Union College where he helped them win a NCAA title, but in years past the Flyers rarely allowed a player drafted past the first round an opportunity to make the team and his mark on the roster. The times are a changing in South Philly and with the future of the blueline with looking brighter every day with top prospects Sam Morin, Robert Hagg, Travis Sanheim, and Ivan Provorov on the horizon, you can see and hear why the fans have more that patient than in years past.
Not to be outdone are the forward prospects like center Travis Konecny who almost made a roster spot out of training camp, wingers Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Oskar Lindblom, Radel Fazleev, and Taylor Leier and you can almost forgive Flyers fans for being so giddy lately. First things first though, the Flyers still have salary cap issues and until Hextall addresses those the kids will be hard pressed to make a roster spot until someone can take some of their cap issues off their hands.
Philadelphia were 22nd in offense, 12th in defense, 11th on the power play, 20th on the penalty kill, 6th in face-offs, 5th in shots for, and 8st in shots against. Those numbers look more like a team that was one of the better teams in the league but the lack of offense, a slow start to the special teams and the overall defense contributed to the skidding into the playoffs but they were one of the better teams in the second half of the season give Flyers fans hope that the team are more likely to pick up where they left off rather than where they were at the start of last season.
The Flyers had one player score over 30 goals in Wayne Simmonds. Brayden Schenn and Claude Giroux scored over 20. The problem for the Flyers is Jakub Voracek had a down year after signing a new contract that kicks in next season had only 11 goals to show for it along with two other players with 11 and Michael Raffl had 13.
The Flyers biggest need is scoring regardless of what position they play but the teams’ biggest needs is scoring wingers, preferably at left wing. There are a few players that could fit the bill when Philadelphia picks 18th overall in Buffalo such as Kieffer Bellows, son of former NHL player Brian Bellows; Julien Gauthier who scored over 40 goals in the QMJHL this season for Val-d’Or was a teammate of Flyers prospect Aube-Kubel, and Riley Tufte who is a huge winger was Mr. Hockey in Minnesota.
Don’t be surprised if the Flyers take another defenseman at 18 especially if Jake Bean is sitting there. He was a teammate of Fazleev and Sanheim at Calgary in the WHL and the Flyers could be looking at a future blueline of offensive defensemen the way the Nashville Predators are which will surely help the forwards.
Still, the Flyers bottom line at the end of the day is they need goal scorers no matter who they are. Look for the Flyers to make the following announcement at the end of the night in Buffalo.
“With the 18th overall pick in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft the Philadelphia Flyers select, Julien Gauthier.”
On the clock, the New York Islanders.
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