PHILADELPHIA, Pa – Just when you thought the Philadelphia Flyers were looking like a team that could make the playoffs, once again look more like a team that will draft near the top five teams in the next NHL Entry Draft. If the season ended today the Flyers would draft eighth overall in the Metropolitan division. The Flyers offense has slid downhill faster than Lindsey Vonn and confidence in General Manger Ron Hextall’s plan for building the team through the draft takes a hit with every Brayden Schenn goal and Morgan Frost is in the Ontario Hockey League.
Fans and media are being reminded on a regular basis that moving a proven goal scorer on a team in need of goal scoring didn’t make a ton of sense. Unfairly Frost will be compared to Schenn but that’s the nature of the beast. The Flyers did get a first-round pick from the Blues as well as the Flyers moving up the draft to take Frost. The problem though is that the Flyers also took Jori Lehtera and his $4.7 million dollar cap hit with them for not just this year but for next year as well, and he has never scored more than 19 goals in a season and has been a healthy scratch in several games already.
The trade is far from being completed but when you consider that as of this article the Blues had the second most points in the league (33) one behind the Tampa Bay Lighting and the Flyers are looking like they will miss the playoffs in back-to-back seasons. That hasn’t happened to the Flyers since 1994 when the Flyers had missed the playoffs five seasons in a row. Philadelphia has already missed the playoffs in three of the last five seasons. While most people are on board with Hextall’s plan to build from within, and the Flyers currently had one of the top farm systems in the league, it’s tough not to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
/Right Wing Cal Clutterbuck (#15) of the New York Islanders celebrates his goal in the second period.
The Flyers already have most of their top defensive prospects in the lineup: Samuel Morin, Robert Hagg, Ivan Provorov, Shayne Gostisbehere, Travis Sanheim, and they still having Philippe Myers that is sure to be NHL ready next season. Morin might be a temporary thing once Radko Gudus is done with his suspension and Andrew MacDonald comes back from his injury. Brandon Manning has been solid but he is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season and does not fit into the Flyers future so don’t expect him to make it past the NHL trade deadline.
The Flyers would love to get someone to take Gudus and/or MacDonald off their hands since neither fit into the Flyers future plans as well. Both have contracts that will still run another two years after this season and would provide $8.350 in cap relief. This year the Flyers have three free agents that won’t be here next season as well: Manning, Matt Read, and Valtteri Filpulla but there is a chance he comes back if the Flyers can’t get more scoring from someone other than the usual suspects.
Secondary scoring has been an issue with the team long before this season ever started and some of that scoring took a hit when Nolan Patrick was injured. The bigger issue is talent. Simply put, how are the Flyers expected to score when you have forwards such as Read, Michael Raffl, Taylor Leier, and Dale Weise. Travis Konecny had only three seasons in junior hockey but when people will fail to bring up is that he is a set-up man more so then a goal scorer. That doesn’t mean that with the right linemates he can’t be a goal scorer, he can but first things first he needs better linemates and having Patrick back should help.
The season is only one fourth of the way through the season (8-10-7) but fans are already asking questions as to who can the Flyers take in the draft. That’s always fun to talk about for me especially since I cover the top prospects and the NHL Draft for prohockeynews.com.
Unless something major happens, two of the top three picks in the draft will be defensemen from Sweden in Rasmus Dahlen and Adam Boqvist. The real prize for the Flyers will be scoring forwards. The best of this year’s class is Russian Andrei Svechnikov. He is a winger which is a big need for the Flyers but think about him on a future line with countrymen German Rubtsov and Mikhail Vorobyov, anchored on the blueline with Provorov and Valeri Vasiliev who was taken by the Flyers in 2012. Ok, so Vasiliev is a bit of a stretch but if you remember the Detroit Red Wings and their Russian Five of Igor Larionov, Vyacheslav Kozlov and Sergei Fedorov with Vladimir Konstantinov and Viacheslav Fetisov, then you might get a bit giddy thinking about the possibilities of the Flyers version of their own Russian Five. Keep in might the Flyers might have a steal from last year’s draft by taking goaltender Kirill Ustimenko. Given the Flyers history with the Russians it is an intriguing thought.
Defenseman Travis Sanheim (#6) and Defenseman Mark Alt (#39) of the Philadelphia Flyers battle Center Brendan Gaunce (#50), Center Markus Granlund (#60) and Center Brandon Sutter (#20) of the Vancouver Canucks.
Other names to highly consider are: Brady Tkachuk, Filip Zadina, Joe Veleno, and Ryan Merkley.
Brian Jennings covers the Philadelphia Flyers for prohockeynews.com and can be found on twitter at @Flyersfan22.
Photos by Lewis.Bleiman@prohockeynews.com
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