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The rebuild is just starting, don’t buy into their verbal diarrhea about it being over and them hoping the worst is behind them. They secretly want to finish at the bottom again, they just won’t outwardly say it because they still want fans to believe. Exciting times…Lets Go Flyers!!!
Or they are just incompetent ex-flyers over their heads feeding at the trough as long as they can. Say what you want about CHI but they did an actual rebuild instead of a rebrand, were honest with their fans, and now have one of the best young exciting centers in the league, lots of young possibly elite talent on rookie contracts and a clean cap sheet to market and build around. The Flyers have a 32 yr old coming off of multiple back surgeries in the middle of a very bad 8 year contract and multiple other 8 year contracts. Their crown jewel prospect at center is a projected 3rd line energy player who was overdrafted but he is a 200 ft player who lives in the weight room. Go Flyers?
The Flyers have done everything possible to avoid being in position to draft a Bedard type player. Hell it took Torts 3 years to realize that he couldn’t yell and berate the team into the playoffs and once he did, he flipped the team the middle finger and rode off into the sunset. He literally said he doesn’t want to coach a team in the position the Flyers are in which lends credence that either they are incompetent or delusional.
It’s been 3 drafts and the foundational pieces should be there and there are none. There is nobody in the system that is going to ride in and save the day at the top of the lineup for the next 10-15 years. They actively avoided drafting a potential franchise dman. Michkov and Martone may end up being good/great complementary pieces but that #1 center and #1 dman are giant black holes for the next GM to worry about.
Is Bonk even still alive? Him and Risto seem to be in witness protection.
Also Zegras and Drysdale both finish their 2nd contracts this year, they will both be playing for new 8 year contracts.
https://onpattison.com/news/2025/nov/16/fourth-and-long-flyers-bottom-line-may-need-a-makeover/
Now, with the Flyers believing they can make it into the playoff field, there’s more of an onus of a need to provide more from the fourth line.
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All told, being 2-3-1 in those six games isn’t awful, but what is a noticeable trend from both is concerning – the Flyers look slow and gassed by the third game. They shouldn’t be. They are the fourth-youngest team in the NHL, so they should have reserve fuel that most other teams do not.And yet, they don’t.
fans starting to wake a little.
https://www.hockeydb.com/nhl-attendance/att_graph.php?tmi=7439
It’s even more obvious in the year over year numbers. Lowest attendance in 30 years, except for the lockout year. I think they bought the New Error in Orange until Torts lit a match, threw it in the fuel tank and walked away last year. Without all the Torts drama the focus has shifted back to the on ice product that doesn’t have a Bedard type franchise center to promote/build around and the best young player they have, is hardly playing. But they did get bigger to prepare for that deep run.
Considering how the Flyers are one of the few teams that like to build from the bottom up it is absurd how unproductive they are. That’s multiple flyers coaches/gms who think ND deserves ice time.
Rebuild over without drafting or acquiring a single franchise cornerstone. Flyers roster building at it’s finest.
But this has been a trend for a little while. Since the start of November, the Orange and Black have a 46.31% expected goal share at 5-on-5. That’s the seventh-worst mark in the league, and their 40.00% goal share further outlines the direness of the situation.
The Flyers have done well to survive, sitting at 3–3–2 this month, but they’ve only won a single game in regulation or overtime. When shootouts are out of the equation, this team hasn’t been great recently—the kind of stretch that indicates a long losing streak could be on the horizon.
I still find it hilarious that the Flyers preferred Jett ride the pine in the NHL than playing top minutes in the OHL. Also, Andrae is “earning” his minutes. He more than earned his spot in training camp, especially compared to Jett, yet Jett is the golden boy who could do no wrong. Will their decision making ever improve?
I just looked up Anaheim’s lineup to see where their guys were…interesting.
Chris Kreider — Leo Carlsson — Troy Terry
Cutter Gauthier — Mason McTavish — Beckett Sennecke
Nikita Nesterenko — Ryan Poehling — Alex Killorn
Ryan Strome — Mikael Granlund — Frank Vatrano
Jackson LaCombe — Drew Helleson
Olen Zellweger — Jacob Trouba
Pavel Mintyukov — Ian Moore
Lukas Dostal
There’s a lot of “bold” there!!
*Helleson was acquired by trading Ducks draft pick/player Josh Manson to Colorado.
*Gauthier was acquired by trading Ducks draft pick/player Jamie Drysdale to the Flyers.
*Poehling was acquired by trading Ducks draft pick/player Trevor Zegras to the Flyers.How many are top 5 picks? Top 3? Do the Flyers have a young franchise center on a rookie contract drafted at #2 overall? How many of any of those do the Fleyrs have?
These teams are not the same. Brick by brick my ass. They are a bad team who had little cap space or assets. They rebranded a bad team with several veteran 8 year contracts that hired a fossil abusive coach off his couch so that he could yell at the players and media for 3 years to distract fans. Then proceeded to give out more 8 year contracts. There’s bad with a plan and then there’s the Flyers.
If they could’ve afforded a Kevin Hayes or another Ristolainen in FA, they would’ve. Good news, this offseason they can afford to hand out more 8 year contracts to vets. Brick by brick.
The Blues are another team getting bad defensive results. Teams like that seem to find their checking game and do a nice job stifling the Flyers overly cooperative offensive game. The Flyers need two points here.
Ersson has been just as bad this year as he was last year so limiting shots against will be their only hope. Vlader is holding this team together with duct tape. If Vlader reverts to his career average the Flyers will be in position to draft a potential franchise player. As it is they are only 2 points from being last in the division.
That’s very simplistic. If all you care about is winning a game in November that nobody will remember, sure. If your goals are more long term like say building a Stanley Cup roster, it absolutely matters. The short term thinking that has doomed the Flyers front office for years.
There’s a balance between short and long term thinking. I suppose the Flyers should be deliberately tanking for a better draft pick next year since they won’t win the cup this year.
They should’ve been selling off anything that didn’t fit a realistic and intentional rebuilding plan. They basically rebranded a poorly constructed capped out team with no assets as rebuilding when in reality they were trying as hard as they could to make the playoffs every year. It’s like saying the guy with $10 in his bank account decided to be responsible and not to buy the fancy new car rather than admitting he didn’t have the money for the down payment but if he did he’d buy the car.
It doesn’t matter what i think they should do. I thought, if they were going to keep Jett up because they were “concerned” with his development, that they would’ve tried to actually develop him at the NHL level rather than bury him on the bench before sending him down as soon as the media found a new shiny object. I think Andrae deserves to be playing full time in the NHL over some other players on the roster who are worse but larger. If you don’t want the kid despite his skill, trade him for whatever you can get. Pretending he has a future with this FO and coaching staff is just insulting. ND, what more can i say, the coaching staff loves this guy.
As long as the Flyers are in a playoff position nobody cares about the long term which i think sums up the front office and most fans alike. The Stanley Cup is just mentioned as a marketing tool rather than something to build towards.
The Flyers foundation is built on quicksand. They are just outside a playoff position but also only 2 points out of last place.
But yea the Flyers are worried about Risto and winning an extra game in December 2025 vs having someone like a young franchise center Connor Bedard who is setting records for the Blackhawks or a projected franchise dman like Buium playing 20 min/night for the Wild.
There’s players you build the team around for the next 10 years and there’s the Flyers way where you go down with the ship never thinking past the current season. The Flyers are just so much smarter than the NHL that everyone should be copying them instead of pretty much ignoring them. They think they are still a destination team rather than a knockoff of the Buffalo Sabres.
As far as Risto and Bonk are concerned it’s all academic. Are we sure they are ever going to play again or what Bonk’s injury even is?
It sure would be nice to have a Connor Bedard player on the Flyers. Hell, even a Cutter Gauthier might be the best forward on the Flyers if he had actually been treated as well as Jett has been and on a rookie contract and not on an 8 year expensive contract the next GM will have to deal with moving.
Risto has missed 50% of his games since the start of 2023. He’s lost an entire season’s worth of games and not gotten above 20 pts since he joined the Flyers 5 years ago. He reinvented himself as a 3rd pair dman, when healthy, who now excels at not being asked to do a lot.
It’s great that Risto has reinvented himself as a defensive defenseman, when available, while still being paid to be the franchise/PP QB defenseman, for him. Him and his 9 PP points in 4 years. Ghost has had 90 PP points in that time frame and we wonder why the Flyers PP has sucked.
Risto gets paid to fill a roster spot. If he’s more effective than whoever he replaces, likely Juulsen, how is that bad for the team when that happens? None of where he was drafted, what scoring numbers he put up in Buffalo, what the Flyers gave up to get him, how often he’s injured or what his contract is matters.
Ghost hasn’t played here in a half a decade and has moved four times since. Not sure how focusing on everything other than how this year’s team is doing is even marginally interesting or relevant.
That’s very simplistic. If all you care about is winning a game in November that nobody will remember, sure. If your goals are more long term like say building a Stanley Cup roster, it absolutely matters. The short term thinking that has doomed the Flyers front office for years.
Just imagine when Risto and Bonk come back.
Risto’s return will be a good thing but he’s missed so much time. It was supposed to be 6 months and the surgery was in March. We’re two months beyond that and no firm return date yet. He was the Flyers second best Dman last year. Assume he’s up to date on all the systems/watch tape stuff and his cardio is OK since it’s his arm that’s the issue.
Not expecting anything from Bonk this year, but what the hell did he do to himself? Upper body without surgery needed. It’s been two months plus. Everybody was commenting on the bulk gain. I hope he didn’t injure himself pushing things in the gym. Unforced error if that’s what happened.
Risto has missed 50% of his games since the start of 2023. He’s lost an entire season’s worth of games and not gotten above 20 pts since he joined the Flyers 5 years ago. He reinvented himself as a 3rd pair dman, when healthy, who now excels at not being asked to do a lot.
It’s great that Risto has reinvented himself as a defensive defenseman, when available, while still being paid to be the franchise/PP QB defenseman, for him. Him and his 9 PP points in 4 years. Ghost has had 90 PP points in that time frame and we wonder why the Flyers PP has sucked.
There has been no news on Risto or Bonk in a month. The last update on both was at least 5 to 6 weeks suggesting it could go on even longer. Do we have proof of life on either player? Very reminiscent of Ellis.
he now has 6 points in 5 games: that’s nothing special. dont ever see him being a big point producer at the nhl level. they better hope him or nesbitt becomes a legit 2nd line center. Not a flyers 2nd line center.
That’s 6 more points than he scored in 2 years with the Flyers. I mean how is your only stat in the NHL 4 SOG after 2 years? How dumb do you have to be to keep promoting this guy as having deserved to make the team when he keeps looking like dog poop on the ice? The current coach didn’t even try to develop him despite the articles talking about the Flyers being worried about his development, just let DB get his PR moment in and then back to the minors.
Hope in one hand and etc, etc. see which fills up first.
Just glad the AHL is an option next year so the Flyers don’t feel the need to protect their helpless 1st round pick from being to good to play in juniors but not good enough to actually see the ice as a professional.
Good for Jett. It’s nice to see him get some positive press for his play on the ice. He’s where he belongs. Next year he’ll play in the AHL and in a year or 2 he’ll most likely challenge for a 3rd line spot.
At least next year when he “makes the team” they can send him to the AHL without all the hand wringing and woe is me bull. If Cutter had gotten the Jett treatment from DB he’d be the Flyers leading scorer.
Reason 1 for Frustration: Michkov Isn’t Struggling
There’s a popular idea right now that Michkov is struggling. This is used to justify his anemic 14:49 of average ice time, a figure that has been steadily declining. But those “struggles” are exaggerated, if not totally fabricated.
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Keep in mind, the Flyers have a 39.29% goal share (outscored 17–11) at 5-on-5 during this span when Michkov isn’t on the ice. The team is actually kind of depending on him, despite the limited usage.Yet the 20-year-old has gotten more scrutiny than anyone else on the roster.
I get that y’all are frustrated with the organization, there hasn’t been much to cheer about over the past 10 years with poor ownership and management since Mr. Snider passed away. But this isn’t as big a deal in my mind as you are making it out to be. The center ice position is a position of weakness within the organization and needs to be addressed, that’s why I have no issues with them swinging at a few young guys given the lack of talent at that position within the organization and how I personally believe it’s an absolute key to having a winning franchise. It’s not the only key, but it’s a major major one, for me. Look at any successful franchise and you can see they have strength and depth down the middle.
Heck, look at 2009, 2010, 2011, the Flyers had Richards, Carter and a very young Giroux, who aren’t exactly Crosby & Malkin, or Sakic & Forsberg, or Yzerman & Fedorov, or Bergeron & Krejci, etc. etc. but they were a big part of getting to the finals in 2010. There was obviously more to it than that (Pronger) but you gotta be strong down the middle. Anyways…I digress.
There’s lot of 19/20/21 year old kids throughout the history of the draft who’ve had a hard time getting a spot on NHL rosters because of the 20 year old AHL rule, which they are changing because of that, or they’re just not quite good enough for the NHL but they’re also perhaps too good for junior. Look at Connor Geekie in Tampa, last year he played 50 games and then got send down, this year he played 6 games and then got sent down again. Marco Rossi got sent down two years in a row to the AHL because he wasn’t ready.
Jett just turned 19 in August, he’s still a VERY young player…things will be fine with him.
Everything you say about the center position applies equally to defense. Look at any successful franchise and you can they have strength and depth on defense. I also get that we can’t change the past, the pick was made and the team/fans have to live with it. With 2 franchise cornerstone positions needing addressed and a consensus potential franchise defenseman is available and a tweener center who nobody ever confused with a franchise/first line center are the choices, you’d have to think the choice wouldn’t be to trade out of the spot so you don’t have to pick the franchise dman. 99 people out of 100 pick the franchise dman with the 100th working for the Flyers.
That Cinderella team get’s brought up way to much when people try to justify shitty roster building and as you mentioned Pronger (franchise dman). Qualified on last game of last day of regular season on a shootout just to make the playoffs. It would’ve been a made for TV movie if they had won that year with all the longshot things that happened that favored the Flyers. But that sort of thing helps sell the fans that “anything can happen” no matter how bad the roster building is. Richards and Carter did win Stanley cups on the 2nd line of a better built Kings team.
Buium, who is the same age as Jett and playing a harder position to learn, has done nothing but live up to his draft status so far. On top of that he was available to develop in college, something Jett can’t do, because DB signed him after the Cutter disaster. The 6′ dman is to small while the 5’11 180lb center isn’t?
Just because other GMs make mistakes doesn’t mean the Flyers didn’t make one. Signing a player who is AHL eligible isn’t as big an issue as signing one who isn’t (even though it is changing in the future). If they are too good for junior and not AHL eligible, send them to college. This, woe is me I have no choice but to add him to the NHL roster, is bull. The GMs knew their choices with the players when drafted. It’s ok for Martone to go to college but it never crossed DBs mind as an option for Jett?
Neither of the players you mentioned were as bad as Jett who played 8 games across 2 years putting up 0 stats and watched another 9. What was the plan for Jett when he made the team this year? Does anyone know because whatever it was wasn’t visible to the fans?
Jett might be Ok but that means energy line player who can maybe play up on the 2nd line. Nobody has projected him to be more than that but is that really what the Flyers needed with that pick?
The PK has been really good so far. I don’t mind a PK not scoring goals. I thought the whole “Power Kill” mantra was silly. Allowing goalies to see the puck as opposed to expecting every player on the ice to act as a human shield seems like a better idea.
After that, yeah the offensive woes I place a lot of blame on the HC. I get the sense that he is implying not enough guys are going to the net, which he refers to as the “hard area”. Well, he inherited a roster with few net front guys to begin with, so somehow it is a shock because most of the top 6 guys with skill are below 200 lbs. Not sure it makes sense to expect most of these forwards to camp out and try to tip shots from the point. Couts and Cates, I expect could fit that bill. Grebenkin could, but Tocchet has shown an unwillingness to play him minutes. Foerster and Tippett have size, but have never really been a major part of their games. Zegras, Mickhkov, TK, and Brink will go and make plays in the center of the ice, but expecting them to camp at the crease constantly just is unrealistic. Much like the previous HC, is the current HC adjusting his style of play to his players, or do the players have to bend to his will.
The issue going forward is this brand of hockey is boring with the occasional elevated shooting % game. From the current list of top 9 forwards on the NHL roster and the AHL, the regime would have to severely reshape the forwards to play Tocchet’s style of hockey he seems intent on installing. So far at the gate, the fanbase does not seem overly enthused with this HC and brand of hockey. The supposed future star of the team has played like 1 shift in 4 OT games. Even watching the games at home, I want to see the potential star play as much as possible in another regular season that it is a fact this team is not a serious contender. He has already “earned” that right to play more from his rookie season last season. He deserves the chance to play out of his slump because if Michkov does not pan out as at least a PP/game player, this rebuild or retool is finished. Martone turning out to be a stud and the consummate scoring power forward will not be enough to carry the team to being a contender if Michkov does not work. The rest of the forward group is not talented enough to make up that gap if Michkov cannot elevate to near elite level. TK going into his 30s is not going to find enough consistency to be that guy. Foerster could be a really good two way forward, but his playmaking ability is not top tier. Brink doubtful becomes even a 60 pt guy. Zegras has shown 60 point ability in the past. Tippett will be 27 is this going to be year 1 of consistently being a 30 goal scorer- highly uncertain. Couts is an older fine 3C. Cates is a younger, but not exactly young anymore fine 3C.
Even if everything does work they aren’t a contender. Can you tell me who the Franchise center or franchise dman is on this roster? Not who is the best center or dman on the team, but who is their Austin Mathews, Connor McDavid, Barkov, Crosby, Makar, Ekblaad, etc? The answer is those players aren’t on the roster and that there are no realistic plans to acquire that talent.
What they can be, if everything works out, is “in the mix” to make the playoffs. That’s their ceiling. Making the playoffs would be their Stanley Cup. They can spin that to keep the fans attention and make money. That is their only goal. I don’t even think it will be possible for the next guy to do an actual rebuild even if they want to as the team has cried wolf too many times.
The thing is that there was never really a spot for Luchanko to begin with. He wasn’t knocking Sean Couturier and Noah Cates out of a spot, and both have started off the season strong. With the addition of Christian Dvorak as well, space was limited.
But it shouldn’t have come to that either way. Luchanko should’ve been sent back regardless of the team wanting a closer look and regardless of who his team was. Playing fewer than nine minutes a game was never going to be good for him. And being in and out of the lineup didn’t help either. If he had knocked down the door and forced their hand, this would be a different story.
