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Tocchet might want 2 scoring lines and a checking line. He can do that.
Michkov-Couturier-Konecny
Foerster-Zegras-Tippett
Dvorak-Cates-BrinkTocchet might want 3 balanced lines and put his three best right hand shots on right wing. He can do that.
Bump-Couturier-Konecny
Dvorak-Zegras-Tippett
Michkov-Cates-FoersterTocchet might want to leave two lines that worked well late last year together and piece together a third line. He can do that.
Michkov-Couturier-Konecny
Foerster-Cates-Brink
Dvorak-Zegras-TippettA lot of options. None bad.
None good. Coots is probably a good 3C who can play up and down the lineup at this point in his career on a contender and he may still be the best the Flyers have. He did have a bit of a revival last year as the team fell apart around him but I doubt at age 33 with his injury history that if they lean on him to hard that he’ll produce and more importantly, stay healthy.
In each of the two previous campaigns, he topped the 30-goal mark despite missing 22 games due to injuries in 2022-23 and a half-dozen games the next year.
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However, there is one legitimate concern with the player. Konecny’s all-out style play is a necessity for him to be effective.It makes you wonder how long his body will hold up as he starts that 8 year contract. Will he still be the same player in 3 years or will he be in decline?
Did you read who actually wrote the article?
No other opinion on Jett, Jetts treatment by the org, or Jett’s future?
Yes, i screwed up but it wasn’t worth even going back and editing the post. Bill wrote the first article and he posted both articles in the thread.
Other than me misattributing the article, thoughts?
So much for all the Jett hype. Maybe the poor kid, if not incessantly hyped up and used as a pawn, can be properly developed. It’s a shame he wasn’t drafted by a team run by professionals.
Don’t forget that FLA team is better as a team than the sum of its’ parts.
Have you seen their parts? How many teams have better parts than the Panthers?
Nobody is disputing you need team buy-in, but that goes for every team. It’s not unique to the Panthers as i mentioned in an earlier post.
Not implying any correlation one way or the other, but it should also be pointed out that 3 months after the Flyers trade Claude Giroux, “culture change” became the franchise’s message of choice.
“If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table.”
The Flyers have neither the skill nor the front office so all they can do is pound the table.
Unless he blows the doors off everyone at camp, he should go back to Juniors. He did NOT accomplish this last preseason. What I saw was a kid who started to get overwhelmed towards the end of camp as teams started to ramp up their intensity, then I saw a kid who was completely overmatched at the NHL level before being benched and ultimately sent down when the team couldn’t hide it anymore. Torts either got entranced by his obvious speed and it blinded him to all the other shortcomings, or the team was trying to save face when they didnt pick Zeev Buium because Andrae was already on the roster.
He produced 6 assists in the AHL playoffs, though for the most part completely disappeared against Hershey. One would think that a high pick who is supposedly NHL ready would look a lot better than he did when, once again, the intensity ramped up.
My hope for his is that he somehow gets traded out of Guelph to a team that can contend, where he doesn’t have to be the sole decent player on his roster. This is one of those instances where the 19 year old rule hurts a player. I wonder if Europe is an option?
One thing for sure is that I don’t think he is NHL ready. Hopefully he surprises everyone and makes me eat my words.
That was such a bullshit excuse by Briere and if he truly thinks that way, pure incompetence. Andrae was never looked at as a future franchise defenseman, Buium was and is projected to be that. They weren’t competing for the same roster spot. Buium is also 6′ despite the size comment.
Flyers were drafting for perceived need, instead of BPA. As it is, both #1 center and #1 defense still need to be desperately addressed.
It felt like to me they were trying to save face because if anyone truly thought Jett was ready for the NHL last year, they were incompetent talent evaluators but that is possible. Remember Torts wanted TDA because he passed the “eye test”, until he played for the Flyers. Torts was instrumental in Drysdale also because he also passed the “eye test” until he came to the Flyers. I think we’re seeing a theme behind the Flyers poor roster decisions over the last few years. Meanwhile the analytics department are collecting checks on the beach.
It’s also true some top rated players in the league haven’t won Cups either. The Flyers clearly need another Top 4 Dman. No question about that. Willing to find out what Zegras can do as the offensive 1C which he clearly will be. It’s a team game. The Flyers will be noticeably better this year.
True. It takes more than just talent but it can’t be done without it. The Flyers tend to forget that.
Every team has their own version of culture, it’s just nobody cares because they aren’t the reigning Stanley Cup winner.
Like the Avalanche who won a few years ago have their culture if you google it : hard work and winning mentality. lol. Who knew? who cares? Turns out the Panthers aren’t unique in having culture or in how they define it. You win you get the puff pieces.
Same google search changing one word.
Skill, coaching, execution. Without the skill and the coaching they are the Buffalo Sabres no matter how much everyone loves each other. Without Barkov, Ekblad, Tkachuk, Bob, and even Maurice are they successful no matter how often they have group hugs and hit people? No.
Winning the Stanley cup takes a lot of different things coming together at the right time, Skill (the cornerstones and supporting players), coaching, execution, and sacrificing for the team.
Let’s get our MacKinnon/Makar, Barkov/Ekblad, etc before putting the culture cart before the horse because without that, the rest is just something that comes out of the other end of the horse.
Bill, I generally love your work but c’mon.
At just 19 years old, Luchanko has already shown flashes of brilliance. He earned an NHL opening night roster spot last season. Later, he held his own during the Calder Cup playoffs.
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Morever, Luchanko’s late-season assignment to the Phantoms proved transformative.
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This could be the season that helps solidify Luchanko as the franchise’s next cornerstone along with fellow prospect Porter Martone.I’d have to go back to look at what you wrote last year but I don’t think even you thought he forced his way onto the NHL the roster and he was an absolute, unqualified disaster who ended up watching more games from the press box than the ice in his brief 10 game stint. Also, if you thought he earned it last year why would you bring up the possibility him not making it this year? It was a PR stunt from the triumvirate that backfired.
Nobody in the NHL has projected Jett to be a franchise center or a prospect on the level of Martone.
Could he be the next Scott Laughton who is with the team 10 years and whose legend exceeds his actual impact because he plays the right way and was born to be a Flyer? Sure.
As mentioned by previous posters there is no good answer on where to play Jett this year but it would be a bad look for the front office if Jett, who “earned” a spot last year, didn’t make the team this year. Let’s hope he “forces” his way onto the roster, for real this time.
– There’s no denying the impact Rick Tocchet will have on the 2025–26 Flyers. His arrival marks a new era for a franchise that has spent the last few seasons searching for stability, identity, and a consistent path forward.
– But make no mistake: this wasn’t a “feel-good” hire. It was a calculated decision to bring in someone who can reconnect the Flyers with their identity while pushing the team back toward playoff contention.
Hahahahaha. The NEW new era of orange. Wasn’t Torts the guy bringing stability, reconnecting the Flyers with their identity, and leading them into the future?
::facepalm::
I would like to see Tocchet succeed but PR diarrhea like this just poisons the well. He was the feel good ex-Flyer hire that they can market the shit out of for aging fanbase who long for the good old days.
I’m predicting the Flyers will be noticeably better this year. Individually and as a team. There were teams out west that were more than a level below the Flyers last year. Starting to hear a bit how truly awful things were in ANA, even though they had 4 more points, for example. That makes things a little difficult to compare points over conferences. Everybody out west feasted on NSH, SJ and CHI. 91 points wouldn’t have gotten you into the playoffs out west and it was a fluke it did in the east. Vancouver has way better goaltending! Lankinen or Demko, if healthy, are both better than anything the Flyers have. Ideally, Vladar is our Lankinen.
“Everyone” is not pessimistic about the job Tocchet will do. Zegras wins them a couple or more games. Vladar over the two Russian catastrophes wins them a couple or more games. Tocchet’s coaching wins them a couple or more games. Five points for each upgrade gets them a 15 point increase.
Who isn’t pessimistic that Tocchet can lead them to the promised land that isn’t part of the Comcast family? Regardless, at least you are giving a reason behind your optimism. Personally i think more than Torts but not the bump you envision which will, once again, leave them in no mans land without a path forward to get those cornerstones they need. We shall see how the games play out.
I love that the Flyers are at the point where every roster, coaching, and front office move suddenly fits this description.
The living embodiment of the “hold my beer” meme?
So DB said some nice things about Torts on the way out? So what? Torts is not the coach any more. Again with the needle moving. More specifics please. This team is good for an extra 15 points this year. Roadkill Rick Tocchet will see to that. How is that a problem? How many points does a team need to improve to move their needle? What’s more important: Needle moving or difference making?
Never said Tocchet was roadkill, I compared roadkill as an improvement to what Torts was doing. 15 points takes the Flyers from last in the division to making the playoffs (using last year’s numbers). Are you predicting the Flyers make the playoffs? That would also be more points than Vancouver had last year, do you view the Flyers as having a better roster than Vancouver?
I posted an article earlier which talked about Tocchet’s coaching history and reasons for concern which came to the conclusion that Tocchet being the catalyst you want him to be is more wishful thinking than proven track record. You never really addressed the points made in that article. Until you do, it sounds more like you want to believe rather than having an actual reason to believe.
Maybe he’ll prove everyone wrong and again he can’t do any worse than the last guy. He’s supposed to be a great communicator with the players which is a world of difference from the coach who would bench the captain of the team without telling him why.
