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The Ugly
Here’s the real killer (again): blown coverages, a bad line change and a back door goal.
Missed nets on open looks at the net. Passes that went awry when a play needed to be made.
Lost faceoff in the die-or-die 6-on-4 power play late in the third period.
A couple of unforced turnovers proved costly.>SSDD. So much for all the puff pieces over the olympic break how practice time was going to solve their issues. Dvorak is the worst xga/60 player on the team followed closely by Konecny who has the worst CA/60 and these guys are here for 5 more years. Zegras isn’t to far behind and he’s up next for a 5 year extension. Yet everyone else is the defensive problem.
Konecny is pretty much a disaster when he’s not shooting the puck in a high danger chance. Sure he is great at finishing when put in great position, but what else can he do? He doesn’t play well defensively and he’s not great at driving the play. Despite being the best player on the Flyers, he’s a support player on a team full of support players.
“Put (Zegras) at center for a bit, I don’t know if that made him uncomfortable,” Tocchet said before the game. “He just wants to win (and) what’s best for the team, but also we want him to feel comfortable. When he’s comfortable, he’s a good hockey player. … I think he likes playing with that line, he likes playing with (Dvorak).”
Michkov 2 days ago : “I was always playing the right. I was always there. Now I’m playing on the left. It’s a new role. If the coaches see me there, I have to adapt as quick as I can,” PHLY‘s Charlie O’Connor transcribed. He continued, “For me, on the right, I can create a lot more moments. Now I have to switch everything to the left and do the same thing.”
Zegras, brought in to try to fix the gaping hole at center, is playing on wing because it makes him COMFORTABLE. Michkov is extended no such courtesy while the Flyers continue to spin their wheels with no center prospects. Zegras has been looking like ANH Zegras since the new year but my guess is DB, much like he did with Dvorak, will extend him based on the early season returns.
The Flyers have no plan. Jonesy said earlier that their plan was to outspend everyone else in UFA for the elite talent they need and then admitted that plan had failed before FA even started. How did that even qualify as a plan?
Vladar started one game, that was not an elimination game against a cupcake, and nearly lost it. At one point it was 3 goals on 7/8 SOG and only made 9 saves TOTAL on the game. It remains to be seen if he will get to redeem himself. Hopefully DB does not prematurely give out another 5 yr contract with NMC.
Risto. I just want him to get through the Olympics healthy so he can be traded although i am probably kidding myself on either of those. He’s going to end his career as a Flyer.
Jett. I can’t wait to hear your take on Jett as a 3rd line center in the OHL or his switch to (hybrid) wing. I can’t imagine either bodes well for the Jett fulfilling DB’s reach for a 2nd line center in the NHL or for the absolute log jam at RW. Michkov is going to be permanent at LW (in the defensive zone) isn’t he?
– Agree with JM and Bill 100% on vladar. As well on Zegras. No need to extend at this point.
– Why on earth would Matthews want to come to Philly when he has pick of where to go? Why would Trocheck? No top end players are coming to Philly. They have next to nothing to offer.– Tearing it down to the studs is the most successful path. None is guaranteed. Seems you make excuses for the flyers not to. The flyers way is 100% guaranteed to fail. How much proof do they need to see this is true. None is guaranteed.
– Danny has zero balls to make a big move. He is a scared dog to make a bold trade. They are so far away from legit contention.
– Look at Vladars numbers month by month. Has the clock struck midnight? October looks like an outlier when you look at his career. Let this season play out and the 1st half of next season before you extend. If you extend.
– Will TK and Sanheim ever come to their senses and ask out?
– Way too many players are still too comfortable losing. Look at who has been here for a while.
– No need to buy out ex selke at this point or anytime soon seeing the flyers are nowhere near contention.
Danny has given out way to many extensions already based on 2026 being Go Time. The problem is the Flyers are locked into trying to make the playoffs from here on out because the timelines of everyone he extended and gave NTCs won’t allow a true rebuild. Agree on Vladar and Zegras but again with DB’s timeline, look for him to push his chips into the center of the table sooner rather than later, he’s already got a fair amount in the pot.
The Flyers plan that required them to acquire a 1C through FA in 2026 was a fireable offense and has failed even before they got to UFA season.
I am sooooo sick of people (looking at you Myrt) saying tearing it down is no guarantee as a reason not to do it. Well no shit, nothing is a guarantee, but you can’t win if you don’t play the game. Not everyone gets out alive even if you do everything correct. It definitely is easier to just cash paychecks and talk about next year than to make real change.
The Flyers have not had real change and Flyers media just wants to not rock the boat more than actually hold management accountable for being chicken shit. If they want the big chair they should make big boy decisions but instead they constantly follow the path of least resistance like a 200′ winger in Luchanko who is now no longer a center in the OHL over ceiling.
It’s the Mike Tomlin plan except for the NHL. If they can just get to 8-8, even if does not represent real growth or playoff success, is enough to keep you employed for another year. That’s really the goal here isn’t it?
After joining the Brantford Bulldogs via trade, Luchanko wasn’t exactly blowing the doors off and was quickly buried on the depth chart behind Seattle Kraken prospect Jake O’Brien, the 2025 No. 9 overall pick, and Caleb Malhotra, a top 2026 draft prospect.
But, in the last four games, Luchanko had moved from third line center to first line right wing, flanking O’Brien and 2024 draft classmate Marek Vanacker.Looks like our Flyers nightmare of Jett being the future at center might finally close to being behind us. He couldn’t hack it as a top 6 center on a good team in the OHL, what chance does he have in the NHL? It’s hilarious that his best position might be winger, if he even makes it. So much for DB drafting for need over talent in 2024 and now the Flyers have more wingers than can possibly play in the NHL and still no center prospects.
Vladar
October: .939 SV% (6 games)
November: .894 SV% (9 games)
December: .905 SV% (8 games)
January: .877 SV% (8 games)DB has been busier than Chuck in locking up players long term and NTC clauses and in many cases rushes to do so on small sample size. It’s going to take the next GM 3-5 years to dig out of Danny’s contracts when he’s eventually fired.
What if Vladar finishes the season closer to his career average the last few months? And it turns out one month, October, was the outlier? Do you want to be stuck with that for 5 years because your other options at the time of signing were worse?
There is no rush, take your time, make sure you have the right guy.
Macklin Celebrini, forward, Canada. You expect Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh Penguins), Connor McDavid (Edmonton Oilers) and Nathan MacKinnon (Colorado Avalanche) to dominate in games like this, and they have. But Celebrini, the San Jose Sharks’ 19-year-old phenom, has arrived on the biggest stage, with the biggest stars, and has emphatically showed that he belongs.
Imagine having him represent your team for the next 20 years. Already a star in the NHL and Internationally at 19 years old. On a 120 pt pace at 19. He will put fans in the seats and win games for you.
The Flyers have Jett from that draft, who set a flyers record of being the youngest player to make the team, wooohoooo! 2 years later he still hasn’t played 9 total games or even assisted on a goal. But did you hear, he keeps making the team!
Celebrini most likely will never hit FA and in the remote chance he did, why would he ever pick the Flyers. Both questions are absurd and do not constitute a plan but that’s the extent of the Flyers “plan” for year 3 of their rebuild and it has failed before it even started.
They should do whatever they need to do to draft that talent, but they won’t. Long term thinking is not something they are capable of.
Remember that the Flyers “owed it to the veterans” to not do what it took to draft this guy. Instead they were just going to get a guy just like this in UFA in 2026 by throwing all that comcast money at him. Also remember that they failed to draft another talented player at a cornerstone position, with the pick they did have, who was just traded for a young Norris winning defenseman because they liked a guy who is a gym rat over talent.
When is a plan not a plan?
After admitting that the entire plan was to buy elite talent in the 2026 UFA pool instead of developing it and it had failed, Jones then said that trades, free agency, offer sheets, and anything within the rules are avenues the Flyers are going to explore.
Literally everything every other team does every year. That’s not a plan, that’s a list of things they are allowed to do, in no particular order. Even the original plan (that could be an insult to plans) was like something a 4th grader drew up.
Step 1. Buy elite talent.
Step 2. Done!Well it’s 2026, the Sharks are 3 pts behind the Flyers and have a 19 yr old who will probably eclipse 100+ points by a wide margin. The Flyers have what? Culture! and the 2 Stanley Cups from the 70s that people still talk about for some reason while being stuck in the same endless loop.
The Flyers show all the signs of an organization that has little to no internal communication… nobody ever seems to be on the same page (and that’s been the case for a while now), and it’s why I continually say they’re directionless.
I think part of it are the qualifications of those put in charge. The qualifications mostly stop at being exflyers which in itself has no bearing on running a team capably. DB interning under Fletcher was not a good thing as he was one of the most incompetent GMs during his tenure but he was, if nothing else, a company man who wouldn’t get dressed in the morning without Clarke’s say so.
The Peter Principle
I agree that playing for OT sucks but Tocchet also sucks with his decisions in OT. Michkov hasn’t scored in OT this year because he hasn’t played in OT and still leads the team in OT goals over the last 2 years. 2 goals in 18 games for the Flyers this season is horrific.
Loved the stats breakdown but i wish you could breakdown last year’s stats even further as last season was an adjustment for him and going through multiple coaches,etc. He came into the league and was a point a game the first couple months. I think he was about a 1 PPG through 12/10 last year? Maybe none of that is statistically significant but i feel he had alot to overcome last year – new team, new country, multiple new coaches.
I am glad you agree that the Flyers need to FREE MICHKOV! after the olympic break. For god sake let him take some OT shifts. Development, not wins is what’s important.
I still don’t think Tocchet is the right coach for a rebuilding team and Front office apparently agrees as Jonesy keeps telling us that he has to remind the coaches to play the young kids and DB keeps (erroneously imo and probably more for his own sake in keeping his job) keeps talking about the playoffs instead of acquiring more talent.
What are your thoughts on Pronger’s insights?
“I don’t know any team — any team — that rebuilds with a winger,” Pronger said. “I don’t know one good team who rebuilt with a winger. You don’t rebuild with a winger, you rebuild up the middle — center, defense, goalie. I know you [draft] the best player available, and clearly he was the best player, but as it relates to that, sometimes you have to luck out, too, in a rebuild and get the right pick when the right player is available.”
In January, Pronger posted on X that those centerpiece players are the hardest to find, and the Flyers need to be patient and deliberate about compiling assets to make those moves if they become available. But he also suggested that the best way to rebuild is to tear it all the way down, like San Jose and Chicago have done, for a chance at landing a player like Macklin Celebrini or Connor Bedard.
“I don’t know any team — any team — that rebuilds with a winger,” Pronger said. “I don’t know one good team who rebuilt with a winger. You don’t rebuild with a winger, you rebuild up the middle — center, defense, goalie. I know you [draft] the best player available, and clearly he was the best player, but as it relates to that, sometimes you have to luck out, too, in a rebuild and get the right pick when the right player is available.”
In January, Pronger posted on X that those centerpiece players are the hardest to find, and the Flyers need to be patient and deliberate about compiling assets to make those moves if they become available. But he also suggested that the best way to rebuild is to tear it all the way down, like San Jose and Chicago have done, for a chance at landing a player like Macklin Celebrini or Connor Bedard.
Who would’ve thought?
