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Plus, as for UFAs, there are none I would consider an improvement over what they already have or a needle mover. It will have to be a trade or an offer sheet if they intend to acquire a difference maker at C. A top UFA center just does not exist this offseason.
The main issue I have is, who are these quality free agents? The list of UFA’s is pretty bare when it comes to difference making players.
I am all in on this team making the playoffs, because if they don’t, it will be a disaster. Another year on the outside looking in, but this time with a draft pick in the late teens. I feel like they will be offer sheeting Fantilli or Carlsson because that is the only way they get a true #1 center.
Deslauriers traded to the Canes for a conditional 7th round pick. I wonder what the condition is? LOL
They better get to work and get Jiricek a skating coach. Dude skates like he has one leg. The franchise has done pretty well with guys who were drafted as poor skaters. Foerster and Brink come to mind.
Is it ironic that had Michklov not been on the ice because he just served a penalty, that he probably wouldn’t have been on the ice at all to score the game winner?
I see it this way. The elite teams that have won the cup over the past 2 decades have mostly the same things in common. They draft the elite talent first, especially at C, 1D and goalie, and then build the team around those elite parts through signings and development of the lesser draft picks.
The Flyers strategy SEEMS to be draft the lesser parts (with a FEW exceptions) and try to sign the elite talent through FA. This will result in overpaying for your talent and missing out on those cost controlled years. Yes they have Michkov and hopefully Martone on the (hopefully elite) level, but they are wings, so right there you are behind the 8 ball.
They keep talking about drafting “Flyers type players”. But Flyers type players haven’t won a cup in 50 years. Calling it CULTURE is a pablum. Every team that wins has culture. Winning breeds culture, not the other way around. Not without the talent to get it done.
The result is what we have now and will continue to have for the foreseeable future. A hard working team that lacks elite talent and will never be able to beat a hard working team that HAS elite talent. Culture and hard work is not some exclusively Flyers trait, though they would have you believe it is.
So lets recap, they lack elite talent, especially at the important positions, they have no elite talent in the pipeline despite having MANY high draft picks over the past few years. And are getting a less realistic chance to draft that elite talent as they rise “slightly” into the lower end of bubble territory.
The FA agent market is already thin and getting thinner. So what is the plan? Throw a Max deal at McDavid? Yeah sure…..
Trade some of the wings for a young center who could fill the 1C role? I guess.
They seem to think they can win with depth over talent. I guess they need to find some of the depth, since they lack in that department as well…..
Its very disheartening.
The only realistic way they get a “top six” C, let alone a #1 center is to trade for one. Im hoping they can identify a team that lacks wing depth and maybe find a need for need trade. Tippett for Wright has been mentioned. Robert Thomas has been mentioned but I think the Flyers would really have to pay an uncomfortable price for the Blues (and Thomas) to consider it. I’m talking Michkov or Martone. (plus that NTC, cap hit and term)
I wonder if something like Tippett and Toronto’s 1st gets you Wright and a pick or prospect from Seattle? Maybe Julius Miettinen? Is Jake O’Brien (instead of Wright) available? These are the kinds of deals Briere is “hopefully” pursuing.
Who knows, maybe they keep falling and get a realistic chance to draft someone like Tynan Lawrence or Caleb Malhotra.
Briere has some serious thinking to do over this break. The team is falling hard and fast out of the playoff hunt, but as usual, not far enough to get a real shot at a difference maker in the draft. They needs centers in the worst way, and he needs to start seriously thinking about dealing some of that winger depth for a center.
Shane Wright for Tippett has gained some traction in the internets. Would both sides entertain a deal like that? I hope Briere is working the phones because this team needs impact centers even more so than D in my opinion. They have none on the team or in the system, that is a fact.
I think its just a case of the team playing over its head for a long stretch and now its catching up to them with the condensed schedule. As we have seen the past few seasons, this team needs to be balls to the wall every game to overcome their lack of high end talent. As more talented teams ramp up, their effort level rises up to where the Flyers have already been. Its unsustainable to play a whole season like that IMO.
So now they have $16.9 million tied up in three bottom 6 centers for the foreseeable future. Two who will be in their 30’s. I understand the “cap is going up” pablum is supposed to make that more palatable. I don’t have a problem with the cap hit per-se, I just don’t like the term. I think it is 2 years too long, really 3 years, but I doubt they were going to get him for 2 years.
Add to that the system is chock full of bottom 6 center prospects with no top line 1C or 2C anywhere to be seen, the Flyers have a problem. FA is already bare and they will have to be VERY lucky to find one via trade (without an hefty overpay) or drafting in perpetual “Bubble” land moving forward.
I wonder who will do the radio for the next two games?
