elmatus

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Fletch has been clear on the aggressive retool from the start. I highly doubt he's just going to sit on his hands. There's no way he's just going to ice the same failed roster again next season. Not to mention I'm sure Torts will be pushing to bring in some players he happens to like, whether from his time in Columbus or just in general. I'd be curious to know which players he has in mind actually. Nick Foligno (might be too old)? Boone Jenner (entirely possible)? Seth Jones (if CLS would choose to move him)?

That doesn’t sound anything like an aggressive retool. It sounds suspiciously like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. That line up is not good enough to compete. We know that already.

I agree. Moreover, even if Fletch had a change of heart about any of those three, the return on them would not be great. They'd have to be part of a package designed to get them out of our hair. They're not the kind of players traded to bolster a team. JVR is too past his prime to be worth much, Hayes has a horrendous contract, and Risto is a negative factor on the ice. Team's are not going to be offering any kind of significant team-changing players for any of those guys. I could see JVR being moved, but it will be for peanuts. That or they'll just buy him out, which is probably the most likely scenario. The other two will almost certainly be on the roster come next season. Which is exactly why I brought up the other guys. If Fletch really wants to aggressively retool in any real way, it will have to mean trading away someone who does actually have value. Unfortunately this roster doesn't have all that many players who offer that value. We basically have: 1. Couts: Clearly the most valuable on the team. He's a top six two-way center who's always in the selke conversation. That's worth quite a lot, especially to contenders. He's probably the only player we have who could be a sort of one-for-one, above-average player Torts would really like to have on the team. 2. Provo, Farabee, TK, Sanheim: These guys would likely have to be part of a package to land any kind of top flight talent, but I'm sure they would be enticing to teams who feel their window is closing and who want to move aging players with good track records for young players with potential. 3. Frost, York: Probably more sweeteners than major pieces of a trade. They have unproven potential that might similarly be enticing to teams looking to stock up for a rebuild. Alone, they wouldn't fetch any real kind of immediate high impact return, but combined with other things they might. There's also Hart, but I'm highly doubtful Hart will be on the table right now. Maybe if Torts ends up not liking him or something, but for now I'm pretty confident he's safe. Laughton is an interesting player in a way. If there was a fourth point up there, he'd probably be in it (along with maybe Brink). I'm actually very curious about him. On the one hand, he's the kind of guy contenders wanting depth might ask for to bolster their bottom six and give them options, on the other hand, Laughton seems like exactly the kind of player Torts likes having on his teams. The big question mark would be whether the return would be worth it given Laughton's age, and whether Torts takes an immediate liking to him, which I wouldn't be surprised to see happen.

Between Torts and the aggressive retool, I’m very curious to see what this roster looks like in the fall. Realistically, if Fletch and co want to dramatically change this team, they’ll have to dangle way more than JVR, Hayes, Risto (lol). If they’re serious about an overhaul, it would mean moving some amount of Couts, Provo, TK, Farabee, Sanheim, and 1st round picks (which are likely to be very high for at least a few years). They could also probably get something decent for packages involving Frost, York, and maybe even Brink. That’s the short list of players we have that could be interesting to other teams. I’m curious to see how many of them move before next season. Also, more than likely it would mean bringing back some amount of players who are say 28-32 years old, and who Torts in particular wants to have on his team. Some amount of players he’s had on teams before might fit the bill, much like how AV went to bat hard for Hayes. I wonder what players Torts would push to get (again likely 28-32+ years old), with the understanding the current players i noted above would likely be part of any deals made.

I can appreciate that. That's a very valid point. The internet is a double-edged sword for sure when it comes to that, and in so many other ways. I'm not old enough to remember the 80s, and I wasn't born in the 70s. I mostly remember Lindros and on. The internet wasn't what it is today back then either, but for whatever reasons I remember liking Lindros and the LoD. I'm not from Philly. I'm not even American. Watching a guy come into the league and turn virtually all comers into putty was enough for me at the time. I started rooting for this team not because of place or any kind of patriotic affiliation. I was a teenage hockey fan and liked those players at a time when I was very impressionable, and it stuck. Without liking the people involved, I wouldn't be a fan of this team at all. Granted, I obviously prefer them winning just like anyone else here, but I want more than just that. Anyway, this feels like it all went a bit off the rails. Clearly Torts is the guy for the next few years. I wish him all the luck in the world. Maybe this is finally the time where he can learn to not be a complete d*** to everyone and everything that dares to look at him funny. I really don't think him being in the position is going to make much difference anyway. I'll just stay away from press conferences and anything "behind the scenes" and hope he doesn't ruin the few semi-shiny pieces we actually have.

That's a solid question, and I agree it's one we tend to overlook a lot. Maybe not so much right now, since many of us here at least seem to understand the current team is years away from competing for anything but a bubble spot at best. But you're right. The benchmark for success for Torts can't be winning a cup. That's ridiculous. The team needs far too many things for that to happen in any short term. A coach can't suddenly make players more talented or skilled, and that is easily our biggest need right now. My worry is more so the wasted time I feel this will amount to. That's not necessarily on Torts either though. That's really a front office thing. This seeming refusal to see the actual state of this team is aggravating. The number one thing on my wishlist right now would be for Fletch to come out and state the facts: This team does not have the pieces to compete for a cup. We need to draft and develop some number of elite players, and we're not going to be truly competitive until that happens. Full stop. Now I don't like Torts. I guess it may as well be him? It doesn't really matter though. As long as the brass continue to live in a fantasy land, we're going to be dealing with the same mediocrity at best. Next season is not going to be a great year, regardless of who is coaching. Bring in a healthy Couts and a semi-healthy team behind him, and maybe we can fight for a bubble spot. That doesn't seem like a great step forward to me, but I guess? The problem I think is that I want more out of a team than just hockey. I want to like the people involved. I don't always, but my fondest years as a fan are those where I like certain players or the coach or even the front office. I liked Giroux. I like Couts still. I liked Provo, though his reaction to last season's failures seem childish to me. I thought AV was a solid hire. I liked Hexy at the time, and I was very engaged in his build from the bottom approach. It didn't work of course, but I liked it. I liked it despite the team being mediocre for that whole period in time. I don't like Torts. I've come to dislike Fletch now too, though not really for the same reasons. Torts is a tool. Fletch is just inept despite himself. Maybe that shouldn't matter to me, but it does. It kind of matters more right now actually, where the team itself is bound to not be very good. If at least I liked some of the people involved, that might be a bit of a pick me up, just as it was during the Hexy days. Now I don't even have that to look forward to. That's a me thing obviously. Everyone's going to have their take, and I'm sure many don't care about any of that as much as I do. That's fine. I can only speak for myself, but that's a big reason why I don't like this hire. A guy like that isn't someone I can bring myself to like, and that matters to me.

Yes? His best years were when he lucked out coaching a stacked Bolts team, and he's been riding that success ever since. I didn't think that was a big secret. There's a good reason why he's interviewing for this position and not as HC of a contender or high potential team right now. More importantly though, he's a placeholder coach, which would be true of pretty much any coach. I think someone like Trotz or maybe Cassidy (though his body of work is a lot shorter) could have possibly laid the groundwork for better seasons down the line, which is probably the best case scenario for this team right now. I don't have that same confidence in Tortorella. All he's going to do is act like a child, pull some tantrums for a couple seasons, and he'll be out the door. That's just what he does.

Maybe this is the problem for me. I've never really liked trainwreck style reality TV shows, and I absolutely think that's 100% what Torts will bring to this team. He's done that everywhere he's gone, several of which were actually with some better rosters than what he'll have to work with here. Honestly, this makes me far less interested in next season. I imagine I'll tune in to start the season, but I can see myself getting fed up with the antics pretty quickly and just disengaging by xmas. Bringing in an actual good coach might have made me perk up for longer -- I was interested when they brought AV -- but a guy like Torts just screams garbage hockey to me, and I'm not sure I'm very interested. I'm sure some will enjoy him in front of a mic, as some folks seem to enjoy watching that sort of thing, but that's not me. Time to hibernate for a season or two while the storm passes I think.

Yeah, this is definitely the challenge. I think Cassidy would be an interesting try, certainly better than some other names getting floated *cough tortorella cough*, but the bigger question to ask isn't whether this team could use a guy like Cassidy, it's whether a guy like Cassidy would be interested in this team. Some of the names bandied about I can see, as they're likely not getting calls from a bunch of other teams, but a guy like Cassidy or Trots... I dunno. Those are guy who will get other offers, and the current Flyers are so far away from relevance, I somehow doubt they would choose Philly in that case. I do hope Fletch is calling him up though. Who knows, maybe Cassidy is interested in an uphill challenge. Also, why am I a newbie?

This -- so much this. I haven't heard of any of this year's draft class being the kind of guy who should definitely be on an NHL team next season. I could see MTL rushing Wright, though I'm not convinced even that would be a good idea. But I'm 100% with @OccamsRazor in that we need to start being patient with these players. Sure, you occasionally get the McDavid, Matthews, whatever types who are NHL ready from the start, but those guys are rare. That should never be the expectation. We can talk about this when we snag Bedard -- not Savoie, and even less any kind of dman. And as far as Ellis goes, history suggests we should not expect him to play a full season. In 11 NHL seasons, he's played more than 70 games only four times. He's had less than 60 the rest of the time, including three recent seasons under 50 GP. I don't know whether he'll come back, but it seems prudent to suggest he's not the kind of player who plays a full season anyway.

What Fletch should aim for this off season is trying to move both Hayes and Risto. He won't do either of course, but he should. Both of them are on bad contracts that will only get worse and continue hampering this team's ability to rebuild. In the case of Risto, I think moving him is addition by subtraction anyway. JVR it would be nice if he could have a somewhat okay year next season, just so he'd be fairly moveable by the trade deadline. It's hard to imagine that happening, but he did have a decent season not so long ago. Maybe he can do it again. That would be a great parting gift to a franchise who gave him too much money for too little reward. If he could be moved for some sort of set involving a 2nd round pick or something, that would seem good to me. As far as signings go, I'm not really sure anyone stands out all that much. There are always some over the hill vets around to snag, and I wouldn't be opposed to that necessarily. I just really hope Fletch doesn't overpay for any of them, like he did Hayes and now Risto. Given what he did for those two, I don't feel confident in his ability to obtain proper value on his signings. It seems rather more likely that he'll overpay for someone's services, especially if Giroux doesn't come back on some sort of loyalty discount.

Part of me would love to see Trots hired. I'm not sure he'd want to come mind you, or that the team currently is in a position to really benefit from his skill, but I won't cry if it turns out he's the coach starting next season. That said, part of me isn't really sure it matters a ton. If he were to be hired, I hope it's on a fairly lengthy contract, and he can stay for some years while the team (hopefully) manages to draft a few studs. I'm pretty doubtful just having Trots will make this into that much better of a team. It feels like a worth a shot moment, but I won't expect a deep playoff run in 2022-23 even if he does get hired. Or, you know, even making the playoffs at all frankly... I'm also curious as to what Giroux will choose to do after this playoffs. If he doesn't come back, it's very hard for me to imagine next season as anything but worse than this one. Trots has coached relatively talent-light teams before, and he's managed to do better than many coaches can (Nashville), but it took him going to a team that had high end talent before he really found success (Washington). In short, he's a great coach and I would be happy for the hire, but I don't think it would address our main problem of just not having enough top end talent around. Still, I'll take it for sure, and I do hope Fletch has reached out to him already with some very serious offers. And yeah, somehow snagging Bedard in 2023 would be a pretty phenomenal kick start to the rebuild--oh, sorry, "aggressive retool".

There was a point in game two where he managed to shut down Ovi very well for several shifts in a row, and i thought to myself how much better he looked out there than Risto ever has. That was a sad moment.

just the speed difference alone is so ridiculous. The puck goes from back end to shot on goal lightning fast. I’d love to see G win a cup, but I’m not sure about this Panthers defense, and playoff Bob is playoff Bob until proven otherwise. Their firepower up front though is absurd.

Yeah, I could see that. It seems too simple to be the whole story, but it may very well be a part of it. I also think good players become great when they have other great players pushing them to be better. With really just one exception, this team has lacked top talent for years now. It’s possible TK would see a resurgence if he had an even better player around to compare to. That’s not me saying you’re wrong though. I could see what you’ve noted as being part of the issue too. With the possible exception of AV, who i do think was a good coach trying to do much with little, other coaches we’ve had during the Giroux era have been pretty terrible. i don’t think it’s just one thing. Is bad player management part of it? Very likely. Is bad coaching part? Definitely. Have they also just frankly lacked the talent to truly contend? Absolutely. It’s almost certainly all of these things, and probably not great luck sprinkled in too (e.g Patrick) Ultimately though, this stuff only matters insofar as the brass will do something about them. That seems unlikely right now, as evidenced by the “aggressive retool” mentality. This team needs an overhaul not a paint job.

it’s a fair question. I don’t think either of them just decided they don’t care anymore, so what else could be the reasons?

it feels like a canoe trying to compete in a league of speed boats.

I just don’t buy the logic that these players don’t try hard enough. These guys are professionals in a league that requires absurd discipline to make in the first place, let alone stick around once there. It’s far more logical to assume they are trying their best, but their best isn’t good enough to contend, both individually and collectively. Getting a guy to “keep them accountable” feels odd to me. They’re not children. Most of them are probably way harder on themselves than any coach would be.

There are very few coaches I just truly can't stand, but Torts is absolutely on that list. He turns out to be an embarrassment everywhere he goes imo. His only use is as a laugh track when he decides it's a good idea to go full turdface and spar with some local writer or another. This team needs a coach who can guide and help develop young talent (and we need to acquire said young talent). Torts can barely speak through two sentences without throwing a pre-teen tantrum. I have no interest in watching him act like my irate 80 year old neighbour every week because some player or another didn't face dive into a slap shot hard enough for his liking. We need someone who will act like a professional -- not a middle school bully.

Yeah, I agree completely. If I'm being honest, I was cautiously hopeful when Fletch was signed. I remember thinking maybe that would work out actually. It didn't seem obvious to me that it would, but it didn't feel impossible either. Now though, that's a different story. AV is a successful NHL coach. He achieved little to no success here. There are two things we can draw from this: Either all that previous success was mostly luck, or the team he was asked to work with just isn't as good as many hoped they would be. Given how they were already not so great before AV dropped in, and they were not so great after he eventually left, it seems to me the second option is far more likely. And fair enough, this league seems to be working in tiers nowadays anyway. There are say 7-8 top tier teams who are clearly better than the rest, then a second tier of ten or so who are all about equal and can punch up on occasion, and there's this sort of bottom tier who in a good year might be on the bubble. The team we have is in that latter tier, and they have been for a decade plus now. It's irrational to suggest otherwise at this point. My beef with Fletch now is he's essentially just a lame duck. If he's going to stay, he should be tasked with rebuilding this team properly, cause that's what it needs. I can forgive the powers-that-be for thinking they might have been a good coach and 1-2 pieces away back when Fletch was hired, but I'm tired of the fantasy now. It's time to move on, and delaying it is only setting us further back. But hey, bring on Bedard!

Yeah, I think so too. I honestly wouldn't have been surprised to see him gone after this season, but it's equally unsurprising to see him getting one last chance. His rhetoric definitely bothers me though. It feels to me like he's being tasked with doing something that likely can't be done by anyone. He's talking about it in media like it's possible, but I'd be curious to know if he really believes it behind closed doors. As far as I see it, this team is not going to be significantly better next season. I can't see how they would be. If they get a ton of luck, they could potentially return as a bubble team, but that's about the most I'll give them. And to be honest, I wouldn't put money on that either. The safer bet is this team ends up in the bottom ten next season again. I'll be curious to see if Giroux comes back. That would be a possible way for them to get back into the bubble picture. I don't think Giroux gets them any further than that though, and whose to say he can even do that anymore. With him maybe they go from bottom ten to bottom fifteen. I'm not sure I'd give them any more than that. There's just too much missing from this team. Fletch has run this team as if it's one that only needs 1-2 key pieces to compete, and now he's talking aggressive retool. Either he believes that to be true, or those are the marching orders he's been given from on high. Either way, that doesn't bode well for us fans unfortunately. The last decade has been awful for Flyers fandom, and it doesn't look like we're out of the woods yet.

This is the tricky bit though. No one knows this to be the case for sure at the NHL level. It's all just no small amount of speculation. Now granted, given where the team is at, everyone's grasping at straws and speculation is itself a means of holding on to some amount of hope, but that doesn't make it reasonable. I'm not saying Laz is a bad player or anything of the sort, I'm just wary about saying he can replace someone like Laughton. It wasn't so long ago Laughton was lauded as the guy who had a great scoring touch and who might be a top six centre in the league. He turned out to not be quite that level of guy, but he's a good soldier and player to have around in a bottom six role. Imo, the best case scenario is a guy like Laz ending up about as good as Laughton. I doubt he'll be better. That to me sounds like underselling Laughton and quite likely overselling Laz. Of course we need those bottom six guys too! Being a bottom six player in the NHL is still very important and remarkable... it's just not nearly enough to win cups.

Isn’t that the reason for this forum to exist?

As others have said, no one's going to take this guy off our hands unless we pay them to do so. He was a bad player before he came here, and he's a bad player now. He's astoundingly one-dimensional, and that dimension is getting woefully out of position to try and make big hits. That's it, and that's just not a good modern NHL dman period. The proper course of action was A) not to sign him in the first place, as this was all very obvious; or B) absolutely do not resign him after he proved without a doubt he was exactly the garbage defender he's always been even after a change of scenery. Here's how that conversation went in the last off-season: (Homer, probably): "The problem with this team is they're too easy to push around. What we need most is a dman who is a physical presence and who will make opposing players pay. We should get Ristolainen." (Fletch, probably): "I'm pretty sure he's not from Minnesota, but I can probably get him anyway I guess?" (Homer, probably): "He'll be a big name, so you may have to spend more than you might want to, but given this is clearly the biggest need we have right now, it's worth it for sure. And besides, the fans love bruisers here. He'll be a fan favourite just with the hits." (Fletch, probably): "Sure thing boss." (Someone who doesn't exist): "I mean... this isn't 1990 anymore guys. I feel like the game has changed a lot. He's been pretty awful at actually playing defense. Maybe our priority shouldn't just be guys that hit, but rather effective NHL-level dmen who are good are preventing goals against?" (Homer, probably): "Are you saying we're wimps? I dare you to say that to my face." (The person who doesn't exist but should): "Umm... no, I'm saying maybe just hitting things isn't exactly the best quality in a modern NHL dman... I mean, look at the best dmen around the last two decades... very few of them were bruisers." (Fletch, probably): "I mean... he kind of has a point too, doesn't he Homie?" (Homer, probably): "No, he's exactly what's wrong with the world today. And he has to leave, right now. There's no place for wimps here in the Flyers organization." (The only sane person in the room who again completely doesn't exist): "What? You serious? Fine. Guess I'll go work for Colorado."

That's the problem though, there is no getting those guys. I thought this thread was an NHL build a team type thing? It's pretty clear we're not being realistic in here