From The Athletic - Flyers Poll/Survey (Part 1)

[pilldoc]

The Athletic has a poll/survey running on the State of the Union for the Flyers.  I will be posting some of their questions. 

 

They listed a lot of questions.  Here is Part 1.

 

Comment below for these 3 questions only.

[mojo1917]

@pilldoc

You improved upon the OG like you're BASF.

 

For question 1 I chose 3.

I don't think the organization is healthy by any stretch. I do think a coach, playing philosophy, and some new players will go a long way toward making the team entertaining.

As long as the team continues to grow from the point where the coach is hired, I think they can be in the upper tier of teams in the East in a couple/3  years.

 

For question 2 I chose all of the above.

21/22 was a perfect **** storm.

I started the year having some hope.

The Flyers traded a passer for a shooter. Two young guys for a top pairing player in what appeared to be a hockey trade. Got a guy who would play physically and could play 2nd unit powerplay for, a lot of assets, But he had a good attitude and was excited to come to the team.

That team could have been good.

 

I've been on record for not liking Comcast Spectacor. I don't think I buy into Paul Holmgren's puppet master status especially after the Hextall business.

I don't think the senior advisors give the best advice either.

But I cannot believe a bunch of 70 plus year olds are creating a team ruining cabal in the E suite.

 

For question 3 .

I picked Comcast/Scott.

They brought a bunch of corporate yahoos in from Denver who didn't understand the city's sports passion and mindset. They ignored the team's legacy and did little to improve upon it. They thought they could minor league cookie cutter their way to profits regardless of the team's success and that just isn't how PHI does things.

 

[pilldoc]

2 hours ago, mojo1917 said:

For question 1 I chose 3.

I don't think the organization is healthy by any stretch. I do think a coach, playing philosophy, and some new players will go a long way toward making the team entertaining.

 

Absolutely agree.  I think this organization has been unhealthy for many years for a myriad of reasons.

 

2 hours ago, mojo1917 said:

For question 2 I chose all of the above.

21/22 was a perfect **** storm.

 

Again agree ..... I really thought the original question needed an "all above" choice because it really was the perfect storm for everything to go wrong.  Injuries are going to happen, but when there is no stable foundation to withstand said injuries, then you get a season like the Flyers had last year.

 

The foundation has been eroding for years now.  

 

2 hours ago, mojo1917 said:

For question 3 .

I picked Comcast/Scott.

They brought a bunch of corporate yahoos in from Denver who didn't understand the city's sports passion and mindset. They ignored the team's legacy and did little to improve upon it. They thought they could minor league cookie cutter their way to profits regardless of the team's success and that just isn't how PHI does things.

 

yup ... again, great minds think alike.  Though the likes of the good ol boys certainly does not help as they are stuck in a Flyers 80's mentality.  I love Clark and Barber as players not as FO manager/advisors.

[pilldoc]

So the results are in ......  I will posting the results from The Athletic for each question. 

 

No surprise on the first question .....

 

 

It’s little surprise that the fans’ view of the health of the Flyers organization graded out so poorly, after a season that saw the team finish with the fourth-worst record in the NHL. But it’s the stark decline in the organization’s performance by this question over the past three seasons that is the most eye-opening.

• 2020 average score: 4.15
• 2021 average score: 2.66
• 2022 average score: 1.77

[pilldoc]

Well, this question and the next one strongly hint at who the surveyed fans blame most for the Flyers’ two-year collapse: Chuck Fletcher.

 

In fairness, the 2021 offseason isn’t a majority answer — significant portions pin last season’s debacle on the players (28.7 percent), and nearly a quarter are far more charitable and accept the organization’s “excuse” that injuries — namely, the season-ending ones to Sean Couturier and Ryan Ellis — as the biggest explanation for the club’s awful performance. But it is a significant plurality, with 42.5 percent arguing that the front office deserves the largest share of blame.

 

It’s a dramatic shift from the immediate response to 2020-21. After that season, 52.1 percent of respondents thought that it was the players who had failed most, with the front office coming in third (15.1 percent) behind the organization’s primary excuse that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic had uniquely torpedoed that campaign. This season, the “excuse” answer dropped to third, and it’s the Fletcher front office that gets the bulk of blame. An intriguing shift.

 

 

[pilldoc]

 

Similar question, but a bit more granular in assigning blame. And yup, it’s Fletcher who our surveyed group blames the most, with nearly a third citing him as the biggest reason for where the Flyers stand. Comcast Spectacor — in other words, ownership — is a close second, but as Question No. 12 will show, that frustration is likely directly related to the overarching exasperation with Fletcher’s work as GM.

 

A few other interesting observations? First, our group of nearly 2,000 doesn’t buy that it’s been poor coaching that has caused the Flyers’ recent malaise — while it wouldn’t be shocking if many in this group haven’t been satisfied with the coaches’ work since 2021, it’s also true that Fletcher is the one hiring the coaches, so the underlying belief here could be that the failure is ultimately on him, even if the coaches haven’t gotten the most out of the roster.

 

Also, former GM Ron Hextall checks in with 14.5 percent of the vote, which isn’t insignificant, but also is probably lower than Flyers senior adviser Bob Clarke would want it to be, given his comments to the Cam and Strick podcast in January, which strongly implied that he pinned a large portion of the Flyers’ current issues on Hextall’s actions as GM. The fans clearly aren’t buying that.

[CoachX]

I'm pretty sure I voted for every winning category

 

I'm just that insightful 

[TropicalFruitGirl26]

@pilldoc

I've been wanting to participate in these from the beginning, but stayed out of it because I got the feeling it was to gauge actual Flyer fans assessment on their team.
Now that it seems the majority of those who are going to participate already have (and these got unpinned), I will put in my own takes, as an outside observer, but staying neutral (no rival fandom interfering with honest answers on my part), but I will just put them in the posting sections and will NOT vote so as not to skew the results from the intended Flyer fanbase.

My takes on these questions will never matter as much as the true Flyer fan, but perhaps reading what someone from the outside, who DOES pay attention to teams league wide, has to say, would make an interesting compare and contrast to what the fanbase is saying.
For me, it will just be fun.
I've done some of these on teams other than my own before on other sites, and usually, the fanbase whose team I am commenting on has shown appreciation for my honest outside comments....or simply laughed and thought I was out of my blonde gourd.

Either way, these things are always fun exercises in thought and postulation....even if some fans think I spent one too many nights out in alligator alley drinking the water and eating geckos, squirrels, and indigo snakes  

[TropicalFruitGirl26]

1. On a scale of 1-5, how would you rate the overall health of the Flyers Organization? (1 = least healthy -> 5 = most healthy)

 

I would vote the notch just above least healthy.
I don't have a lot of knowledge on the Flyer system, but based on how some of their prospects performed at both the NHL and AHL levels, I'd say it isn't good. I mean, the AHL team didn't even look good this year if I am not mistaken.

That said, since I DON'T know the full of the system, there could possibly be some underachieving players or some guys who have yet to "get it" (and might in the next season or two), that others may not know about, so I hesitate to say completely unhealthy.

 

 

2. What do you believe was the biggest reason the 2021-22 Philadelphia Flyers season played out as it did?

 

On this, I honestly blame number 3, Poor Offseason Moves and Team Building.
I think this is pretty apparent. Sure, there were elements of some of those other things put as answers, but the bottom line is, this team simply isn't built competitively on the ice, on the cap, in the age department, and in what fans can expect moving forward.
Which leads to.....

3. Which person/group do you view as the most culpable for the Flyers current predicament?

 

It is pretty easy to blame CF for a lot of this, and indeed, he SHOULD shoulder much of the blame, but what about the entity that put CF in the GM seat in the first place?
I would answer Comcast Spectacor.

Bad decisions from the top, lead to bad hirings, which lead to bad decisions by those bad hires, which lead to low player morale and stunted development....or even stunted IDENTIFICATION of who the players are that should be kept and the ones that should be let go.

Almost all of those other answers can likely be traced back to the head of the snake, so to speak, Comcast at the top, not doing a very good job at THEIR position.
Senior advisement group? Meh....even if they are asked about things, "advisor" means just that, advising. And if the "advice" is bad, and current management takes it, well, we are back to blaming the top once again, aren't we? 

[ruxpin]

7 hours ago, TropicalFruitGirl26 said:

1. On a scale of 1-5, how would you rate the overall health of the Flyers Organization? (1 = least healthy -> 5 = most healthy)

 

I would vote the notch just above least healthy.
I don't have a lot of knowledge on the Flyer system, but based on how some of their prospects performed at both the NHL and AHL levels, I'd say it isn't good. I mean, the AHL team didn't even look good this year if I am not mistaken.

That said, since I DON'T know the full of the system, there could possibly be some underachieving players or some guys who have yet to "get it" (and might in the next season or two), that others may not know about, so I hesitate to say completely unhealthy.

 

 

2. What do you believe was the biggest reason the 2021-22 Philadelphia Flyers season played out as it did?

 

On this, I honestly blame number 3, Poor Offseason Moves and Team Building.
I think this is pretty apparent. Sure, there were elements of some of those other things put as answers, but the bottom line is, this team simply isn't built competitively on the ice, on the cap, in the age department, and in what fans can expect moving forward.
Which leads to.....

3. Which person/group do you view as the most culpable for the Flyers current predicament?

 

It is pretty easy to blame CF for a lot of this, and indeed, he SHOULD shoulder much of the blame, but what about the entity that put CF in the GM seat in the first place?
I would answer Comcast Spectacor.

Bad decisions from the top, lead to bad hirings, which lead to bad decisions by those bad hires, which lead to low player morale and stunted development....or even stunted IDENTIFICATION of who the players are that should be kept and the ones that should be let go.

Almost all of those other answers can likely be traced back to the head of the snake, so to speak, Comcast at the top, not doing a very good job at THEIR position.
Senior advisement group? Meh....even if they are asked about things, "advisor" means just that, advising. And if the "advice" is bad, and current management takes it, well, we are back to blaming the top once again, aren't we? 

Yes on everything. Very well-reasoned post.

 

This doesn't undermine your overall conclusion regarding Comcast (which is huge despite the fact it's other divisions are also run poorly. Talk about a behemoth badly in need of several spin-offs/divestitures).

 

Quote

Senior advisement group? Meh....even if they are asked about things, "advisor" means just that, advising.

 

Not exactly in this case.  They actually have quite a lot more direct influence than the comical nomenclature would indicate.

 

But that only ultimately strengthens your conclusion regarding Comcast Spectacor.