Flyers are a bottom five team, what are the desired plans for the rebuild we don't need?

[flyercanuck]

7 hours ago, ruxpin said:

 

 

Holmgren, in particular, is demonstrably and factually among the worst coaches, GMs and presidents in the history of this franchise and the argument is support is as ridiculous as it is realistically delusional.

 

The Flyers haven't won a cup since Holmgren became a fulltime member of the team. He joined them as a mediocre player in 1976. They lost the cup that year and have never won one since.

He was a worse coach than player. His first year the Flyers went .500. The next year they were dead last in their division, 4th worst in the league. Then 2nd last in the division, 6th worst in the league. Then last in the division, 5th worst in the league. Then he was fired. He coached Hartford to 5th worst in league, 3rd worst in league and then was fired after coaching his teams to missing the playoffs 6 years in a row. 

So of course he was re-hired by the Flyers after showing such brilliance as Director of Pro Scouting. With the 23 draft picks over 3 seasons and Homer directing the way the Flyers lined their prospect cupboards with Brian Boucher, Danius Zubrus and Todd Fedoruk.

 

Thats it.

 

With that kind of sheer excellence you know a promotion was forthcoming, so assistant GM it was. 

 

Then on to GM where he left the franchise in complete shambles. 

 

Promoted, of course, to el Presidente'. And brought in the only GM on the planet that could make his own terrible moves look ...almost not as terrible. 

 

And here we are. 

[ruxpin]

9 minutes ago, flyercanuck said:

 

The Flyers haven't won a cup since Holmgren became a fulltime member of the team. He joined them as a mediocre player in 1976. They lost the cup that year and have never won one since.

He was a worse coach than player. His first year the Flyers went .500. The next year they were dead last in their division, 4th worst in the league. Then 2nd last in the division, 6th worst in the league. Then last in the division, 5th worst in the league. Then he was fired. He coached Hartford to 5th worst in league, 3rd worst in league and then was fired after coaching his teams to missing the playoffs 6 years in a row. 

So of course he was re-hired by the Flyers after showing such brilliance as Director of Pro Scouting. With the 23 draft picks over 3 seasons and Homer directing the way the Flyers lined their prospect cupboards with Brian Boucher, Danius Zubrus and Todd Fedoruk.

 

Thats it.

 

With that kind of sheer excellence you know a promotion was forthcoming, so assistant GM it was. 

 

Then on to GM where he left the franchise in complete shambles. 

 

Promoted, of course, to el Presidente'. And brought in the only GM on the planet that could make his own terrible moves look ...almost not as terrible. 

 

And here we are. 

Simply accurate.  It just is.

[icehole]

9 hours ago, GratefulFlyers said:

 

Holmgren/Clarke weren't terrible in everything. They can ID talent and in 20 years they both found some good players. But read what @flyercanuck wrote then you can see why it looked like (I'd say "it's obvious") there was no plan. Sign some talent, give them a few years and when they inevitably come up short deal them away. Great. But why inevitably? Because in all those years they never once prioritized goaltending. After Pelle the Flyers settled for backups, has-beens or never-beens in net. Until Bob, who they promptly fkd over. But hey we're making the POs every year so who cares right?

 

Except that when the Flyers go on that great run in 2010 and Boucher gets hurt in Boston - surprise surprise their  half-ass backup costs the Flyers their best chance in decades to finally win another Cup.

 

 

No, there really wasn't a plan. They were really loose and daring with the moves they made. Some worked out and some didn't. They did maintain a brand of hockey that was exciting though. I miss those days.

I don't post much, but if you have seen some of my posts, I don't really put too much stock in having a great goalie. I think a great goalie can make up for bad performance in front of him (see 2022 flyers), but it will never be sustainable without talent in front of him. On the other hand, the fact that the flyers went to the cup in 2010 with the slop they had in goal, Niemi winning that cup, the penguins winning their cups with a few interchangeable goalies, and teams winning a lot of games with goalies nobody has ever heard of should show you all you need to know. Vasilevskiy is a good goalie, but that's an anomaly, and they have a pretty good team in front of him.

[icehole]

9 hours ago, ruxpin said:

The other thing people are ridiculously not including in their arguments defending the albatrosses named Clarke and Holmgren is that they are citing a world that has factually not existed since 2006.  It's 16 years, people.

 

 

Neither of these calcified fossils has ever adapted to an NHL under a cap system.  Almost every delusional nostalgic reference refers to a world that no longer exists and will not return. Even if it did:  zero cups, zero parades in 46 years.

 

Yeah Carter and Richards but these imbeciles gave up instead of continuing to build around them.

 

Demonstrable FACT:  both have been entirely worthless and completely bumble**** inept in the world we live in for 16 years.

 

Can we please stop with the entirely irrelevant and insanely stupid, delusional defense of their record?

 

Holmgren, in particular, is demonstrably and factually among the worst coaches, GMs and presidents in the history of this franchise and the argument is support is as ridiculous as it is realistically delusional.

I don't want to defend those guys. I know they made dumb moves. I know they haven't managed the cap well. I know the flyers haven't won a cup in 46 years. But I also can't say that any other flyers GM (not that there's been many) has done a better job. In my hockey lifetime, it's Clarke/Holmgren vs Hextall vs Fletcher.

Clarke/Holmgren had the seats filled most nights, they gave us teams that were constantly a top 10 team, they brought us many playoff appearances and some playoff wins.

Hextall kept some exciting talented players, but for some reason surrounded them with duds. He hired the least exciting coach to ever coach the game. He wasted Giroux's career. His teams success was the definition of inconsistent. And he left us with his top draft picks that have had average at best careers so far.

I think we're probably all on the same page with Fletcher. He took a team that wasn't doing too much, and somehow made it worse. Not only did he make moves that were bad, he made moves that make no sense at all. The team has 3 or 4 10 game losing streaks under his belt. They're up against the cap constantly yet they're a bottom 5 team. He has some bad contracts that he can't get rid of. And most importantly to me, the team almost doesn't exist in the eyes of 99% of the sports community in the area.

So please don't misunderstand me when I stick up for Holmgren/Clarke. I'm not saying they would be my first choice for GM if I had to pick them off the GM tree. They are just the best out of a bad bunch. Who would be your choice out of the 3?

And for the record, I hated the job Hextall did because it wasn't right for the situation the flyers were in. I would hire him in a second if he were available now though. I would like him to trust a team of scouts to judge talent, and he could focus on managing cap and acquiring assets.

[GratefulFlyers]

40 minutes ago, icehole said:

In my hockey lifetime, it's Clarke/Holmgren vs Hextall vs Fletcher.

Clarke/Holmgren had the seats filled most nights, they gave us teams that were constantly a top 10 team, they brought us many playoff appearances and some playoff wins.

 

You just can't compare them like that, as if everything else being equal let's take a look at the Flyers' GMs. As@ruxpin reminded us the salary cap is a critical demarcation - one era ended a new one began. Clarke operated completely free of salary cap restraints (with Holmgren as his assistant). And Holmgren operated as if there were no salary cap restraints.

 

46 minutes ago, icehole said:

Hextall ... left us with his top draft picks that have had average at best careers so far.

 

But try to take into account the job Hextall had to do when he was hired. Look at the mess Holmgren handed him. @flyercanuck already went over it - "digging out" kind of sums it up.

 

As far as his draft picks...have his picks been demonstrably worse (or better) than your average NHL GM? I don't think so. I think he hit a few home runs, Carter Hart, Travis Konecny and I'm loving Noah Cates this year with the Flyers (can't say he's a home run though, at least not yet).

 

Provorov and Sanheim are 3-base hits and still could turn out to be not only home runs but grand slam homers. The trend for Provorov hasn't been great I recognize that. Sanheim is up and down but his upside is huge. So even though both have been NHL pros for 5+ years I think the jury is still out on both of them. We can probably add Morgan Frost to that "jury is out" list, also Joel Farabee.

 

But if you say these guys have trended downward I can't disagree. Why that is I only wish I knew. Some of it is the player himself but I think management and coaching owns more of the blame.

 

Thank goodness TK snapped out of his funk, Carter Hart too. But Farabee and the rest...they all came in looking like game-changers and then slowly but surely fell off a cliff. Maybe hopefully they're finding their games again under Tortorella but with Fletcher/Holmgren/Clarke etc still calling the shots who knows how long it'll last.

[ruxpin]

5 hours ago, icehole said:

Hextall kept some exciting talented players, but for some reason surrounded them with duds. He hired the least exciting coach to ever coach the game. He wasted Giroux's career. His teams success was the definition of inconsistent. And he left us with his top draft picks that have had average at best careers so far.

 

With the exception of the coach (who currently has a second year expansion team playing competently, so maybe it wasn't the coach) you're blaming Hextall for a mess created by Holmgren.

 

Hextall did not have the cap space nor, early on, the picks to bring in the people you think you wanted.

 

And again, you're comparing a non-cap era of a blank checkbook of buying players but still failing to fix glaring deficiencies vs a GM hamstrung by terrible contacts and a barren system. Completely on Holmgren and Clarke who had no concept of how to build a cap era team because neither one had actually ever built any team. They just imported other pieces but even then ultimately failed to address either goaltending or defense because both them and their adoring fans were only interested in other teams shiny forwards.

[radoran]

This all tends to make more sense when you accept that the past decade plus is an eternal pursuit of showing that Holmgren was right all along.

 

The tragic farce of the whole situation is that he wasn't right.

 

@flyercanucks rundown of the situation above is spot on accurate in every way.

[GratefulFlyers]

7 hours ago, icehole said:

I don't really put too much stock in having a great goalie.

 

As in Brodeur or Vasilevsky? I agree you don't absolutely need HOF-talented goaltenders to win a Cup. But without at least competent goaltending...you get beat in G6 of the Stanley Cup Final on a shot from the end line. With a goalie who was pulled twice (or was it 3 times) in that 6-game Final.

 

7 hours ago, icehole said:

On the other hand, the fact that the flyers went to the cup in 2010 with the slop they had in goal, Niemi winning that cup, the penguins winning their cups with a few interchangeable goalies, and teams winning a lot of games with goalies nobody has ever heard of should show you all you need to know.

 

The Pens were loaded up and down their lineup. Fleury struggled but that wasn't going to stop them. Niemi and the Hawks had no business winning that Cup but they ran into a team whose goaltending was even worse. Otherwise the 2 teams were pretty evenly matched.

 

I guess maybe we're on the same page. You don't need HOF goalies but you do need legit NHL goalies if you want to win the Stanley Cup.

 

[RonJeremy]

55 minutes ago, GratefulFlyers said:

 

As in Brodeur or Vasilevsky? I agree you don't absolutely need HOF-talented goaltenders to win a Cup. But without at least competent goaltending...you get beat in G6 of the Stanley Cup Final on a shot from the end line. With a goalie who was pulled twice (or was it 3 times) in that 6-game Final.

 

 

The Pens were loaded up and down their lineup. Fleury struggled but that wasn't going to stop them. Niemi and the Hawks had no business winning that Cup but they ran into a team whose goaltending was even worse. Otherwise the 2 teams were pretty evenly matched.

 

I guess maybe we're on the same page. You don't need HOF goalies but you do need legit NHL goalies if you want to win the Stanley Cup.

 

The cheapest Cup winning goal in NHL history. If you have a good defense and balanced scoring all you need is a goalie who stops the shots he is supposed to stop. Hart is not a superstar but if we had a guy like him in 2010, we win the Cup. 

[icehole]

On 12/21/2022 at 8:54 AM, GratefulFlyers said:

 

You just can't compare them like that, as if everything else being equal let's take a look at the Flyers' GMs.

I think the only way you can compare them is to compare the success of the team. Because as you said, they worked in different eras with different rules. Would Holmgren have the same success in a cap era? We didn't see much of that, but he did some good and some bad. Would Hextall have any success in the non capped era? Who knows, but his eye for talent and ability to sign or trade for any notable players is suspect.

About Hextall's draft picks, you just see it differently than I do I guess. Hart is a good goalie. If you're a believer in goalies = success, Hart is a good pick. I don't see it that way though. TK is in his 7th season and hasn't done enough for me. And if I'm listening to 99% of the flyers fanbase, TK should be Marchand by now. He is not. Provorov and Sanheim have glimpses of talent but they have both underperformed. Provorov can eat some minutes but he was supposed to be a scoring machine for a defenseman. Noah Cates??? A 3rd line ceiling player isn't what I use to judge draft success.

[GratefulFlyers]

12 minutes ago, icehole said:

Hart is a good goalie. If you're a believer in goalies = success, Hart is a good pick. I don't see it that way though. TK is in his 7th season and hasn't done enough for me. And if I'm listening to 99% of the flyers fanbase, TK should be Marchand by now. He is not. Provorov and Sanheim have glimpses of talent but they have both underperformed. Provorov can eat some minutes but he was supposed to be a scoring machine for a defenseman. Noah Cates??? A 3rd line ceiling player isn't what I use to judge draft success.

 

All good points but allow me to quibble with TK "should be Marchand by now" - and for the same reason I still believe in Provorov and Sanheim (and Farabee, Tippett, Frost, a few more): it boils down to the kind of team the Flyers have been for so long. Put it this way, take Marchand and stick him on the Flyers in place of TK. Or give Carter Hart Zdeno Chara and Charlie McAvoy. Farabee skating alongside Bergeron instead of Hayes...

 

Not that the Flyers had the opportunity to acquire McAvoy etc., just that it's hard to judge individual Flyers given that they're skating on such a lousy team. None of them are superstars so they weren't going to automatically make the Flyers an elite team. But maybe Fletcher is out soon and a new GM is allowed to rebuild.

 

There's no quick fixes given the Hayes/Ristolainen/Deslauries contracts but maybe (at least) a new GM stops digging the same hole.

 

 

[radoran]

4 minutes ago, GratefulFlyers said:

maybe (at least) a new GM stops digging the same hole.

 

The issue is that no GM wants to come in and spend years digging out of someone else's problem.

 

There's the inevitable tendency to want to make a big move and turn things around fast.

 

That gets you Hayes, Ristolainen, and Ellis.

 

The last guy with at least the resemblance of a long term plan they canned after he had cleaned up the mess from the previous guy.

 

And then they made the mess again.

 

[GratefulFlyers]

I really wish you hadn't said that...I mean right before Christmas and all...

[radoran]

27 minutes ago, GratefulFlyers said:

I really wish you hadn't said that...I mean right before Christmas and all...

 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!