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

[flyercanuck]

1 hour ago, radoran said:

 

It's largely on the back of his "drafting" of Kaprizov.

 

Of his last two Wild drafts, no one has emerged - and that was 2017 and 2018 so we're probably not going to be surprised. Of course, he didn't have a 2nd in 2017 and didn't have a 1/2 in 2018. In fact, he only had eight 2nds in 10 years with thee coming in one year. In five years he had no 2nd at all.

 

Aside from that: Eriksson Ek, Luke Kunin, Jordan Greenway, Alex Tuch, Matt Dumba, Brolin, Granlund, Leddy, Larsson, Zucker, Scandella.

 

10 drafts - 12 NHL players (I was using 200+ NHL games plus Kaprizov as a measure). Some reference - Hextall had seven in five.

 

Amusingly enough, four of those Fletcher NHL players were 2nd round picks...

 

Oh I know...I've ran through all this when people were still sticking up for him. He's never been good at anything as a GM. 

[mojo1917]

Time for Rob McEllheney to buy his hometown hockey club.

 

[radoran]

16 minutes ago, mojo1917 said:

Time for Rob McEllheney to buy his hometown hockey club.

 

 

BRING ON THE DEADPOOL and

 

[aziz]

On 12/10/2022 at 10:31 PM, flyercanuck said:

Maybe...just maybe if fans are all complaining instead of saying let's just wait and see for another decade or two they'll actually do something about this disaster.

I think the issue is they CAN'T do anything about this disaster.

 

Here's the thing:  no approach to building a team works reliably.  It just doesn't.  There are just too many variables with WILDLY broad possible values.  How will a given prospect develop?  The answer is anywhere from "he'll be out of the league in a year" to "HOF lock".  For ALL of them.  How effective will a given established player be in two years?  Anywhere from "knee injury, forced retirement" to "strung together a series of career years".  What will the league's meta be in 2 years, what will be the dominate style?  Ranging from "no flipping idea" to "could be anything".

 

I'd point to specific teams that have spent like 20 years in rebuild mode or whatever, but I'll just point to our very own Flyers.  One day, I'll dig into the posts from 8-10 years ago when this very site was projecting the amazing careers of Hagg, Alt, Morin, Sanheim, Provorov, Konecny, Gostisbehere, several others.  And.....?  I said at the time that -at best- 2/3rds of those players would end up bottom half jobbers if they were in the league at all, and got yelled at.  I didn't know what I was talking about, building through the draft was reliable and the right and only way to do things, and these were all locks to be high impact players, no worries.

 

But they weren't.

 

Player development is just such an opaque question mark, it isn't possible to have any idea what a given 17 year-old child is going to be like 6 years later.  And then the game changes.  It isn't the same today as it was 10 years ago, and effective players 10 years ago may very well not be effective today.  Who knows what comes tomorrow?

 

The only effective plan I can see is to not get in your own way.  Fletcher has made objectively terrible trades and signings; he is a majority reason the team is as it is.  Very true.  Getting rid of him, and making sure the next guy isn't nearly as dumb is required.  Beyond that...it's just down to hope.  Hope you pick the right guys, hope they turn out as you project, hope your errors are happy ones, hope the game evolves in a way that supports your drafting philosophy.  There's no actual math to any of it, though, no science.  You can make smart moves, wise picks, thoughtful signings.  But they could all go sideways, regardless.

 

You can hurt your team's ability to win easily, but you can't do much to help it.  Winning either develops or it doesn't.  Which should make any GM think two or three times before doing something...weird.  That thing you are doing is probably going to go poorly.  The best a GM can do is not hurt the team.

[GrittyForever]

8 hours ago, radoran said:

 

BRING ON THE DEADPOOL and

 

You mean this guy? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J6urFp8YZ0

 

[flyercanuck]

8 hours ago, aziz said:

I think the issue is they CAN'T do anything about this disaster.

 

Here's the thing:  no approach to building a team works reliably.  It just doesn't.  There are just too many variables with WILDLY broad possible values.  How will a given prospect develop?  The answer is anywhere from "he'll be out of the league in a year" to "HOF lock".  For ALL of them.  How effective will a given established player be in two years?  Anywhere from "knee injury, forced retirement" to "strung together a series of career years".  What will the league's meta be in 2 years, what will be the dominate style?  Ranging from "no flipping idea" to "could be anything".

 

I'd point to specific teams that have spent like 20 years in rebuild mode or whatever, but I'll just point to our very own Flyers.  One day, I'll dig into the posts from 8-10 years ago when this very site was projecting the amazing careers of Hagg, Alt, Morin, Sanheim, Provorov, Konecny, Gostisbehere, several others.  And.....?  I said at the time that -at best- 2/3rds of those players would end up bottom half jobbers if they were in the league at all, and got yelled at.  I didn't know what I was talking about, building through the draft was reliable and the right and only way to do things, and these were all locks to be high impact players, no worries.

 

But they weren't.

 

Player development is just such an opaque question mark, it isn't possible to have any idea what a given 17 year-old child is going to be like 6 years later.  And then the game changes.  It isn't the same today as it was 10 years ago, and effective players 10 years ago may very well not be effective today.  Who knows what comes tomorrow?

 

The only effective plan I can see is to not get in your own way.  Fletcher has made objectively terrible trades and signings; he is a majority reason the team is as it is.  Very true.  Getting rid of him, and making sure the next guy isn't nearly as dumb is required.  Beyond that...it's just down to hope.  Hope you pick the right guys, hope they turn out as you project, hope your errors are happy ones, hope the game evolves in a way that supports your drafting philosophy.  There's no actual math to any of it, though, no science.  You can make smart moves, wise picks, thoughtful signings.  But they could all go sideways, regardless.

 

You can hurt your team's ability to win easily, but you can't do much to help it.  Winning either develops or it doesn't.  Which should make any GM think two or three times before doing something...weird.  That thing you are doing is probably going to go poorly.  The best a GM can do is not hurt the team.

 

Getting rid of a clearly terrible management team surely can't hurt the cause, can it? 

 

The best teams best players are generally drafted and developed by that team. Colorado has MacKinnon/Makar/Rantanen/Landeskog. Tampa had Stamkos/Hedman/Point/Vasilevsky/Palat. St Louis had Tarasenko/Pietrangelo/Perron/Shwartz/Binnington. I can go through Washington, Pittsburgh,The Kings, Chicago...most of the best players on those teams were drafted and developed by them. You get the odd Ryan O'Reilly, Kadri, Chara, but for the most part their elite are homegrown.

 

Something is wrong with the way the Flyers develop. Or maybe it's just having the absolute wrong guys as the team leaders. But players seem to regress in Philly.

 

Nice seeing you around aziz.

[OccamsRazor]

2 hours ago, flyercanuck said:

Something is wrong with the way the Flyers develop.

 

I think most of it is being ran by guys who are dinosaurs and can't get their brain to understand modern hockey and how it needs to be played.

 

As stated countless times this ISN'T the broad street Bullies era.

 

Time to move on from that style and evolve. 

 

So yes if you don't know how that is done then you will have to find those guys to advise on how to get team headed down that path.

 

This team still has no identity and they are sorting through the roster but first you have to have a vision on how you want to mold the team.

 

And they are missing those key components and well pride maybe is getting in their way on how to ask for help.

 

All I got my 2 cents....

 

 

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by OccamsRazor
#bourbonup

[tucson83]

2 hours ago, flyercanuck said:

 

Getting rid of a clearly terrible management team surely can't hurt the cause, can it? 

 

The best teams best players are generally drafted and developed by that team. Colorado has MacKinnon/Makar/Rantanen/Landeskog. Tampa had Stamkos/Hedman/Point/Vasilevsky/Palat. St Louis had Tarasenko/Pietrangelo/Perron/Shwartz/Binnington. I can go through Washington, Pittsburgh,The Kings, Chicago...most of the best players on those teams were drafted and developed by them. You get the odd Ryan O'Reilly, Kadri, Chara, but for the most part their elite are homegrown.

 

Something is wrong with the way the Flyers develop. Or maybe it's just having the absolute wrong guys as the team leaders. But players seem to regress in Philly.

 

Nice seeing you around aziz.

 

if you can be open minded for one minute instead of let's go armageddon on this franchise and lets look at this team as whole instead of focusing on one or two players and how it compares to the rest of league that's dominating, let's go back before hextall got hired, this team was scoring at a high rate we had more than 5 players scoring double digits and great goaltending, that's why we kept making the playoffs every year,

 

we are always scoring which it was supposed to be. after hextall got hired, this team started to struggle to score which was the reason why were trending down when hextall bringing more players that couldnt score and just play defense, it doesnt work like that. that's why i hated the picks, he was building a team that focused on defense that couldnt score goals, you cant win like that, when fletch came in, he tried to bring in goal scoring, problem was on the market, alot of teams werent going to give up their snipers and the players that were scoring we breaking down and injuried, you cant blame him for that.

 

good things that fletch has done was he's drafting more snipers, problem is they are not ready to play yet, which is why it's going to take time for this team to get back to what it was before hextall was hired, this team that's built right now will not go anywhere. you saw it against the coyotes, no one can snipe for goals, most of them were wrap arounds, that will not work. great teams will great defensive defenseman will defend the nets and make it hard for us to score that way. it wont work.

 

that's why we need more snipers on this roster simply getting bedard will not fix this, if he gets shutdown, the rest of the roster will not score and we will have the same problems again like we did this year. is fletch a bad gm? no, but there's too many holes on this roster for one gm to fix, it may take a couple of gms to get this team back to what it was as long as they focus on getting goal scorers. hextall has tore this team to the bottom with no scoring talent, you will not win this way. i know you dont want to hear it, but that's the reality of it.

 

if you want to keep giving hextall a free pass for this, more power to you but it will not get this team into contender anytime soon.

 

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by tucson83

[icehole]

On 12/5/2022 at 1:57 PM, RonJeremy said:

The games are a bore, there is nothing exciting to discuss. We will finish in the bottom five, so let's look at potential deadline trades....injuries to other teams and multiple teams bidding could drive up the price for our players . If we gut the roster and Coots does not come back, we are assured of a  top three pick. Here's my thoughts on what players we can dump and potential cost or return. 

 

JVR- contract expiring , if he scores 20-25 ,I can see a playoff team giving up a second rounder for a PP net front scorer.

 

DeAngelo-  he has one more year after this ,depending how he continues to play, I think we can get a second and third for him, plenty of teams could use a righthand PP dman who can move the puck.

 

Hayes- hes putting up good numbers, he's still lazy and has 3 more years after this at 7 million. If he continues to play well we may be able to dump him but we would probably have to throw in picks or pickup big $$,unless a top playoff team loses a center to injury. 

 

Risto- four years left after this, he's only a -2,so he's having a career season. Still an overpaid underachiever. Unless we throw in picks or a prospect,  it will be hard to move him, unless a team gets a catastrophic injury on defense and they are desperate. 

 

Atkinson- considering he's missed so much time, I'm not sure if a team would take a risk on him, unless it's for a conditional pick based on games played and production. 

 

Provorov and Konecny ,both players only have two more years left after this and they will be UFAs. Konecny looks like he's on his way to a career season, Provorov is doing better than last year. So both players have been through a failed six year rebuild and are facing another rebuild. Do you really think they wanna stick around for that? I don't see either player not testing the UFA market. Trading these two guys will get us our biggest returns and start the rebuild properly. Especially if Konecny has a career season.

 

Hart- he's a good young goalie, he's due a new contract at the end of 23/24 , the team will suck for at least another 4-5 years, he will be close to thirty by then . Do we trade him or let him suffer on a rebuilding team ?  Or sign a washed up vet and let him get hung out to dry with Sandstrom, while we develop Ersson ,who actually looks real good.

 

Braun, Willman,Charlie Brown, Sedlak are all on expiring contracts, you might get a third for Braun and a third for Sedlak. Willman and Brown are worthless. 

 

Coots and Ellis, let's hope both retire, I sure don't want to tie up 13 million on two injured fading players during a rebuild. The moron Fletcher will not be able to rationalize anything but a rebuild if these two guys don't come back. That's what I am hoping for.

 

Let York, Attard, Forrester and Desoyners develop in the AHL for the most part, give them a few NHL games here and there after the  trade deadline, give Gauthier some AHL time when the college season ends and if does well , a few NHL games. Everyone else on the Flyers roster you keep for next year,  sign Frost for one more chance and let all these young guys battle for rosters spots next year. 

I would rather watch some skilled young players lose than watch Charlie Brown and Braun bore me to death and lose.  If you lose 3-1 or 5-1 its still a loss.

I like threads like this. Unfortunately, I can't see them being bottom 3, 5, or maybe even 10. They went through a 10 game losing streak and were still 7 points better than the ducks. JVR and Atkison will get you a few more wins here and there. I think the flyers will be 2 or 3 spots out of a playoff spot. That's not going to do anything for us.

 

I really think they should, and I hope they are, getting a feel for what the demand is for Provorov, TK, and Hart. I'm not saying these players are bad or that I even want them to go. But we don't need them right now, and we will probably lose them by the time we do need them. Right now, they're only contributing to getting a worse draft position.

 

I also don't believe in the importance of a goalie. Hart is playing awesome and keeping the flyers in a lot of these games. On a good team, I don't think he makes much of a difference. But GMs love goalies, so use that to your advantage. 

 

As for JVR, Hayes, Risto, Atkinson, or other higher priced vets, I'll honestly take any young NHL player or draft pick for them. Obviously, they should try to get the most value from the trade, but I'll hand any one of those players over if I end up with more players or draft picks than I did before the trade. If I have to throw in picks or retain salary or anything like that, keep them on the team. Let them rot until their contracts expire. Getting nothing in return right now is better than giving up something just to dump a contract.

 

I'm not going to pretend to follow draft prospects to know how good each one is. From the little I do hear, Bedard seems to be a generational player? What's his ceiling...is he McDavid, Crosby, Ovie, Makar, or Matthews? Or is he on a lower tier? Is there anyone below him that will contend for the #1 pick, or is it a Kane/JVR type of draft? If there's no doubt he will be the #1 pick, and he's a generational talent, the flyers HAVE to do whatever it takes to get there. If the flyers have the #2 pick in the draft, give up as many picks and players you need to to get the #1 pick. If you still have Provorov, TK, or Hart, offer all of them in addition to your #2 pick to move up one spot. It doesn't matter...sell out! I don't want another JVR or Patrick...I want the #1!!!!!

 

So to do that, I would be interviewing GMs right now until i find one with the same vision I do. They need someone immediately to come in and start getting creative. I hate Hextall but I would bring him in for this job. They made the mistake of bringing him in when the team was still trying to compete. This position they're in right now is perfect for Hextall. But since he isn't available, get someone else. Fletcher has to be out by trade deadline...or sooner.

[radoran]

2 hours ago, tucson83 said:

if you want to keep giving hextall a free pass for this, more power to you but it will not get this team into contender anytime soon.

2 hours ago, tucson83 said:

this team was scoring at a high rate we had more than 5 players scoring double digits and great goaltending, that's why we kept making the playoffs every year,

 

Hextall was fired four years ago. He took over a team that had just lost in the first round after missing the playoffs the year before. They weren't "making the playoffs every year."

 

There were nine guys who scored double digits in 13-14 - including VLC (20), and Matt Read (22). Sean Couturier had 10. Mark Streit 13. VLC somehow managed to be -16 while "scoring double digits" and was a healthy scratch, only playing 69 games.

 

The next year, VLC and Read potted 8. Clearly that's on the GM. Flyers still had seven double digit scorers.

 

The year after that they had nine.

 

As for goaltending, in 13-14 Mason was 2.50/.917. In 14-15, Hextall's first year, he was better at 2.25/.928. In 15-16 he was virtually the same as the "great goaltending" you credit from 13-14, 2.51/.918.

 

So they had the same number of double digit scorers and exactly the same - or better - goaltending under Hextall in Y2.

 

Weird how that doesn't square with your assertion at all.

 

As for drafting, here are Hextall's draft picks still on the team: Provorov, Hart, Sanheim, Konecny, Frost, Farabee.

 

Here are a few others still in the system: Allison, Laczynski.

 

You know who re-signed every one of these bums who Hextall picked that can't play worth a damn - five of them long term?

 

Chuck Fletcher.

 

Also, too, Couturier and Laughton.

 

Ol' Fletch's draft picks have played 55 total games.

 

His trades and acquisitions represent over $30M in cap space.

 

He has extended players for over 50% of the cap space.

 

His core of players are signed for the next three-plus years.

 

The Flyers are one of the worst teams in the league.

 

In your world, this is still Hextall's fault.

 

I hope that makes you feel better, but it doesn't change anything.

 

Chuck Fletcher is still a failed GM and the Flyers are still one of the worst teams in the league.

Edited December 13, 2022 by radoran

[icehole]

2 hours ago, tucson83 said:

 

if you can be open minded for one minute instead of let's go armageddon on this franchise and lets look at this team as whole instead of focusing on one or two players and how it compares to the rest of league that's dominating, let's go back before hextall got hired, this team was scoring at a high rate we had more than 5 players scoring double digits and great goaltending, that's why we kept making the playoffs every year,

 

we are always scoring which it was supposed to be. after hextall got hired, this team started to struggle to score which was the reason why were trending down when hextall bringing more players that couldnt score and just play defense, it doesnt work like that. that's why i hated the picks, he was building a team that focused on defense that couldnt score goals, you cant win like that, when fletch came in, he tried to bring in goal scoring, problem was on the market, alot of teams werent going to give up their snipers and the players that were scoring we breaking down and injuried, you cant blame him for that.

 

good things that fletch has done was he's drafting more snipers, problem is they are not ready to play yet, which is why it's going to take time for this team to get back to what it was before hextall was hired, this team that's built right now will not go anywhere. you saw it against the coyotes, no one can snipe for goals, most of them were wrap arounds, that will not work. great teams will great defensive defenseman will defend the nets and make it hard for us to score that way. it wont work.

 

that's why we need more snipers on this roster simply getting bedard will not fix this, if he gets shutdown, the rest of the roster will not score and we will have the same problems again like we did this year. is fletch a bad gm? no, but there's too many holes on this roster for one gm to fix, it may take a couple of gms to get this team back to what it was as long as they focus on getting goal scorers. hextall has tore this team to the bottom with no scoring talent, you will not win this way. i know you dont want to hear it, but that's the reality of it.

 

if you want to keep giving hextall a free pass for this, more power to you but it will not get this team into contender anytime soon.

 

 

I posted shortly after you posted this. I said I hated Hextall at the time because it went against what the flyers were at that time. They "went for it" every year since they got Lindross. They were 4 years off of a cup final. They had some high priced star players that they didn't want to let go. So Hextall's plan/style wasn't right for the 2014 flyers

 

I thinks he might be perfect for the 2022 flyers though. When Hextall took over in 14, he did make some creative moves involving bad contracts. Then he started building through the draft. It went downhill from there but it started well. Imagine if he just drafted sanheim, provorov, TK, Hart, and Gauthier in the past 2 or 3 years and now he has a chance to put the team in a good position to get Bedard. I think we would all be getting excited for that.

 

Instead, the flyers left over from Hextall's drafts are getting older and are probably ready for their next big contract on a contending team. The higher prices vets are underperforming or injured. And Fletcher is adding more bad contracts like he's close to contending for the cup.

[radoran]

10 minutes ago, icehole said:

Instead, the flyers left over from Hextall's drafts are getting older and are probably ready for their next big contract on a contending team.

 

Except that Fletcher extended them - Farabee, Konecny, Provorov, Sanheim, Hart. All Hextall picks. All signed long term.

 

By Fletcher.

 

Also, too, Couturier and Laughton from the Previous Regime.

 

11 minutes ago, icehole said:

They were 4 years off of a cup final.

 

They had just lost in the first round after missing the playoffs the year before.

 

They blew up that Cup Final team, remember? They Won The Trades?

 

It's like saying "The Patriots were in the Super Bowl four years ago" - it's true but it doesn't mean anything.

 

2014-15 not the same team in any important respect to the one that went to the Final.

[flyercanuck]

2 hours ago, tucson83 said:

 

if you can be open minded for one minute instead of let's go armageddon on this franchise and lets look at this team as whole instead of focusing on one or two players and how it compares to the rest of league that's dominating, let's go back before hextall got hired, this team was scoring at a high rate we had more than 5 players scoring double digits and great goaltending, that's why we kept making the playoffs every year,

 

we are always scoring which it was supposed to be. after hextall got hired, this team started to struggle to score which was the reason why were trending down when hextall bringing more players that couldnt score and just play defense, it doesnt work like that. that's why i hated the picks, he was building a team that focused on defense that couldnt score goals, you cant win like that, when fletch came in, he tried to bring in goal scoring, problem was on the market, alot of teams werent going to give up their snipers and the players that were scoring we breaking down and injuried, you cant blame him for that.

 

good things that fletch has done was he's drafting more snipers, problem is they are not ready to play yet, which is why it's going to take time for this team to get back to what it was before hextall was hired, this team that's built right now will not go anywhere. you saw it against the coyotes, no one can snipe for goals, most of them were wrap arounds, that will not work. great teams will great defensive defenseman will defend the nets and make it hard for us to score that way. it wont work.

 

that's why we need more snipers on this roster simply getting bedard will not fix this, if he gets shutdown, the rest of the roster will not score and we will have the same problems again like we did this year. is fletch a bad gm? no, but there's too many holes on this roster for one gm to fix, it may take a couple of gms to get this team back to what it was as long as they focus on getting goal scorers. hextall has tore this team to the bottom with no scoring talent, you will not win this way. i know you dont want to hear it, but that's the reality of it.

 

if you want to keep giving hextall a free pass for this, more power to you but it will not get this team into contender anytime soon.

 

 

 

I can't, for the life of me, understand how any  Flyer fan whos last name isn't Fletcher, Holmgren or Clarke could stick up for what Chuck Fletcher and Paul Holmgren have done to this team. LOOK AT THIS TEAM. Look where we are in the standings. Look at the cap. Look at the garbage. 

 

I will defer to what radoran has already said, to save me from rehashing it. I will add that, "a team that focused on defense that couldnt score goals" had 1. The top (tied) goal scoring defenceman in the league in Ivan Provorov, drafted by Hextall and destroyed by the present group of idiots, one of the top offensive dmen in the league in Gostisbere who was given away, WITH draft picks, and another highly offensively gifted dman in Sanheim who's never allowed on the PP where he'd probably excel. Fletcher has built a team in a league of speed based around one of the slowest players in the league. 

 

Who said "simply getting Bedard" would fix this? Nobody said that. But if we somehow managed to get him, it sure would be a lot bigger step in the right direction than Hayes/Ristolainen/DeAngelo/Yandle/Seeler/Braun/Deslauriers etc etc etc have been. The team is going backwards in the standings, while management trades away draft picks to win now. 

 

is fletch a bad gm? no,

 

LMAO!!! That's hilar......wait, you're serious? You're serious with that comment?!? 

 

 

[pilldoc]

14 hours ago, aziz said:

I think the issue is they CAN'T do anything about this disaster.

 

Here's the thing:  no approach to building a team works reliably.  It just doesn't.  There are just too many variables with WILDLY broad possible values.  How will a given prospect develop?  The answer is anywhere from "he'll be out of the league in a year" to "HOF lock".  For ALL of them.  How effective will a given established player be in two years?  Anywhere from "knee injury, forced retirement" to "strung together a series of career years".  What will the league's meta be in 2 years, what will be the dominate style?  Ranging from "no flipping idea" to "could be anything".

 

I'd point to specific teams that have spent like 20 years in rebuild mode or whatever, but I'll just point to our very own Flyers.  One day, I'll dig into the posts from 8-10 years ago when this very site was projecting the amazing careers of Hagg, Alt, Morin, Sanheim, Provorov, Konecny, Gostisbehere, several others.  And.....?  I said at the time that -at best- 2/3rds of those players would end up bottom half jobbers if they were in the league at all, and got yelled at.  I didn't know what I was talking about, building through the draft was reliable and the right and only way to do things, and these were all locks to be high impact players, no worries.

 

But they weren't.

 

Player development is just such an opaque question mark, it isn't possible to have any idea what a given 17 year-old child is going to be like 6 years later.  And then the game changes.  It isn't the same today as it was 10 years ago, and effective players 10 years ago may very well not be effective today.  Who knows what comes tomorrow?

 

The only effective plan I can see is to not get in your own way.  Fletcher has made objectively terrible trades and signings; he is a majority reason the team is as it is.  Very true.  Getting rid of him, and making sure the next guy isn't nearly as dumb is required.  Beyond that...it's just down to hope.  Hope you pick the right guys, hope they turn out as you project, hope your errors are happy ones, hope the game evolves in a way that supports your drafting philosophy.  There's no actual math to any of it, though, no science.  You can make smart moves, wise picks, thoughtful signings.  But they could all go sideways, regardless.

 

You can hurt your team's ability to win easily, but you can't do much to help it.  Winning either develops or it doesn't.  Which should make any GM think two or three times before doing something...weird.  That thing you are doing is probably going to go poorly.  The best a GM can do is not hurt the team.

great to see you around aziz!

 

absolutely fantastic post!

 

 Thanks 

[radoran]

18 hours ago, aziz said:

How will a given prospect develop?  The answer is anywhere from "he'll be out of the league in a year" to "HOF lock".  For ALL of them.  How effective will a given established player be in two years?  Anywhere from "knee injury, forced retirement" to "strung together a series of career years".  What will the league's meta be in 2 years, what will be the dominate style?  Ranging from "no flipping idea" to "could be anything".

 

Obviously the Flyers have had some issues with their #2 drafting (of course they traded away the most productive part of JVR's career for Luke Schenn and then brought him back after that).

 

But it's not really as random as you make it out to be - and to your point the quality of the draft class plays a huge role.

 

Look at 1/2s over time

2010: Hall, Seguin

2011: RNH, Landeskog

2012: Yakupov, Murray (bad. draft.)

2013: MacKinnon, Barkov

2014: Ekblad, Reinhart, (Draisaitl)

2015: McDavid, Eichel

2016: Matthews, Laine

2017: Hischier, Patrick (bad draft)

 

It was generally acknowledged that the 2012 and 2017 drafts were not laden with high end talent. 2017 did have some guys deeper in the draft. But generally speaking you're going to get a good player at the top of the draft.

 

Next year is supposed to be a "deep draft" as well (which is why Fletch didn't get FLA's 1st next year for Claude)

 

Your point that no system is a guarantee is certainly well taken. There are no guarantees.

 

But continuing to do the same thing expecting different results hasn't worked for going on...

 

11 years now.

 

I'm just speculating that it might be time to try something else?

Edited December 13, 2022 by radoran

[GrittyForever]

This year IS a deep draft no question. That's why giving up the 2nd was so stupid. 

 

It will take some serious stupidity to fail to land a decent player in the top 10 or so. 

[radoran]

1 hour ago, GrittyForever said:

It will take some serious stupidity to fail to land a decent player in the top 10 or so. 

 

They're currently 6th.

Wait for the big push to make it #11...

[flyercanuck]

1 hour ago, GrittyForever said:

This year IS a deep draft no question. That's why giving up the 2nd was so stupid. 

 

It will take some serious stupidity to fail to land a decent player in the top 10 or so. 

 

Well well well....we agree on something! 

 

[OccamsRazor]

32 minutes ago, radoran said:

Wait for the big push to make it #11...

 

That would be funny as hell if you weren't right....

 

[radoran]

33 minutes ago, OccamsRazor said:

 

That would be funny as hell if you weren't right....

 

 

[aziz]

6 hours ago, radoran said:

But continuing to do the same thing expecting different results hasn't worked for going on...

 

11 years now.

 

I'm just speculating that it might be time to try something else?

 

I think what I was trying to get at is that whatever they "try" to do will likely not work out, and the issue is less about trying something new, and more about stopping trying to do specific things.  Because things GMs try to actively do in the modern game likely won't work out.  Everything is too fluid.  The draft as the example.  The Flyers have had two top 2 picks over the last 15 years, and neither worked out.  The first ended up a one dimensional net-front guy barely worth top 6 minutes, the other very well might not break 100 points in his career.  How do you make sure that doesn't happen again?  You don't.  There were clues JVR might be weaker than he was projected, but only clues.  Patrick just melted, not sure anyone saw that coming on draft day.

 

They also collected a bunch of relatively high picks and stocked their shelves pretty fully of high-upside prospects.  None of whom have turned out to be close to what they were projected to be.  Laughton, Stolarz, Gostisbehere, Morin, Hagg, Sanheim, Provorov, Konecny, Frost were supposed to be the team's core at this point, 7 top line/top pair players and 1 stud goalie were supposed to anchor the team for the next decade.  Except a decade later, and only 2 of those players are really worth a mention, and even then, they are far from what people thought they'd be.

 

So, I mean, they had their tank seasons and got zero from them.  They held onto picks and got little more than zero from them.  What is it they have been doing for 15 years that hasn't worked and they should change?

 

Again, my theory here is the best thing a GM can do is not get in his team's way.  There are very very very few things a GM can do to improve their team in anything vaguely like the short term.  With the salary cap and NMCs, value for value or need for need trades simply don't exist, anymore.  Cap hits and player agreements are the primary considerations for trades these days.  The best a GM can do is not make mistakes.  Which, most of the time, means sitting on his hands and letting things play out.

 

Basically, I think the modern GM that manages the best, manages the least.  There are no sure fire solutions, there are no approaches that reliably result in a strong team.  Any draft pick can bust, any prospect can top out early, any vet can be injured tomorrow.  Which means every sacrifice for a pick, a prospect, a vet, can bomb entirely.  So don't make those sacrifices. 

 

I think there are several "Do Nots" that can help, but I can't think of any "Do"'s that can be leaned on.  For what it's worth, here are my Do Nots:

 

1.  Do Not:  overpay salary for a player, unless you are that specific player away from a serious serious cup run, and I mean this year.  And the term has to be SHORT.  Every player you sign for 1.5x what they are worth is one less player a few spots down your lineup that you can afford.  A third of your cap total on a single line doesn't work (usually).

2. Do Not:  over term a player, unless the term has resulted in a weirdly low annual cap hit.  And even then, tend towards not.  Carrying dead weight around for years, be it on a washed up player, a buyout, or LTIR is the actual worst thing you can do.

3. Do Not:  retain cap hits for players you trade away.  You either get rid of the player entirely, or you find a way to make him work on some level.  Or you put him waivers, send him to the farm, and hope he gets frustrated enough to retire early.  Spending a few million dollars of cap hit specifically to not have a person play for you is insane.  If you've followed points 1 and 2, this won't be a problem.  If you haven't followed those, then you should be fired, anyway, let the next guy figure out what to do with your mistakes.

4. Do Not:  trade up for draft picks.  If you have a decent prospect and the 23rd pick, don't trade him and it away for the 10th pick.  You are trading two rolls of the dice for one.  This changes a bit if you have a reasonable shot at the first overall spot, but only just.  Remember the Daigle/Yakupov lesson.  Even clear cut #1 picks can fall exactly on their faces.  These are children we are looking at.  They started shaving last November.

5. Do Not:  sweeten deals with picks in the first or second rounds.  Unless, as with #1, the player you'd receive would put you over the top in an absolute, definitely going to work sense.  Which is almost never the case.

6. Do Not:  trade away prospects unless you are getting something you specifically need in return.  In a capped league, in a sport that currently favors youth and speed above all else, prospects are the vegetables in a GM's garden.  They are the point, they are what you are trying to produce.  Every time a team's prospect is traded away, or released to RFA (or even UFA, depending), the garden gets a bit more fallow.

 

There are more, but I'm going to go do some other things.  My judgement of GMs at this point is basically based on the above.  Stay out of the way.  Make the deals that are obvious, that at the very least benefit your team as much as the other.  Don't commit your team to stupid terms, or stupid salaries.  Don't get into bidding wars.  Don't fixate on acquiring a specific player.  Don't get rid of draft picks just because.  And really, don't try to construct your team in any particularly shaped sense.  The dice will roll as they will, and your main job is to not get in the way.  And add more rolls, if you can.  That's your main task, other than taking care of paperwork.

 

Don't get me wrong.  I dearly miss the NHL of the 80's and 90's, when there was no cap, and GMs could play an active role in shaping a team.  I miss the era of those uber teams of the mid/late 90s, the Wings, Hawks, NJ, Colorado, Dallas.  I miss watching the perfect assembly of talent and grit, all of it top shelf.  I miss it when the best teams were the teams that had no weaknesses.  I miss when there were 3 or 4 or 5 perfect teams that would go at it for best of 7's every spring.  I miss when your team could strive to become one of those elite teams, if only your GM could swing the moves to complete the ultimate roster.  That isn't the game, anymore.  The game today is about whose prospects work out best.  It is a simpler game, in terms of team building.  But simpler doesn't mean easier; there are very few levers a GM can pull to accomplish anything positive these days.  Simpler just means less interesting, to me.  But the thesis stands:  the best GM for the Flyers is the one that will do the least, because the worst GMs have been the ones that did the most. 

 

GMs today can't do much to help, but they can do a lot to hurt.

[RonJeremy]

18 hours ago, aziz said:

 

I think what I was trying to get at is that whatever they "try" to do will likely not work out, and the issue is less about trying something new, and more about stopping trying to do specific things.  Because things GMs try to actively do in the modern game likely won't work out.  Everything is too fluid.  The draft as the example.  The Flyers have had two top 2 picks over the last 15 years, and neither worked out.  The first ended up a one dimensional net-front guy barely worth top 6 minutes, the other very well might not break 100 points in his career.  How do you make sure that doesn't happen again?  You don't.  There were clues JVR might be weaker than he was projected, but only clues.  Patrick just melted, not sure anyone saw that coming on draft day.

 

They also collected a bunch of relatively high picks and stocked their shelves pretty fully of high-upside prospects.  None of whom have turned out to be close to what they were projected to be.  Laughton, Stolarz, Gostisbehere, Morin, Hagg, Sanheim, Provorov, Konecny, Frost were supposed to be the team's core at this point, 7 top line/top pair players and 1 stud goalie were supposed to anchor the team for the next decade.  Except a decade later, and only 2 of those players are really worth a mention, and even then, they are far from what people thought they'd be.

 

So, I mean, they had their tank seasons and got zero from them.  They held onto picks and got little more than zero from them.  What is it they have been doing for 15 years that hasn't worked and they should change?

 

Again, my theory here is the best thing a GM can do is not get in his team's way.  There are very very very few things a GM can do to improve their team in anything vaguely like the short term.  With the salary cap and NMCs, value for value or need for need trades simply don't exist, anymore.  Cap hits and player agreements are the primary considerations for trades these days.  The best a GM can do is not make mistakes.  Which, most of the time, means sitting on his hands and letting things play out.

 

Basically, I think the modern GM that manages the best, manages the least.  There are no sure fire solutions, there are no approaches that reliably result in a strong team.  Any draft pick can bust, any prospect can top out early, any vet can be injured tomorrow.  Which means every sacrifice for a pick, a prospect, a vet, can bomb entirely.  So don't make those sacrifices. 

 

I think there are several "Do Nots" that can help, but I can't think of any "Do"'s that can be leaned on.  For what it's worth, here are my Do Nots:

 

1.  Do Not:  overpay salary for a player, unless you are that specific player away from a serious serious cup run, and I mean this year.  And the term has to be SHORT.  Every player you sign for 1.5x what they are worth is one less player a few spots down your lineup that you can afford.  A third of your cap total on a single line doesn't work (usually).

2. Do Not:  over term a player, unless the term has resulted in a weirdly low annual cap hit.  And even then, tend towards not.  Carrying dead weight around for years, be it on a washed up player, a buyout, or LTIR is the actual worst thing you can do.

3. Do Not:  retain cap hits for players you trade away.  You either get rid of the player entirely, or you find a way to make him work on some level.  Or you put him waivers, send him to the farm, and hope he gets frustrated enough to retire early.  Spending a few million dollars of cap hit specifically to not have a person play for you is insane.  If you've followed points 1 and 2, this won't be a problem.  If you haven't followed those, then you should be fired, anyway, let the next guy figure out what to do with your mistakes.

4. Do Not:  trade up for draft picks.  If you have a decent prospect and the 23rd pick, don't trade him and it away for the 10th pick.  You are trading two rolls of the dice for one.  This changes a bit if you have a reasonable shot at the first overall spot, but only just.  Remember the Daigle/Yakupov lesson.  Even clear cut #1 picks can fall exactly on their faces.  These are children we are looking at.  They started shaving last November.

5. Do Not:  sweeten deals with picks in the first or second rounds.  Unless, as with #1, the player you'd receive would put you over the top in an absolute, definitely going to work sense.  Which is almost never the case.

6. Do Not:  trade away prospects unless you are getting something you specifically need in return.  In a capped league, in a sport that currently favors youth and speed above all else, prospects are the vegetables in a GM's garden.  They are the point, they are what you are trying to produce.  Every time a team's prospect is traded away, or released to RFA (or even UFA, depending), the garden gets a bit more fallow.

 

There are more, but I'm going to go do some other things.  My judgement of GMs at this point is basically based on the above.  Stay out of the way.  Make the deals that are obvious, that at the very least benefit your team as much as the other.  Don't commit your team to stupid terms, or stupid salaries.  Don't get into bidding wars.  Don't fixate on acquiring a specific player.  Don't get rid of draft picks just because.  And really, don't try to construct your team in any particularly shaped sense.  The dice will roll as they will, and your main job is to not get in the way.  And add more rolls, if you can.  That's your main task, other than taking care of paperwork.

 

Don't get me wrong.  I dearly miss the NHL of the 80's and 90's, when there was no cap, and GMs could play an active role in shaping a team.  I miss the era of those uber teams of the mid/late 90s, the Wings, Hawks, NJ, Colorado, Dallas.  I miss watching the perfect assembly of talent and grit, all of it top shelf.  I miss it when the best teams were the teams that had no weaknesses.  I miss when there were 3 or 4 or 5 perfect teams that would go at it for best of 7's every spring.  I miss when your team could strive to become one of those elite teams, if only your GM could swing the moves to complete the ultimate roster.  That isn't the game, anymore.  The game today is about whose prospects work out best.  It is a simpler game, in terms of team building.  But simpler doesn't mean easier; there are very few levers a GM can pull to accomplish anything positive these days.  Simpler just means less interesting, to me.  But the thesis stands:  the best GM for the Flyers is the one that will do the least, because the worst GMs have been the ones that did the most. 

 

GMs today can't do much to help, but they can do a lot to hurt.

Add one more to the list..when your team sucks and you are at least five years from being decent...don't re-sign a 28 year old pending UFA to a big $$ long term deal.

Take a page from Bill Bellichick, when a player hits 28 and wants 9 million a year for 8 years, you get rid of him unless he is the Tom Brady of your team. 

 

 

 

[radoran]

1 hour ago, RonJeremy said:

Add one more to the list..when your team sucks and you are at least five years from being decent...don't re-sign a 28 year old pending UFA to a big $$ long term deal.

 

Exactly.

 

If some idiot wants to give up two roster players, a 1st, 2 2nds, and a 7th to get that guy and overpay him, you let him.

 

You don't be that guy.

 

Chuck Fletcher:

[GratefulFlyers]

1 hour ago, RonJeremy said:

Take a page from Bill Bellichick, when a player hits 28 and wants 9 million a year for 8 years, you get rid of him unless he is the Tom Brady of your team.

I assume that’s just exactly how Flyers’ management view(ed) Couturier, minus the championships of course but an integral piece going forward. And frankly they weren’t wrong if that was their assessment. Couturier could’ve been a cornerstone to build around. If he had stayed healthy his value* would not have diminished greatly as he aged. 
 

But even without hindsight the contract was dumb on the face of it, and especially bad for the Flyers given their state of affairs at the time. In any case no 28-year old rates an 8 year contract unless he’s a bona fide superstar. 5 or 6 years would’ve been fine. If the term was a dealbreaker for Couturier then so be it. But since it was Fletcher negotiating I think we can safely assume “push” never came to “shove.”
 

*by all accounts he’s one of the best teammates the Flyers have ever had, alongside Brind’Amour, Howe etc. Guys like them don’t grow on trees and if your team “owns” one, especially a homegrown one, erring on the side of keeping him is probably the right play. But never 8 years. 

[radoran]

10 minutes ago, GratefulFlyers said:

But even without hindsight the contract was dumb on the face of it, and especially bad for the Flyers given their state of affairs at the time. In any case no 28-year old rates an 8 year contract unless he’s a bona fide superstar. 5 or 6 years would’ve been fine. If the term was a dealbreaker for Couturier then so be it. But since it was Fletcher negotiating I think we can safely assume “push” never came to “shove.”

 

Want it to make sense?

 

Sean Couturier is the last piece from Won The Trades.

 

You think they're going to get rid of the last piece from Won The Trades?

 

This is a piece to be celebrated. To be venerated. To build around.

 

It is absolutely without question that The Last Piece will certainly and inevitably lead us to the land promised in the times of Won The Trades.

 

And thus shall Homer be vindicated. And the doubters shall be Rightfully Scorned.

 

Here endeth the lesson.