In a move that happened at least a year too late, the Philadelphia Flyers finally removed Chuck Fletcher as GM. Now it’s up to Daniel Brière and a possibly reconfigured Flyers front office to rebuild this roster and farm system into something resembling an actual contender.
Will they have the patience to get shoved into a few more lockers before transforming back into the Broad Street Bullies? Did they snooze through too many history lectures to learn from past mistakes?
Let’s hit the books and ponder what lies ahead for the Flyers.
Flyers’ current roster has some pieces, but little-to-no star power
At this point, it’s downright amusing to see NHL GMs tremble at using the word rebuild, instead indulging in euphemisms such as “reset.” So, credit Brière with actually uttering the word, though he applied the expected caveats.
Brière showed hesitation about shopping players 24 years old or under, though he also admitted that no one is truly untouchable.
Unless you’re looking at that roster through orange-colored glasses, you’d agree that there isn’t an untouchable superstar. Either way, the Flyers might actually be wise to move two of their best pieces. Trading Carter Hart and Travis Konecny might sting, but take a moment to consider why such moves would make sense for Philly’s timeline.
Carter Hart: A sober review would probably place the 24-year-old closer to “solid” than spectacular. The real key factor is that he’s only signed at a hair under $4 million for one more season, slating him for RFA status with arbitration rights by the summer of 2024. Hart could easily become expensive years before the Flyers are relevant.
If the Flyers simply can’t stomach that idea, they could gain some cost certainty by signing Hart to an extension as early as this offseason.
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Travis Konecny: Honestly, it’s a relief and a surprise that Konecny is one of those rare offensive stars who’s actually escaped John Tortorella’s wrath (so far, at least). By just about any metric, Konecny played at a level above his $5.5M AAV. Even so, he turned 26 on March 11, and his team-friendly contract only runs through 2024-25. Replay the Hart talking points, basically: he’ll be older and likely much more expensive by the time the Flyers (ideally) return to relevance.
Clutching to players like Hart and TK might actually increase the Flyers’ odds of falling into puck purgatory: too…