Flyers Future- Boom or Bust?

Alright, that’s a bit extreme, but before the off-season began, the Flyers had a few different roads they could head down.

1) Develop a young nucleus that can compete now and in a few years. This would’ve been great. Some of the pieces are already there. The Flyers could add some more young talent through smart drafting with a couple pretty good picks, and then along the line, add a free agent or two to fill holes and complete your team; continue heading in the positive direction they started when Paul Holmgren took over.

2) Aggressively fill holes with free agents and trades to get back into the playoffs immediately. This would be taking the Bob Clarke approach: using veterans to make the team better now with no regard to even the very next year. This was when the Flyers had the worst farm system in the league. It allowed for some competitive teams, but now, with the salary cap, it’s hard to build a team with promise this way.

3) Blow everything up, scrap the rest of the decade and try again in 2010-11. This was pretty unrealistic from the get go, and completely unacceptable. It’s unacceptable for every organization, especially for one like the Flyers that has been historically pretty successful with a great fan base. This would involve putting a lot of faith in your scouting and development departments and hoping you can get a few new superstars.

A mix of one and two is the way to build a team. Obviously, as Paul Holmgren, you don’t want to take a while to get this team back on top. Ed Snider and the fans aren’t patient enough for that. You don’t need to take as long to do it as Pittsburgh did, because there are already a lot of young pieces in place. With Gagne, Carter, Umberger, Richards, Upshall, you’ve got a good mix of forwards. There’s some scoring potential, playmakers and even a little physical play. Defensively, Pitkanen, Coburn, Parent and even Kukkonen to an extent provide hope for the future. Throw in a couple draft picks and prospects and you’ve got a young core that’s only getting better.

Obviously, the Flyers sucked last year. Everything went wrong. Beyond the injuries, this team had a couple fatal flaws. They had no forecheck. They couldn’t sustain attacks, they couldn’t fire enough shots, and they couldn’t score goals. They were awful defensively. They weren’t physical, they were caught out of position and they couldn’t clear the puck. They couldn’t close out games. They couldn’t score on the power play. Who knows how it would’ve been if their penalty kill wasn’t so good?

From the time Bob Clarke “stepped down” to the end of the season, the Flyers took positive steps. They traded guys that weren’t contributing like Alexei Zhitnik and Kyle Calder, and picked up guys like Braydon Coburn, Lasse Kukkonen and Martin Biron. Holmgren had to suck it up, and admit that the team wasn’t good enough to win this season. He had to move some guys and set up for a better future when he had the chance.

The Peter Forsberg trade was the ultimate sign of going in a new direction. Holmgren traded away a great player, a great guy and a fan favorite for pieces for the future. The Flyers got a future 2^nd pair defenseman, a winger who needed a change of scenery and a couple draft picks. This trade absolutely helped the future of the team, and there was still a chance Forsberg comes back in the offseason.

Fast forward to the offseason. John Stevens, Holmgren, Brett Hull, everyone sees the holes on the Flyers. They need a top line center to set up Gagne. They need to add a forward or two that can play physical in the offensive zone. Most importantly, they need to upgrade their defense.

Holmgren gets a head start on everyone when he trades for the rights to Kimmo Timonen and Scott Hartnell. I already talked about these guys, I’m not going to waste space and do it again. Refer back to a previous article of mine from June if you want my thoughts.

The draft comes and goes, and to a lot of people’s surprise, myself included, the #2 pick isn’t traded. With it, the Flyers select James Van Riemsdyk, a big winger from the US team. He’s attending New Hampshire in the fall, and he’ll probably play there a couple years, and then get into pro hockey. It’s tough to draft for need in the NHL draft, but when there’s a bunch of prospects equal to each other and no one really stands out, the Flyers opted for depth at a position lacking it in their system.

With only one huge need left to fill, Holmgren set his sights on the top three centers available, like about two dozen of the NHL GMs: Daniel Briere, Chris Drury and Scott Gomez. Briere to the Flyers was logical; he fits a huge need and he has several friends on the team. Holmgren made it happen. Briere signed quickly for 8 years and 52 million.

Is the contract a bit long? Yeah. Is that a lot of money to commit to one guy? Certainly. But that’s how you improve your team through free agency. That’s how you get out of the gutter. The Flyers needed a marquee player to play with Gagne and get him the puck. Considering that Briere probably took less money to come here, the Flyers made a great move. It speaks volumes to your organization and commitment to winning when a top free agent is willing to leave a great team and take less money to play for you.

Are the 07-08 Flyers set at this point? No. You don’t want your GM to be done adjusting the team on the first day of free agency, but unfortunately, Holmgren does the first thing I disagree with: He trades Joni Pitkanen.

The Flyers acquired Jason Smith and Joffrey Lupul for Pitkanen and Geoff Sanderson. Don’t get me wrong. Smith will be able to contribute. He’s a tough guy that brings more physical play to the defense. If we can find a place for Lupul, he’ll be able to score some goals too. I don’t have a problem with the guys we’re getting themselves.

I don’t see how you can trade away Pitkanen. Yeah, I know he struggled. He had a bad +/-, he was out of position on defense, he didn’t take enough shots, people have a laundry list of complaints about him. The fact remains he’ll only be 24 when the season opens and he has great potential. He’s a big body that can skate well, and those kind of guys don’t grow on trees. Trading someone like him because of a bad year is very shortsighted.

Another thing that doesn’t make sense is the salary we’re taking on. We’re on the hook for Jason Smith for a couple more years before he becomes an unrestricted free agent. We’re on the hook for Joffrey Lupul for a couple more years before he becomes a restricted free agent. Both of these guys are making more than Pitkanen was scheduled to make this year. We’re getting older and taking on salary. These aren’t things you want to do as a retooling team, especially one with key players such as Jeff Carter, Mike Richards and R.J. Umberger looking for big raises next year.

Take it for what it’s worth, but Eklund has a couple sources saying that Teemu Selanne might be interested in joining the Flyers. I know Eklund doesn’t have a great reputation when it comes to a lot of hockey fans, but he hasn’t been that bad this offseason. If this is true, and Selanne signs with the Flyers, there’s going to be a lot of excitement for this team. Of course, it means moving someone like Knuble to make room for Selanne on the roster for both salary and ice time reasons, but it’s an on-ice upgrade, so it would be a nice thing to do. It was great of Knuble to re-sign here while he was injured when he could’ve just finished the year and walked, but sometimes, you have to throw away loyalty and improve the team.

Not that there wouldn’t be excitement if the Flyers are Selanne-less going into the season. They made some moves and they’re clearly out of the basement. There’s some potential for the Flyers this year. They should be back in the playoffs, where they belong. That’s the bottom line.