When was the last time the Phantoms were even good? I legitimately cannot remember.
With Richards and Carter on the team, when they won a Calder?
Except the 17-18 season Curu mentioned, they've been pretty mediocre overall since the 05 Cup.
They made it to round 2 in 2008; that was when they played the longest ever AHL game for the first time (then they beat that record in 2018 iirc).
Got swept by Hershey in round 1 to close out the Spectrum in 2009.
Missed the playoffs all five years they were in Glens Falls.
And have only made the playoffs three times in 9 years (prior to this season) in Allentown. 2017 they also had a good year but lost in round 1 again to Hershey. There were no playoffs in 2020 but they were under .500 and well on their way to missing by the time the season was canceled. They were good in 2021 as well but that was the weird season where CHLers could play in the AHL and they only played WBS, Hershey, and Binghamton over the course of the entire season. They would've missed last year had the AHL not expanded the playoffs to include the qualifying round.
I will say I think the Flyers do a poor job of surrounding the young guys in Lehigh with good AHL talent. People on here bitch about it but you need those guys on your AHL team to supplement your prospects; every AHL team has them. But the Flyers seem to largely bring in middle-six/bottom four level guys with average at best offensive upside (Gardner, Mete) or guys who are well past their prime (COR). Marody is really the only AHL all-star level talent they've added the last couple years.
They've also basically only ever had two coaches since moving to Allentown in Gordon and Lappy (besides Terry Murray the first year). Gordon actually did pretty well overall whereas Lappy has done as well as you'd expect him to do.
