2024-25 Roster Thread #1: The Beginninging

[Beef Invictus]

Drysdale wasn't taken 6th by accident, he has a lot of talent, but injuries have stunted his development.
Shaw is the perfect coach for him, b/c he needs to master defensive fundamentals.
But the key will be whether he can stay healthy, add some strength while maintaining his elite speed.

At the time of the trade:

Wheeler: I do wonder if the Flyers start to look a little small. Matvei Michkov, Bobby Brink, Travis Konecny, Morgan Frost up front. Drysdale and Cam York, two like-minded and built players on the backend (though Drysdale’s skating is certainly a cut above York’s, which can help compensate when you’re in that 5-foot-11/6-feet range). Even a cut below that with names like Emil Andrae and Denver Barkey. Suddenly, there are a lot of littler guys (relatively speaking) either established in that group or coming, especially with Sean Couturier on the wrong side of 30. Gauthier and Tyson Foerster were set to give them a bit of a different dimension.

Drysdale can certainly help in the short, medium and long term though. With his mobility and head for the game, he’s going to be an impact guy if he can stay healthy. Make good on that second-rounder and there’s an outcome in which Flyers fans feel good about this all things considered, even if Gauthier becomes an important piece with the Ducks.

Drysdale sucks

 

[JojoTheWhale]

A gentle reminder that some people had the same concerns about Drysdale in his literal draft year when he had no chance to be a Flyer that they do now. Writing this off as injuries should not be blindly accepted.

Charlie keeps saying in regards to the organizational expectations for Drysdale next year still isn’t very high. Like if he sucks again they won’t be alarmed. They think he still needs a lot of work in their minds & it might not materialize next year.

It’s breathtaking to have this approach to NHL Year 5. Good on Charlie for pushing back on it.

 

[blackjackmulligan]

It's an interesting lineup, a few years from being SC competitive, but can probably make the playoffs with average or better goaltending.

Farabee (24) - Couts (32) - Michkov (19)
Tippett (25) - Frost (25) - TK (27)
Foerster (23) - Laughton (30) - Brink (23)
Cates (25) - Poehling (26) - Hathaway (33)
Brink (23), Deslauriers (33)

York (24) - Sanheim (28)
Seeler (31) - Drysdale (22)
Zamula (24) - Risto (30)
Ginning (25) - Attard (25)

Ersson (25), Fedotov (28)

That lineup is about as vanilla as can be and will not strike fear in any team. The D and goaltending is below average. Offense average at best. Coaching no great shakes.

Can you define a "few year" from SC competitive. As to me it is more than 5. They will finish at least 10 points out of a playoff spot. So many better teams in the conf, at least on paper.

TK - Frost - Michkov
Farabee - Coots - Tippett
Foerster - Laughts - Brink
Cates - Poehling - Hath

Extra: Deslauriers

York - Sanheim
Seeler - Drysdale
Z - Risto

Extra: EJ

There is not a roster spot to be had on this fricken team. Makes me so mad Seeler, EJ, Hath are all here.

No idea how this team can even say these players have a chance to making the team:
FWD: Samu, Lycksell, Desnoyers, Rizzo, Avon, Abols, Eklind
D: Andrae, Attard, Ginning

In all fairness the CO-GM did say there is no one ready in LHV at the moment to be on the team. Imagine being as bad as they have been and having the guys in bold as your prospects. Yuck

 

[flyersnorth]

That lineup is about as vanilla as can be and will not strike fear in any team. The D and goaltending is below average. Offense average at best. Coaching no great shakes.

Can you define a "few year" from SC competitive. As to me it is more than 5. They will finish at least 10 points out of a playoff spot. So many better teams in the conf, at least on paper.


In all fairness the CO-GM did say there is no one ready in LHV at the moment to be on the team. Imagine being as bad as they have been and having the guys in bold as your prospects. Yuck

Honestly, I'm looking forward to the season. If Michkov comes in and is a near-ppg player (like Bedard), and the power play can get out of the basement, I can see the team getting a boost.

Of course, a lot depends on everything else going more or less ok too.

Either way, I'm excited to see Michkov and what he can do as a rookie.

 

[deadhead]

That lineup is about as vanilla as can be and will not strike fear in any team. The D and goaltending is below average. Offense average at best. Coaching no great shakes.

Can you define a "few year" from SC competitive. As to me it is more than 5. They will finish at least 10 points out of a playoff spot. So many better teams in the conf, at least on paper.


In all fairness the CO-GM did say there is no one ready in LHV at the moment to be on the team. Imagine being as bad as they have been and having the guys in bold as your prospects. Yuck

The lack of talent in LHV is a combination of bad drafting by Hextall and bad trades (giving up draft picks) by Fletcher. The prospect talent right now is mostly in the CHL (Luchanko, Bonk, Barkey, Sotheran, Bjarnason, Gill), college (Bump, Powell, Kaplan, Knuble, Ruohonen) or SHL/KHL (Berglund, Zavragin).

They could have 5 picks in the top 40 in the coming draft.

On paper, NJ should have finished 20 points ahead of us last season. They don't play games on paper.

How far this team goes depends on how far their young player progress.
The older players are mostly place keepers, the only one with a major role is Couts.
Seeler (#4), Risto (3rd pair), Laughton, Hathaway bottom six.
If the young players step up, drafting later won't matter, if they don't they draft #10, #42 or so.

 

[Rebels57]

Honestly, I'm looking forward to the season. If Michkov comes in and is a near-ppg player (like Bedard), and the power play can get out of the basement, I can see the team getting a boost.

Of course, a lot depends on everything else going more or less ok too.

Either way, I'm excited to see Michkov and what he can do as a rookie.

Michkov isn't going to be near a PPG with our comically bad Powerplay.

Adjust your expectations.

I'm expecting 50-60 points.

 

[Beef Invictus]

The lack of talent in LHV is a combination of bad drafting by Hextall and bad trades (giving up draft picks) by Fletcher. The prospect talent right now is mostly in the CHL (Luchanko, Bonk, Barkey, Sotheran, Bjarnason, Gill), college (Bump, Powell, Kaplan, Knuble, Ruohonen) or SHL/KHL (Berglund, Zavragin).

They could have 5 picks in the top 40 in the coming draft.

On paper, NJ should have finished 20 points ahead of us last season. They don't play games on paper.

How far this team goes depends on how far their young player progress.
The older players are mostly place keepers, the only one with a major role is Couts.
Seeler (#4), Risto (3rd pair), Laughton, Hathaway bottom six.
If the young players step up, drafting later won't matter, if they don't they draft #10, #42 or so.

As predicted, Fletcher now gets thrown under the bus after you spent years defending every one of those bad moves.

You will similarly hold Tortorella and Briere and Flahr blameless. Until they're fired and it's time to shift blame from the next guy into them.

Hextall was six years ago. Nothing on this team now is his fault.

 

[blackjackmulligan]

Honestly, I'm looking forward to the season. If Michkov comes in and is a near-ppg player (like Bedard), and the power play can get out of the basement, I can see the team getting a boost.

Of course, a lot depends on everything else going more or less ok too.

Either way, I'm excited to see Michkov and what he can do as a rookie.

In theory the PP should be better. However with the same dumb ass coach maybe not.

Just shows you how much power the head coach has here as he didn't want to fire his friend (also shows how much of a pussbox Danny B is). Don't want to ever here the word accountability come out of his mouth again.

 

[blackjackmulligan]

The lack of talent in LHV is a combination of bad drafting by Hextall and bad trades (giving up draft picks) by Fletcher. The prospect talent right now is mostly in the CHL (Luchanko, Bonk, Barkey, Sotheran, Bjarnason, Gill), college (Bump, Powell, Kaplan, Knuble, Ruohonen) or SHL/KHL (Berglund, Zavragin).

They could have 5 picks in the top 40 in the coming draft.

On paper, NJ should have finished 20 points ahead of us last season. They don't play games on paper.

How far this team goes depends on how far their young player progress.
The older players are mostly place keepers, the only one with a major role is Couts.
Seeler (#4), Risto (3rd pair), Laughton, Hathaway bottom six.
If the young players step up, drafting later won't matter, if they don't they draft #10, #42 or so.

The lack of talent in LHV is comb of the entire orginization. Not just 1 person.

Don't care how many picks they have as they have shown they do not know what to do with them, nor have they shown how to develop them.

If the young players step up. What do you mean by that?

Is it possible what you see is what you get at this point for the "young" players like Farabee, Tippet, Frost, and the like (excluding Tyson). They are not 20/21 years old. They are vets. Are Those players the only "young" guys who can step up? So if other teams young players step up the Flyers are left where exactly?

Out of all those prospects you mention. Which ones you see having a steady NHL career playing a regular role on a team.

As predicted, Fletcher now gets thrown under the bus after you spent years defending every one of those bad moves.

You will similarly hold Tortorella and Briere and Flahr blameless. Until they're fired and it's time to shift blame from the next guy into them.

Hextall was six years ago. Nothing on this team now is his fault.

That is not entirely true either.

 

[BrindamoursNose]

That is not entirely true either.

Bro this is an insane take at this point

 

[blackjackmulligan]

Bro this is an insane take at this point

Call me crazy then bro

 

[BrindamoursNose]

Call me crazy then bro

I basically am

 

[flyersnorth]

In theory the PP should be better. However with the same dumb ass coach maybe not.

Just shows you how much power the head coach has here as he didn't want to fire his friend (also shows how much of a pussbox Danny B is). Don't want to ever here the word accountability come out of his mouth again.

It's a little silly. The PK under Laperriere was atrocious, and he was never fired.

The PP was awful under Therrien. He was never fired.

And the same goes for Thompson.

 

[pit]

The lack of talent in LHV is a combination of bad drafting by Hextall and bad trades (giving up draft picks) by Fletcher. The prospect talent right now is mostly in the CHL (Luchanko, Bonk, Barkey, Sotheran, Bjarnason, Gill), college (Bump, Powell, Kaplan, Knuble, Ruohonen) or SHL/KHL (Berglund, Zavragin).

So, let's say that LHV prospects should be 25 and under (The AHL cutoff line for veteran status).

To fit into that category, you needed to be drafted 7 years ago (18 years old + 7).

That means the last two draft classes for Hextall were 2017 and 2018 with players still eligible to be an AHL prospect. There were some definite whiffs in that 2017 class for Hextall (rading up for Ratcliffe and passing Robertson). It was probably his worst draft. But even if he had the ability to make all the right calls in retrospect (Makar over Patrick, Robertson over Ratcliffe), none of that would fix our current AHL lack of talent. Hell, he still managed to hit on the Cates picks in the 5th and Lycksell is one of their better options as a 6th.

We can label 2017 a bad draft for Hextall, but that is impacting the Flyers currently as those players should be NHLers right now.

2018 has the Jay O'Brien miss. Then we have Ginning currently on the Phantoms and Ersson in the NHL. Even with hindsight, I'm not seeing huge misses there that would impact the Phantoms. Could have gone Durzi over Ginning or Kurashev over St. Ivany, but both would be in the NHL.

Hextall in 2024 isn't killing the Phantoms.

 

[Flyerfan4life]

As predicted, Fletcher now gets thrown under the bus after you spent years defending every one of those bad moves.

You will similarly hold Tortorella and Briere and Flahr blameless. Until they're fired and it's time to shift blame from the next guy into them.

Hextall was six years ago. Nothing on this team now is his fault.

like clockwork..

 

[deadhead]

As predicted, Fletcher now gets thrown under the bus after you spent years defending every one of those bad moves.

You will similarly hold Tortorella and Briere and Flahr blameless. Until they're fired and it's time to shift blame from the next guy into them.

Hextall was six years ago. Nothing on this team now is his fault.

I didn't "defend" Fletcher.
I just pointed out his moves were what he was hired to do, which was "win now," and accept input from the PTB (i.e. be the opposite of Hextall).

Blaming him for the FO's strategy (dictated by Holmgren and sustained by Scott) is unfair.

Blaming him for not executing that bad strategy better is fair.

Hextall's last two drafts should be knocking on the door (24-25 years old):
2017: Patrick #2, Frost #27, Ratcliffe #35, Cates #137, Lycksell #168
2018: Farabee #14, O'Brien #19, Ginning #50, Ersson #143
Hit on 2 of 6 picks in the top 50.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

Hextall was fired 6 years ago and we’re blaming him for the state of the Phantoms.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

 

[freakydallas13]

I didn't "defend" Fletcher.
I just pointed out his moves were what he was hired to do, which was "win now," and accept input from the PTB (i.e. be the opposite of Hextall).

Blaming him for the FO's strategy (dictated by Holmgren and sustained by Scott) is unfair.

Blaming him for not executing that bad strategy better is fair.

I mean, if he was hired to win now and the team was 4th last in the league (after missing the playoffs both years before), it's pretty safe to say he was an absolutely awful GM.

 

[VladDrag]

How I see this thing shaking out:

The forwards, if they had a legit 1C, would be a pretty good group. But they don’t so they are average and one or two key injuries away from mediocrity.

The D, if everything goes right, is at best barely league average. At worst, it could be a spectacular train wreck.

The goaltending is another huge question mark and, without good goaltending, the pk will significantly regress. The pp should be at least a little better with the addition of Michkov and a (hopefully) healthy Drysdale. But it’s still run by Rocky so it ain’t gonna improve a lot.

Finally, the players get another year of the God Emperor’s passive aggressive bs and mind games and that likely won’t end well.

Conclusion: they’ll be lucky to reach last years point total and lets hope they don’t because picking 12-14 is not what this team needs. I see them finishing in the 76-81 point range and going into the lottery holding a pick in the 6-9 range.

I also fully expect Laughton to still be a Flyer in April and for Farabee to be the guy most likely dealt for what will probably be an underwhelming return.

In regards to Torts, it really could blow up.

I’m not in the room, so I don’t know for a fact, but it's been reported that he pressed a lot of buttons last few years that seemed to not sit well with the team. It scratching Sanheim and Couts were reportedly huge miscalculations on his part. We also know he doesn’t communicate well with his team, Farabee, Frost, York, Couts -- they've all one way or another said something similar to the fact that Torts didn't talk with them about benchings.

If they get off to a slow start I could see it unraveling fairly quick.

 

[deadhead]

I mean, if he was hired to win now and the team 4th last in the league (after missing the playoffs both years before), it's pretty safe to say he was an absolutely awful GM.

Or the guy hiring him was delusional and thought he had a team with enough talent to compete year in and year out.

In regards to Torts, it really could blow up.

I’m not in the room, so I don’t know for a fact, but it's been reported that he pressed a lot of buttons last few years that seemed to not sit well with the team. It scratching Sanheim and Couts were reportedly huge miscalculations on his part. We also know he doesn’t communicate well with his team, Farabee, Frost, York, Couts -- they've all one way or another said something similar to the fact that Torts didn't talk with them about benchings.

If they get off to a slow start I could see it unraveling fairly quick.

People keep saying that, but he's not Gallant (couldn't last 3 years with 3 different teams!).

CBJ, lasted 6 years and it was the GM who screwed up that team with horrid moves. 5 years with the Rangers, 7 with TB. Van was one and done, sometimes crap happen.

No one has demanded a trade, I think b/c there's a sense that Torts is an asshole to everyone, so no one feels he plays "favorites" like AV. Players roll their eyes, but also understand that it's usually their fault. Even benching Couts had its purpose, tells the team everyone is accountable.

I'm sure he'll bench Michkov once or twice - Michkov was benched in the KHL, he's used to this kind of coaching. At least here he doesn't have to worry if the HC is a buddy of Putin.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

A gentle reminder that some people had the same concerns about Drysdale in his literal draft year when he had no chance to be a Flyer that they do now. Writing this off as injuries should not be blindly accepted.



It’s breathtaking to have this approach to NHL Year 5. Good on Charlie for pushing back on it.

Yeah he essentially makes similar arguments to here. Drysdale was probably rushed into the NHL & he has dealt with injuries but at the same time he’s not the first player ever to be put in a disadvantageous situation. Some guys even in bad situations or less than ideal ones can show something under the hood in underlying numbers to give you some bit of hope of a turnaround. But with Drysdale there’s nothing there it’s been all bad since he’s been in the NHL. He said he thinks Shaw is a good coach but even there’s some sense of having to see it to believe it with Drysdale.

 

[Beef Invictus]

I didn't "defend" Fletcher.
I just pointed out his moves were what he was hired to do, which was "win now," and accept input from the PTB (i.e. be the opposite of Hextall).

Blaming him for the FO's strategy (dictated by Holmgren and sustained by Scott) is unfair.

Blaming him for not executing that bad strategy better is fair.

Hextall's last two drafts should be knocking on the door (24-25 years old):
2017: Patrick #2, Frost #27, Ratcliffe #35, Cates #137, Lycksell #168
2018: Farabee #14, O'Brien #19, Ginning #50, Ersson #143
Hit on 2 of 6 picks in the top 50.

@Hollywood Cannon Please come stare at this absurdity. Just look at it. Let me know what you think of this, thanks.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

CBJ, lasted 6 years and it was the GM who screwed up that team with horrid moves. 5 years with the Rangers, 7 with TB. Van was one and done, sometimes crap happen.

This is how you end up with Harold Baines in a Hall of Fame.

 

[dragonoffrost]

The lack of talent in LHV is a combination of bad drafting by Hextall and bad trades (giving up draft picks) by Fletcher. The prospect talent right now is mostly in the CHL (Luchanko, Bonk, Barkey, Sotheran, Bjarnason, Gill), college (Bump, Powell, Kaplan, Knuble, Ruohonen) or SHL/KHL (Berglund, Zavragin).

They could have 5 picks in the top 40 in the coming draft.

On paper, NJ should have finished 20 points ahead of us last season. They don't play games on paper.

How far this team goes depends on how far their young player progress.
The older players are mostly place keepers, the only one with a major role is Couts.
Seeler (#4), Risto (3rd pair), Laughton, Hathaway bottom six.
If the young players step up, drafting later won't matter, if they don't they draft #10, #42 or so.

Hextall has been gone for over 5 years any pick of his better be in the NHL by now if they ever were going to make it. It's all on ChuckleF%*&%*%

In today's NHL #4 defensemen and third liners are key pieces and those below it better be contributors.