Some quick thoughts. In 1975, there were 32 NHL and WHA teams. Europe was negligible as a prospect pool and the USSR was shut off. 32 pro teams drew talent from a pool of 239 million people, US and Canada combined. In reality this number was much lower because once you got towards the South, the infrastructure for growing hockey didn't exist the way it does now. I'm not going to bother guessing at that, because it isn't even needed; just know that number is a lot lower, probably by half.
In 2024, ignoring Europe since I don't want to scheme that out regionally, Russia, US, and CAN combine for 522 million people. 32 NHL teams draw players from that population pool of half a billion, and that's a lowball. People who read my nonsense in the past know where this is going.
In the 70s, the available talent was far lower. That's the brutal math of it. Half the population to draw from, and also the youth development programs weren't at full steam yet either; hell, the boilers had barely even fired up. Teams didn't assemble lineups with 1 or 2 scoring lines, followed by several filler lines who mostly tried to survive until the scorers could get back on, just because that was "honest" and "pure." It was necessity. There wasn't enough talent to do anything else while competing with an upstart league and everyone else in your own league.
Here in the 20s, with vastly better youth development and well over twice the population to draw from, there is enough talent. The best teams are often rolling 3 or 4 lines that will outscore their counterparts, instead of holding on until the top lines take the ice. The good teams are actively trying to compile the needed talent to do that. Building from the top down and pushing the dregs downwards into the minors.
The Flyers are not in the 2020s. The Flyers behave like it is 1975. They build teams like the talent needed doesn't exist. Like if someone isn't clearly good enough to be a top scorer on the team, then they are only going to get their team wrecked trying to do that so the best thing is to just turn them into defensive drones that survive their shifts, because that was frequently the nature of the skill gap in the 70s, which isn't the case anymore. They aren't even attempting to max out talent and have it trickle down the roster. They build like there is only enough talent to assemble one or two scoring lines. And the bottom half is for survival. Worse, they glorify that method that was rooted in scarcity that doesn't exist anymore.
It's unreal how outmoded their thinking is. They're living in another time, and their appraisal of that time is clouded by nostalgia for it as the "good old days" instead of the "trying to make do" days. They've carefully trained Briere to follow this thought process, too.
There just isn't any fixing this. There is no way that a front office that thinks like this is ever going to stumble into a winning roster. They're deliberately self-limiting themselves to emulate an extinct time of shortage, for no reason. It's like choosing to live like you're poor, while you have tons of money in the bank waiting to be taken, and while also lamenting that you're poor.
They've really gotta fire everyone. Because everyone of them is hypnotized by this nostalgia. And nothing is going to get better until they break free of the past and think like it's right now.
On a positive note, it is certainly a unique approach!
