Post-Game Talk: #78 | Flyers at Blue Jackets | April 6, 2024 | 7:00 PM | NBCSP | Loss

[Beef Invictus]

No doubt the organization has been unwise with their money. They need to take a hard look at how they are using their cap space. IMO, it’s being wasted. They should be getting more in return for it when it’s being included in deals. Then, as you say, when they do spend it, spend it more intelligently. Blowing money on Deslauriers, Staal and the like is unacceptable. Those spots could have gone to younger players already in the system.

17 seasons have passed since the cap appeared and this management group still doesn't get it. 17! Multiple generations in sports-time.

 

[BackToTheBrierePatch]

Flyers are going to have to overpay to get a 1C to come here with the way things are right now and this teams philosophy on how to play the game.

 

[gto64dr]

Everyone wants the skilled players but how to get them. Trading what limited talent we have is not going to do it. We need to unload all the high contract/low production players first. I think Briere is on the right track with signings to get by for now. Draft picks to start with then free agents when possible. What we have now is transitional and young guys. Hopes we're too high when they were playing well. Even them goaltending was carrying us. Not now.

 

[Strawberry Fields]

Like others, I fully expected them to crash and burn and ultimately miss out. I just expected it to happen more like two or three months ago than the last ten games of the season.

 

[GKJ]

No doubt the organization has been unwise with their money. They need to take a hard look at how they are using their cap space. IMO, it’s being wasted. They should be getting more in return for it when it’s being included in deals. Then, as you say, when they do spend it, spend it more intelligently. Blowing money on Deslauriers, Staal and the like is unacceptable. Those spots could have gone to younger players already in the system.

When it comes to Staal, you see that they don’t think they have the people in the system to be there. That’s been the prevailing belief going back to last year.

 

[Nizzle]

no one predicted this

 

[Appleyard]

Over the last 15 games Laughton has:

3g, 1a, 4p

26.32% GF
40.07% xGF

He has the most TOI of any C in that span.

 

[Fight4yourRight]

Everyone wants the skilled players but how to get them. Trading what limited talent we have is not going to do it. We need to unload all the high contract/low production players first. I think Briere is on the right track with signings to get by for now. Draft picks to start with then free agents when possible. What we have now is transitional and young guys. Hopes we're too high when they were playing well. Even them goaltending was carrying us. Not now.

You know what we know doesn’t work? Being a middling team for well over a decade.

Over the last 15 games Laughton has:

3g, 1a, 4p

26.32% GF
40.07% xGF

He has the most TOI of any C in that span.

Really upping that trade value!

 

[Strawberry Fields]

Laughton has a heater leading up to the trade deadline:

"He's way too valuable to us to trade him right now. Culture! Playoff push! We'll revisit in the summer, when his value will be even higher."

Laughton craters like a 65 million year old asteroid after the deadline:

"Well, we can't trade him now! His value is way too low. We need to keep him for the #culture!"

Tale as old as time. Song as old as rhyme.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

Over the last 15 games Laughton has:

3g, 1a, 4p

26.32% GF
40.07% xGF

He has the most TOI of any C in that span.

It’s not his fault but one of the notable reasons they were so bad last year was because they had him over slotted in a top six center role.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

Everyone wants the skilled players but how to get them. Trading what limited talent we have is not going to do it. We need to unload all the high contract/low production players first. I think Briere is on the right track with signings to get by for now. Draft picks to start with then free agents when possible.

If an approach can be summed up as, "I think they should trade away their dogshit for other people's good picks," it's probably a flawed thought process. No one wants to trade some of their more talented players just to do it. It's that this team has the narrowest of avenues to add high end talent. Widening that path is the single most important thing the person at the top of an org can do.

 

[renberg]

When it comes to Staal, you see that they don’t think they have the people in the system to be there. That’s been the prevailing belief going back to last year.

So true; but sad. Today it's Staal and, now, also EJ. The year before that it was Yandl. It scares one to think who it will be next season. It's a pattern that needs to stop.

 

[mr figgles]

Unfortunately, because we are managed badly, the best they can do in a rebuild is Montreal/Buffalo

They are one stud Russian right winger away from being the Minnesota Wild… oh…

 

[mr figgles]

Like others, I fully expected them to crash and burn and ultimately miss out. I just expected it to happen more like two or three months ago than the last ten games of the season.

The rest of the division has been banged up, and could never take advantage during those cold stretches they had. It’s been incredible to watch, like the slowest moving car wreck.

 

[Rebels57]

Is this the worst final stretch collapse in Flyers history? Does this mean no more Jack Adams for Torts?

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

The EJ trade isn’t a great look on their ability to evaluate talent. That was a let’s grab this guy because he used to be good at some point ignoring that he wasn’t good in Buffalo & is at an age where it shouldn’t be a surprise.

It’s a fourth round pick so it won’t set the team back but still that isn’t a throw away pick either. If you’re going to make trades of value you should be getting players back that can actually play. You had guys in your system that ultimately came up & outplayed Johnson which wasn’t/isn’t a high bar. But that trade value you give up suggests you thought Johnson could at worst be a passable third pair defensemen & that wasn’t remotely the case.

 

[GKJ]

So true; but sad. Today it's Staal and, now, also EJ. The year before that it was Yandl. It scares one to think who it will be next season. It's a pattern that needs to stop.

It also did stand to reason that they’d be able to make a trade with him at the deadline if he played at like 70% of the value teams think he did last season when he was a top 4 guy on a team that was in the finals

 

[Danko]

Pretty much could see this coming a mile away. Then when Torts decidd to bench Coots you lost a bunch of guys. Combine that with that hellish schedule, this was inevitable.

 

[Cody Webster]

Yes. Definitely yes.
They really have to stop making deals for D men from Buffalo. (watch them trade for injury prone Samuelsson in the off season).

The negativity is easy. I'm satisfied with what the season gave me. Playoffs were unrealistic at the start of the year and I'm sure pretty much everyone was shocked by the standings at Christmas.

So they couldn't sustain it. Late season meltdown. Torts haters feel energized (but wasn't your original critique that he wouldn't play the kids???) and life goes on. I see positive signs from where they were with Fletcher. If you guys don't, well enjoy your negativity I guess.

To me it's amazing they did as well as they have. Look at New Jersey's fall. Nobody survived the fallout from the rape charges and that's probably as it should be too.

Thanks Deady

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

The Goaltending has been terrible, but the team in front of it hasn’t been the same since December. They’ve still had some highs, but they also had two sustained 5v5 streaks that were painful. That didn’t happen earlier in the year.

The point as it feels like it is year in and out is that instead of hyper focusing on one thing, we have to look at the big picture. In the very same post, you’ve lamented that the Goaltending has killed them, but the only complaint you have about Briere is that he traded away Walker. Let’s toss that insanity aside and focus on what you haven’t brought up. He also decided to buy a player. That player sucks and also does not play Goalie. At how many major inflection points since June did Briere choose to stay the course with respect to Goalies? Why are we handwaving this? How is that not the single most important chain of decisions he made if the Goalies are the biggest problem with the team?

What I’m asking you to do is not stop at the surface level. Think things through to their root causes. That’s where you find the problems that move the needle.

So according to the recent STG episode ASF talked about how they knew coming into the season Hart was one of the five players. It was more so a matter of being unsure when the charges would drop. They initially thought they’d drop in August/September but that didn’t happen. So they knew at some point Hart very well could be unavailable. So the plan was still to roll with essentially what we saw post-Hart with Sandstrom & Petersen on top Ersson.

This is my own speculation based off that but I’m guessing that’s why they held Sandstrom as a third goalie on the NHL roster for as long as they did.

He made the point that Hart playing when he did though was a notciable part of their earlier season success. If you had to turn to those guys you’re probably not in the position they were in this late into the season.

 

[Flyerfan4life]

Everyone wants the skilled players but how to get them. Trading what limited talent we have is not going to do it. We need to unload all the high contract/low production players first. I think Briere is on the right track with signings to get by for now. Draft picks to start with then free agents when possible. What we have now is transitional and young guys. Hopes we're too high when they were playing well. Even them goaltending was carrying us. Not now.

thats why its important to draft in the top3 for mutiple years..

outside the top10 gives you non needlemovers..

 

[GapToothedWonder]

Unfortunately, because we are managed badly, the best they can do in a rebuild is Montreal/Buffalo

Luckily I'm not worried about that becauae they are never going to rebuild anyways.

 

[Flyerfan4life]

Laughton has a heater leading up to the trade deadline:

"He's way too valuable to us to trade him right now. Culture! Playoff push! We'll revisit in the summer, when his value will be even higher."

Laughton craters like a 65 million year old asteroid after the deadline:

"Well, we can't trade him now! His value is way too low. We need to keep him for the #culture!"

Tale as old as time. Song as old as rhyme.

they arent trading him... he is the role model of what they want in their #culture room...

a non needlemover who should be easily traded away but wont be.

 

[Ironmanrulez]

Over the last 15 games Laughton has:

3g, 1a, 4p

26.32% GF
40.07% xGF

He has the most TOI of any C in that span.

Culture Captain!

 

[freakydallas13]

The only reason Walker was traded was because they couldn't get his contract where they wanted it. Otherwise he'd still be here with an extension to boot.

I'm not convinced they aren't circling back to sign him in July. Which is good from and asset management perspective, but bad from a "team should be rebuilding" perspective.