So Dead, what would you have done differently this past season compared to Hak?
Had Ron get me some better players. Seriously, that was a pretty bad roster last year.
Until Patrick started playing better around February, Flyers had one top 9 caliber center.
Sanheim wasn't ready, Gudas lost his mojo, Morin blew out his knee.
When Neuvirth went down, Lyon just didn't look ready, Stolarz was injured.
I would have kept TK on the first line in the playoffs, put Raffl at 2LW when Lindblom went belly up. Go with Laughton - Filppula - Simmonds as the 3rd line, and played the 4th line (Weal - Lehtera - Weise?) as little as possible.
But options were limited during the regular season. Especially before Lindblom came up, Patrick could skate and Sanheim returned. People forget how bad Patrick played the first half of the season, why Raffl was promoted from the 4th line, the Gudas 10 game suspension, Simmonds struggling, etc. The lines didn't jell until Lindblom joined Patrick and Voracek (and moving your 2nd best scorer off the 1st line for an erratic 2nd year winger was a gutsy move). And you still had Raffl - Filppula - Simmonds as your 3rd line.
Manning was a better offensive player than Sanheim (outscored him 5x5 by a wide margin), Hagg was far more physical, so whomever you played, pretty much the same result, we had too many bottom six defensemen playing too many minutes. Sanheim may be good someday, but not last year (looking forward to seeing him in camp, did he spend his summer adding strength and developing an edge or is he still a Ghost wannabee without the same level of skill?).
What makes me optimistic this season, other than the hole at 3C (crosses fingers and sends Frost a Charles Atlas ad), is that there is far more depth than last season, guys who were getting their feet wet have some experience.
Frost and Myers could solve a lot of issues, Frost as 3C and Myers as the 3rd pair RHD with MacDonald/Hagg and the other to the press box.