Training Camp 2023

[deadhead]

TK, Frost, Farabee, Cates at the NHL level
But if we're limited to the AHL, Sanheim, York, Laughton, Zamula.

Of course, the stock answer is they succeed in spite of development, which of course can't be disproven.

The bigger problem has been pro scouting, what was the last "hidden gem" they claimed on waivers, signed cheaply or traded minor assets to steal?

 

[Beef Invictus]

I said choose your 7th forward, note they all scored around 10 ES goals, that is, add to the bottom five and you have the same production as the Colorado bottom six. So kiss your speculation goodbye.

Colorado plays better offense b/c they have some elite offensive forwards and two elite offensive defensemen. It's that simple. No conspiracy theories required. When you have talented forwards and D-men, the defense backs off and you have more room to make those cute plays.

Yes, you play it safe with Laughton and Cates and Allison and . . . because they're not very good at zone entries - in fact few current Flyers are. That's talent.


Good question. Where are they? They're not on other teams, like so many players who change teams and thrive - did Florida screw up Tippett? How come he scored 27 goals with the Flyers?

The idea that one or two seasons in the AHL/NHL can permanently ruin a player is silly, hockey isn't rocket science, if a player has talent and is coachable, he can figure it out with a team that's better at coaching up talent. If no player leaves you and improves, Occam's razor says talent is the problem.

You are deliberately misreading what I said. Nothing about your bizarre Cherrypicking of a 7th forward (whom Cates STILL wasn't) refutes any of what I said. Everything I said is true. You are fighting against truth, solely because truth is unkind to Flyers management.

As for your response to Tripod, I actually already covered a major factor in that. A factor which you didn't bother refuting in your quest to move the goalposts and play a feeble whatabout game instead.

 

[deadhead]

You are deliberately misreading what I said. Nothing about your bizarre Cherrypicking of a 7th forward (whom Cates STILL wasn't) refutes any of what I said. Everything I said is true. You are fighting against truth, solely because truth is unkind to Flyers management.

No. I'm fighting against abject nonsense, b/c development isn't a magic wand to turn talentless players into stars.

 

[Beef Invictus]

Again, development is absolutely an issue. No one is defending that. There is no question about that. This "development priorities" of which you speak is a perfectly ambiguous term that you can toss around to pretend like there is some "root cause" to this because John Tortarella is old school or Bobby Clarke is still there or they hired Keith Jones or whatever. I assume that "development priorities" means small players are bad and skilled players are bad and there is a need to teach small players to be bigger and slower and skilled players to be slower and more physical, but that narrative falls apart when you look at the smaller and more skilled players that they have. Yes, I know that Frost got paid less than Cates and that proves it the other skilled players we have are just there by accident (also the smaller players we have are not wanted because they traded Ghost and traded for Risto).

Same thing with drafting. Their drafting sucks as bad as their development sucks. You can't look at this team and say they aren't getting everything out of their players so their development sucks when they are actually developing players. You also can't say they are prirotizing size or lack of skill when they are routinely picking small and skillful players. Yes, sometimes they pick big guys or more defensive players or what have you, but that doesn't negate the other players they are drafting or signing.

The NAKs, Myers, Ginnings, Rubstovs, etc. of the world wouldn't be doing any better than they are currently had they gone elsewhere or at least there is nothing you can legitimately point to that would support this fact. Again, for every one of the failures there is a success story. If you go back starting in 2019 you have examples of guys developing exactly into what we thought they would. There are also guys that did not turn out how we wanted. Guys who suffered injuries that maybe would have turned out differently. This team sucks right now because they have failed to draft and have failed to develop (among other things). There is no rule that says we have to pinpoint one single reason that this team sucks and we don't have to invent narratives about the team only liking big players or old players or hating skill or whatever you want to pretend is going on. They can just suck because they suck.

If you read up, you'll find I did get much more specific. In the past, I've gotten highly specific.

I do not have the energy to lay out every specific complaint and instance every time I reference bad development processes.

Also, NAK legitimately did better the moment he left as he was being actively misused (as pointed out by Colorado) so it's a bad example. Anyway, the damage the Flyers do and the ways they set guys back are the kinds of things that can take years to fix. And depth players won't be given years to figure it out.

 

[Magua]

Of course, the stock answer is they succeed in spite of development, which of course can't be disproven.

People are crying laughing using guys like Sanheim and Frost as team success stories. To this day (!), they purposefully limit their potential. They're the textbook cases of "in spite of development." Frost, with his coach calling him a toilet seat, would've been traded last year had the Fletcher regime continued. They tried their damndest to trade Sanheim 2 months ago!

Cates is marginal. I always knew he'd be a good bottom 6 player. He also never touched the AHL. I'd argue he's overperformed defensively (to this point, but I don't think he'll regress more than fluctuate) and underperformed offensively, relative to usage. You're just listing mostly highly touted 1st round players that are performing to expectation at absolute best. And some still not.

The bigger problem has been pro scouting, what was the last "hidden gem" they claimed on waivers, signed cheaply or traded minor assets to steal?

You might say Seeler, based on last year. Except he was in Fletcher's organization for 11 years prior, where he sucked.

I'd also argue that hidden gems (within reason) aren't anywhere near as big an issue as f***ing up high level decisions (Hayes, TDA, Risto, etc.). Bang for your buck 4th liners are the easy part. A Poehling-Hathaway 4th line combo is just that on a competitive team. It also doesn't move the needle.

 

[Beef Invictus]

No. I'm fighting against abject nonsense, b/c development isn't a magic wand to turn talentless players into stars.

I never said it was. At all. Try reading.

 

[BackToTheBrierePatch]

Tanner will probably hurt himself going through waivers.

He will trip over Allison and they will both be week to week with a LBI

 

[DrinkFightFlyers]

Not a single one of these players has anything in common with their post-draft years. It's like grouping South Korea, Liechtenstein, Suriname, and Greece to make a point about the world economy.



I’d love to hear who is defined as a “success story” by product of development.

I'm not sure I understand your first point, are you saying that these guys would be better elsewhere, or are you saying that they were never going to be good anywhere?

As to the second part, I will gladly run through a list, but first I just want to see if this is going to be one of those things when I list the players who developed as you would expect/hope and you say that they don't count because of whatever reason is convenient (they are good but would be better elsewhere, the Flyers accidentally developed them, the Flyers tried to destroy them but failed, they weren't good here (even though we said they were at the time) and only got better after they left, etc. etc. etc. ). Just a quick sneak preview, there were at least 9 guys I can think of off the top of my head that played for this team just last year that have been developed by the Flyers who I think we all agree have turned into or are in the process of turning into the players we hoped/expected them to be.

This shouldn't be construed as an endorsement of the Flyers drafting and development. It isn't. They are not the best and probably not even in the top half. They have problems in every aspect of how this team is run and how they function on and off the ice. We don't need to make up narratives as to why this happens. There doesn't have to be a pinpoint reason and oftentimes when you drill down there are multiple reasons. None of those reasons are they hate small players or they hate young players.

If you read up, you'll find I did get much more specific. In the past, I've gotten highly specific.

I do not have the energy to lay out every specific complaint and instance every time I reference bad development processes.

Also, NAK legitimately did better the moment he left as he was being actively misused (as pointed out by Colorado) so it's a bad example. Anyway, the damage the Flyers do and the ways they set guys back are the kinds of things that can take years to fix. And depth players won't be given years to figure it out.

Lol, you mean to tell me a low-end NHL player had a brief increase in success when he went from one of the worst teams in the league to the Stanley Cup Chamions. No. I just can't believe it. The only answer is that the Flyers botched his development. I can't think of any other reason why a guy from a bottom of the barrell team would do better on the literal best team in the league.

 

[freakydallas13]

No. I'm fighting against abject nonsense, b/c development isn't a magic wand to turn talentless players into stars.

What about turning potentially useful players/potential stars into duds?

 

[JojoTheWhale]

Frost is a success now. I never thought this day would come. I'm getting the vapors.

 

[tnfrs]

I'd also argue that hidden gems (within reason) aren't anywhere near as big an issue as f***ing up high level decisions (Hayes, TDA, Risto, etc.). Bang for your buck 4th liners are the easy part. A Poehling-Hathaway 4th line combo is just that on a competitive team. It also doesn't move the needle.

i agree on this part. we had advance warning that those 3 players specifically werent good and/or good fits and still overpaid for each one, and it was right after we just had a few awful years of draft luck with patrick, rubtsov, and obrien which even at the time of the picks had question marks

Frost is a success now. I never thought this day would come. I'm getting the vapors.

he said he was never going to be a physical player but that turned out to be a lie. he'll never be a fighter but hes a battler now

 

[flyerslducks]

he said he was never going to be a physical player but that turned out to be a lie. he'll never be a fighter but hes a battler now

Was frost supposed to be a fighter lol?

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

The amount of gas that’s being lit in here is making me all woozy.

 

[tnfrs]

Was frost supposed to be a fighter lol?

no thats not what i was implying

 

[JojoTheWhale]

I really, really don't want to argue this greater point, but a player with an arc like Cates is not someone I would hail as a development success. He developed outside of their org. Then they put him in the lineup.

Obviously the credit goes somewhere within the org for acquiring him. It's just not an example of a guy that got better on their watch.

 

[Magua]

I'm not sure I understand your first point, are you saying that these guys would be better elsewhere, or are you saying that they were never going to be good anywhere?

As to the second part, I will gladly run through a list, but first I just want to see if this is going to be one of those things when I list the players who developed as you would expect/hope and you say that they don't count because of whatever reason is convenient (they are good but would be better elsewhere, the Flyers accidentally developed them, the Flyers tried to destroy them but failed, they weren't good here (even though we said they were at the time) and only got better after they left, etc. etc. etc. ). Just a quick sneak preview, there were at least 9 guys I can think of off the top of my head that played for this team just last year that have been developed by the Flyers who I think we all agree have turned into or are in the process of turning into the players we hoped/expected them to be.

This shouldn't be construed as an endorsement of the Flyers drafting and development. It isn't. They are not the best and probably not even in the top half. They have problems in every aspect of how this team is run and how they function on and off the ice. We don't need to make up narratives as to why this happens. There doesn't have to be a pinpoint reason and oftentimes when you drill down there are multiple reasons. None of those reasons are they hate small players or they hate young players.

I'm saying that Rubtsov, Myers, NAK, and Ginning have nothing in common as developmental cases. Nothing. You cannot conjure up a connected theme involving those names. They're pulled out of a hat.

Rubtsov was wrecked with injuries, and his scoring never came along even at lower levels. He had pace issues and passivity issues. Before the Flyers even touched him, the signs were there in hindsight. I say this as someone who very much liked Rubtsov in his D-year.

NAK has done just fine for himself on the Avalanche and Capitals. He has been a useful ~25 point pace 4th liner. Now, we can discuss that the Flyers went out of their way to bury him in the AHL in the Hextall veteran craze years, with zero special teams time in 3.5 years. That he got more special teams time in the NHL his rookie season (after being call-up #12) was a sign something was off.

Ginning sucks and has always sucked. Nary a soul here, who watched him, valued him as a prospect.

Myers is among the best examples. Don't take my word for it: take the word of the POHO who called him a star (and we chuckled at that overhype). I watched him as much as anyone in the Q; I watched him plenty in the AHL. He was on a top 4 track. I think they went out of their way to neuter his best attributes and accentuate his worst. At a fundamental level, he did not resemble the Rouyn-Noranda version because, hilariously enough, they played more of an NHL system down there. He was fantastic at joining the rush -- that died structurally under Vigneault (just look at Provorov). Impossibly long breakouts did not play to his strengths at either pro level. He needed short support everywhere to manage his passing issues. He began to melt in the o-zone, turning into a turret. They tried to turn a hyper aggressive athletic beast into a safe player.

*******

Now, the fact you have to preface a post with 3 paragraphs before giving me a reply, I'd wager to say you're right: I won't agree.

 

[Curufinwe]

He will trip over Allison and they will both be week to week with a LBI

I feel like Allison doesn’t get enough credit for playing 60 games last season which was about his double his previous pro career high

 

[deadhead]

NAK wasn't re-signed by Colorado in favor of two 30+ bottom six forwards, then was waived by Toronto before being revived in Washington. His career arc are good half season followed by bad seasons, good forechecker sabotaged by his own stupidity (throws elbows at heads, one reason I'm glad he's gone, I think a player who does that has no business in today's NHL). Calling him a "development failure" is really reaching for straws.

Myers couldn't learn how to play in Nashville, who are good at developing D-men, couldn't hack in two tries in TB, certainly a team with good coaching - at some point it's the player!

Cousins is the only Flyer to leave to play better elsewhere, but it took him years to become a solid 3rd line forward.

The problem was incremental erosion of talent over the years, trading JVR for L Schenn, refusing to rebuild as the core players approached 30, blowing the cap by overpaying Voracek, JVR and Hayes. Risto and TDA may have been the coup de grace that toppled the tree, but the truck was rotten.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

Frost is a success and Hayes was an overpay that seriously hurt their cap. What the hell have we been arguing about for a decade then?

 

[DrinkFightFlyers]

I'm saying that Rubtsov, Myers, NAK, and Ginning have nothing in common as developmental cases. Nothing. You cannot conjure up a connected theme involving those names. They're pulled out of a hat.

Rubtsov was wrecked with injuries, and his scoring never came along even at lower levels. He had pace issues and passivity issues. Before the Flyers even touched him, the signs were there in hindsight. I say this as someone who very much liked Rubtsov in his D-year.

NAK has done just fine for himself on the Avalanche and Capitals. He has been a useful ~25 point pace 4th liner. Now, we can discuss that the Flyers went out of their way to bury him in the AHL in the Hextall veteran craze years, with zero special teams time in 3.5 years. That he got more special teams time in the NHL his rookie season (after being call-up #12) was a sign something was off.

Ginning sucks and has always sucked. Nary a soul here, who watched him, valued him as a prospect.

Myers is among the best examples. Don't take my word for it: take the word of the POHO who called him a star (and we chuckled at that overhype). I watched him as much as anyone in the Q; I watched him plenty in the AHL. He was on a top 4 track. I think they went out of their way to neuter his best attributes and accentuate his worst. At a fundamental level, he did not resemble the Rouyn-Noranda version because, hilariously enough, they played more of an NHL system down there. He was fantastic at joining the rush -- that died structurally under Vigneault (just look at Provorov). Impossibly long breakouts did not play to his strengths at either pro level. He needed short support everywhere to manage his passing issues. He began to melt in the o-zone, turning into a turret. They tried to turn a hyper aggressive athletic beast into a safe player.

*******

Now, the fact you have to preface a post with 3 paragraphs before giving me a reply, I'd wager to say you're right: I won't agree.

I had to preface it because I didn't understand your analogy, so I couldn't respond. If you want a list here's just a quick run through without even really looking. Farabee? His development seems ok. Frost? According to everyone here he was the best player on the team after January and itbis a travesty he didn't get as much as Cates. And what about Cates? His development sucks too I guess. Just a 5th rounder that looks like he's going to make a nice living as a useful player. Konecny? His development seems ok. Hart? Looks ok to me. Lindblom (but for the cancer) was looking good. I know a large portion of this board (possibly you, not sure) believes Sanheim is great, same thing with Ghost. Andrae and Attard certainly seem to be on their way.

But you know all this. We both have access to the roster and we know when these guys were drafted and what their skillsets are or should be.

Now, I'm sure that all of these and any others I come up with don't really count for a variety of reasons. And again, this is not me saying the Flyers are good at developing (or drafting), but we don't need to pretend they are worse than they are or pretend that the reason they are bad at it is because they have secret conspiracies to prevent young or small players or skilled players from playing.

 

[Beef Invictus]

I'm not sure I understand your first point, are you saying that these guys would be better elsewhere, or are you saying that they were never going to be good anywhere?

As to the second part, I will gladly run through a list, but first I just want to see if this is going to be one of those things when I list the players who developed as you would expect/hope and you say that they don't count because of whatever reason is convenient (they are good but would be better elsewhere, the Flyers accidentally developed them, the Flyers tried to destroy them but failed, they weren't good here (even though we said they were at the time) and only got better after they left, etc. etc. etc. ). Just a quick sneak preview, there were at least 9 guys I can think of off the top of my head that played for this team just last year that have been developed by the Flyers who I think we all agree have turned into or are in the process of turning into the players we hoped/expected them to be.

This shouldn't be construed as an endorsement of the Flyers drafting and development. It isn't. They are not the best and probably not even in the top half. They have problems in every aspect of how this team is run and how they function on and off the ice. We don't need to make up narratives as to why this happens. There doesn't have to be a pinpoint reason and oftentimes when you drill down there are multiple reasons. None of those reasons are they hate small players or they hate young players.


Lol, you mean to tell me a low-end NHL player had a brief increase in success when he went from one of the worst teams in the league to the Stanley Cup Chamions. No. I just can't believe it. The only answer is that the Flyers botched his development. I can't think of any other reason why a guy from a bottom of the barrell team would do better on the literal best team in the league.

It came after Colorado (Bednar, specifically I believe) came out and openly said that they knew NAK was being used incorrectly in Philly, they identified what they believed his skillset was, and said they would employ him to that skillset's strengths. It wasn't just "Oh it's a better team," it was "A smarter team has identified a mistake and fixed it to their and the player's advantage." They did a deliberate thing. Nothing chance about it.

 

[Rich Nixon]

I feel like Allison doesn’t get enough credit for playing 60 games last season which was about his double his previous pro career high

To be fair, he was f***ing forgettable in the vast majority of them.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

It came after Colorado (Bednar, specifically I believe) came out and openly said that they knew NAK was being used incorrectly in Philly, they identified what they believed his skillset was, and said they would employ him to that skillset's strengths. It wasn't just "Oh it's a better team," it was "A smarter team has identified a mistake and fixed it to their and the player's advantage." They did a deliberate thing. Nothing chance about it.

It was Bednar.

 

[DrinkFightFlyers]

It came after Colorado (Bednar, specifically I believe) came out and openly said that they knew NAK was being used incorrectly in Philly, they identified what they believed his skillset was, and said they would employ him to that skillset's strengths. It wasn't just "Oh it's a better team," it was "A smarter team has identified a mistake and fixed it to their and the player's advantage." They did a deliberate thing. Nothing chance about it.

But that's not a development issue, that's a usage. If I am using Nik Zherdev on the PK instead of Sean Couturier, that isn't bad development or some conspiracy to hurt young or small or skilled players.

Not to mention, of course, this was after a career high of 22 points with Colorado, a number that he failed to meet the following years with worse teams. So it's weird that it wasn't because he went to a SC winning team that he had this anomaly of a season where he essentially doubles his career high then reverts to his old ways when he leaves that team.

Seems again more like they dropped the ball in drafting him over some other selection.

 

[BobbyClarkeFan16]

Adam Ginning is the new Adam Foote or Luke Schenn. He's an absolute rock!!!!! Lol, I honestly had a hard time keeping a straight face writing that out.

So, Wisdom, Desnoyers and Gendron were all sent to Lehigh Valley. What's the chance Puckhead will out them all on the same line and let them build some chemistry together?