Coffees
blackhawk down
How so? Flyers fans are tough, id bet good majority of them won’t be bothered by what I said, Sabre head.
Value of: What is the plan with Travis Konecny?
- Thread starter Coffees
- Start date
Surprised Anaheim would be interested in TK as they are rebuilding too but i’d do:
TK for 1st top 10 protected 24 (but no protection in 25) Gaucher and Pastujov.
Rich Nixon
No Prior Knowledge of "Flyers"
If you want someone to blab about Flyers dysfunction, I'm your guy.
The central tension right now seems to be this: Tortorella was hired by a consulting firm commissioned by ownership (who did not trust the previous GM, Fletcher, to do so—but for some reason didn't fire him for another 9 months).
Tortorella is viewed by Flyers ownership as some sort of hockey genius and sage, for whatever reason. He's literally at the center of the team's marketing right now because he's supposedly TUFF and TELLS IT LIKE IT IS, which we as Flyers fans are supposed to be dumb enough to love.
Tortorella was hired before his bosses, GM Danny Briere and team President Keith Jones, and the CEO of the Flyers ownership group has said he expects the three to work as a "trumvirate" with equal power, rather than a traditional Prez->GM->coach situation.
So that means Tortorella has an outsized role in player acquisition. He hated DeAngleo and Hayes, so they had to bend over backwards to get rid of them. Not officially reported, but my sense is that he loves Konecny and Laughton and is making it harder for the franchise to trade them. He loves Marc Staal, so they signed him.
As long as the Flyers have this messy, stupid leadership situation, they'll be doing weird shit that doesn't exactly resemble a rebuild. Ideally, Briere isn't 100% aligned with Tortorella on everything—and actually has the power to overrule him and sell off the few pieces they have to offer.
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- Jul 25, 2012
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I don’t mind the premise, tho I think gaucher is a player pv personally picked and may rather move lundestrom or groulx over gaucher.
Got drysdale and zegras signed cheaper and get rid of silf and Henrique this deadline. I think it’s pretty much time to push…. Well also have plenty of money to resign Konecny, I think he’d do really well in Cronin system
Rich Nixon
No Prior Knowledge of "Flyers"
...hope you like words!
You're reading me wrong. They have guys who are ready to play. They don't have gamebreakers or elite talents in hand (Michkov is locked away) or anyone who really projects to be a 1D—that's the "not ready" to start thinking about post-rebuild life. But they have a handful of NHL-ready young guys who likely project to play in the top half of the lineup, and right now only 1 F and 1 D are getting the opportunity per game.
Foerster was a first round pick who had 7 points in his 8 NHL games last season. Brink led the NCAA in scoring 2 years ago. Andrae was one of the best defensemen in the SHL last season. Zamula's got the makings of a good 3rd-pairing guy, but at this point he's 23 with 3 AHL seasons under his belt because, you know, guys like Nick Seeler and Keith Yandle and now Marc Staal just had to be in the lineup every night.
Staal was signed for VETERAN MENTORSHIP (and bad performance) because Walker, Sanheim, Seeler, and Risto (lol) weren't enough VETERANS for them I guess. Andrae and Zamula are more than ready to play 3rd pairing (or higher) minutes on a bad team. Right now they have so many trash veteran defensemen that they have room for 1 or 0 prospects in the lineup any given night.
On offense, it's the same look. Deslauriers (who was signed the prior summer) is garbage and barely an NHL player. Hathaway is fine, but they have too many NHL RWs, haven't traded anyone to move the younger ones up the depth chart, and cut off the last roster spot for one by signing a guy they didn't need. Brink and Foerster are both NHL ready right now—but are RWs.
Really, they could be using Atkinson (who looks cooked) and Laughton on the "4th line" with some PK specialization, then leaving Deslauriers and/or Hathaway in the press box, which would let Foerster AND Brink get into the top 9 and play real minutes. Instead, they're cycling one-in, one-out. They've avoidably created a situation where they're not looking at "First line minutes in the AHL are better than 4th line minutes in the NHL!" They're looking at "NHL or press box" for these youngsters.
They're in a "rebuild" but have backed themselves into a situation where they are only playing 1 or 2 prospects at maximum, because god forbid they not have a 4th line entirely of TUFF AGITATORS up front and MOAR VETERANS on defense. These kids should be playing, not watching f***ing Marc Staal and Nic Deslauriers from the press box. That's the dumb shit.
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"You did what i told you not to do!" boohoo. Just because you're starting a thread doesn't mean you get to dictate how anyone responds. Frankly by your second post you sounded like a xapmat pearl...
Coffees
blackhawk down
He goes for a first and top prospect but if we're moving him this year I expect he would get a second first. Two years of a top line player at five million is going to cost a lot.
IWantSakicAsMyGM
Registered User
I appreciate the detailed response, but it sounds like your reasoning is essentially that you want all of the NHL ready youngsters in the NHL lineup. And, as a fan, I fully understand that viewpoint.
But, I also know that there's a difference between being ready for a shot at the NHL, and actually being ready for the NHL, and it sounds like most of the Flyers youth is only ready for a shot. So, I also fully understand why Briere decided to sign a couple of mediocre bandaids to occupy those roster spots until guys show they are actually ready. Why rush the kids into full time roles, which carries a risk of hurting their long term development?
Also, of these youngsters, only Zamula isn't waivers exempt, so they can easily send the others down to the AHL to get playing time if they don't show something more over the first 8-10 games of the NHL season.
Rich Nixon
No Prior Knowledge of "Flyers"
This is ongoing and though Briere is new, he's continued a frustrating pattern.
They do not develop players effectively or efficiently at either the AHL or NHL level, for a number of reasons. The Phantoms are coached by Ian Lapperriere—another played-out journeyman plug from decades past who played one season for the Flyers and earned their forever fealty by blocking a shot with his face, ending his career but fast-tracking him into the front office.
Lapperiere is...not a good coach. Meanwhile, the coaching turnover at the NHL level has jumbled that program even more, with the AHL team switching systems back and forth based on the NHL coach's desires. None of the guys in the AHL seem to improve season-over-season, and each new head coach the Flyers bring in has to do their "skeptical, hard look" at the young guys. So all their clocks keep restarting as they get older, with each new coach deferring to His Guys.
Morgan Frost is the purest example of this. Highly-skilled C, tore up juniors, decent two-way game, first rounder, made his NHL debut early in the 2019-20 season. He scored a couple goals immediately and went dry for a while and went back to the AHL. Didn't get a second sniff under Vigneault: They brought in more plugs (Derek Grant and Nate Thompson) and off they went.
Then AV gets fired and Frost has to go out there and prove to Mike Yeo that he can do whatever awesome hockey things Mike Yeo wants.
Then last year, he finally got sustained playing time with decent linemates last season—and had a great year! But last night he was a healthy scratch in the home opener, because John Tortorella still says he "doesn't know if he can trust him yet" to do whatever it is that John Tortorella wants him to do. He's 24 years old and he led the team in ES scoring last season.
It isn't a team of all kids I want: It's a team that actually commits to developing NHL players without stagnating them permanently or ruining their confidence. So, if there is no expectation to compete for a Cup right now, and the eye is to the future, they should be willing to play more than 2 rookies at any given time. They also need to let those rookies and other youngsters work through scoring droughts if they're doing everything else right.
The AHL development problem is something that Briere has acknowledged, by the way. The team hired about 5 additional skills and development coaches (mostly ex-Flyers and/or Dany Heatley) this summer and Briere mentioned in interviews that that was done because the organization didn't do it very well in the past. At the NHL level, though, they're still addicted to dinosaur coaches who default to playing journeyman scrubs rather than participating in player development.
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Every team would love to have him, it probably starts with Two 1sts or A prospect + 1st tbh. Elite player on a phenomenal contract.
IWantSakicAsMyGM
Registered User
As a long time Avs fan, I can sympathize with the frustration of not being able to develop draft picks into useful NHLers. And I fully agree that swapping your NHL coach for another recycled loser every other year isn't a great way to build a winning team. But, it's hard to fault Briere for things that have been going on for decades at this point, and aren't specific to just the Flyers.
And, Ian Laperriere has only been the AHL coach for 2 seasons, and at least made the AHL playoffs last year, so I'm not sure how he's to blame for any of these long term issues. He's certainly not the one making the decisions about who gets sent down to play on his team.
I also don't really understand what your issue is with Frost getting sent down to the AHL instead of letting him continue to struggle in the NHL, especially when you go on to say that you want the team to commit to developing players without ruining their confidence. Would you have preferred that they rush him to the NHL and let AV ruin his development?
flyerslducks
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Something around Konechny and Laughton with retention for Laf, Kakko and Goodrow makes way to much sense
SnS
Global Moderator
I doubt any Rangers fans would want that. And I doubt many flyers fans would want TK in the ranger blue.
- Jul 25, 2012
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Coffees
blackhawk down
Johniac
Registered User
SnS
Global Moderator
What the hell are the Flyers going to do with Pesce? They need to be rebuilding.
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GKJ
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- Feb 27, 2002
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It would not take Carlsson, and I don’t know which guy it would be, but I would bet you wouldn’t like it since there would be high draft capital included.
GKJ
Global Moderator
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We’ll gladly trade anyone. We just don’t trust that they are serious about rebuilding, until they do something like trade Konecny, or someone who John Tortorella didn’t fully commit to making sure they were miserable
Thechozen1
Registered User
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As much as I would loathe to give up Chibrikov, Konecny is an impactful piece that would strengthen the Jets.
Maybe a larger deal could be made to shore up the blue line.
