2023 was a busy year for the Philadelphia Flyers. A lot happens to even the most boring NHL team over 365 days. The Flyers were not that team in 2023, nor are they typically in contention for that title. During the first half of the year, they changed general managers, traded Ivan Provorov and Kevin Hayes and drafted Matvei Michkov No. 7 overall, among numerous other developments.
All of that is why the first half of the year was all we had time to cover in the first part of our Flyers 2023 recap. But have no fear, for part two is here. This section of Flyers history began with some depth free agent signings and bridge deals for restricted free agents. But it ended with something no one saw coming — a Flyers team right in the thick of Stanley Cup Playoff contention.
July
The first free agency of the Daniel Brière-Keith Jones era predictably didn’t make a major splash. With the Flyers’ rebuild truly underway at this point, the team was only looking to add a couple of depth pieces to fill out the lineup and give the kids competition in training camp. The Flyers settled on three main additions — right winger Garnet Hathaway (two years, $2.375 million average annual value – AAV), center Ryan Poehling (one year, $1.4 million AAV) and defenseman Marc Staal (one year, $1.1 million AAV).
Flyers development camp also took place a few days after those three put pen to paper. Though Michkov and Cutter Gauthier weren’t present, it presented an opportunity for the rest of the Flyers’ 2023 Draft class the chance to get to know each other and gave fans a first look at the team’s incoming talent, including a couple of players who would make NHL waves in the fall.
About a week after development camp concluded, the Flyers signed two more contracts, this time agreeing to terms with some familiar faces. Noah Cates and Cam York both signed their first standard player contracts together, agreeing to two-year contracts at an AAV of $2.625 million and $1.6 million, respectively.
Those deals were to be expected, as was the parting of ways with Tony DeAngelo. There were rumors throughout June that the Flyers were looking to deal DeAngelo, whose defensive warts prevented him from earning the trust of John Tortorella during his lone season with the Flyers. The Carolina Hurricanes, who dealt DeAngelo to the Flyers at the 2022 Draft, were interested in re-acquiring the offensive defenseman. However, because it had been less than a calendar year since the original trade, the NHL prevented the teams from making a trade on the 2023 Draft floor.
Rather than complete a simple trade, Brière once again got creative. The signings of Cates and York opened up a second buyout window for the Flyers, and so he and Hurricanes GM Don Waddell agreed to a handshake deal. The Flyers bought out DeAngelo rather than trade him, allowing Carolina to sign him for a cheaper cap hit than trading for DeAngelo’s existing contract, even if the Flyers had retained 50 percent.
August
A few weeks later, the Flyers dealt the rights to David Kaše, who is unlikely to return to North American pro hockey, for prospect Massimo Rizzo and a sixth-round pick. Unofficially, though, the Flyers essentially acquired those assets for DeAngelo. DeAngelo has only played in 20 games so far this season for the Hurricanes and has been a less productive form of his flawed self. And while some are skeptical that he’ll carve out a long-term NHL role, Rizzo is currently the leading scorer in college hockey.
August is typically the quietest month of the NHL calendar, and that was no exception for the Flyers in 2023. Other than the completion of the DeAngelo saga and signing another RFA to another bridge deal — this time a two-year, $4.2 million pact with Morgan Frost — this was a much-needed month off, a chance to decompress from the season that was and prepare for training camp the next month.
September
The Flyers’ “New Era of Orange” may have been introduced when they unveiled their new jerseys in June. But it truly began in September when they returned to the ice. That included Sean Couturier and Cam Atkinson, who both missed the entire 2022-23 campaign due to injury. Getting both back was important to the team’s outlook for the season, but also just a nice breath of positivity after disaster after disaster had seemingly piled up for years prior.
The preseason didn’t exactly get off to a sparkling start for the Flyers, as they dropped their opener 7-0 to the New Jersey Devils. But as exhibition season progressed, the Flyers did what every team hopes to do during the preseason: avoid injuries and see some young players push for a roster spot. Prospects Bobby Brink and Emil Andrae in particular stood out, while Tyson Foerster delivered a more up-and-down showing.
The backup goaltender battle was also a major theme early in camp, although that competition didn’t last as long. After a promising NHL audition, Samuel Ersson entered as the presumed favorite, especially given Tortorella’s displeased stance on Felix Sandström’s play as the team’s primary backup last season and Cal Petersen’s nightmare 2022-23 with the Los Angeles Kings. Ersson largely seemed to secure the upper hand on the race from the jump.
All of it made for some tough calls to be made as the Flyers closed out their preseason slate as the calendar flipped to August and the puck was ready to be dropped for real.
October
The Flyers unveiled their opening night roster on Oct. 9 and it backed up the team’s words about prioritizing their young talent. All of Foerster, Brink and Andrae made the team, as did the no-longer waiver-exempt 23-year-old Egor Zamula. Both Sandström and Ersson were on the roster, but Tortorella confirmed ahead of time that Ersson had won the backup job. The roster did not include Rasmus Ristolainen, however, as he was sidelined with a lower-body injury.
Ristolainen would later suffer a setback on Oct. 24, leaving him sidelined for what turned out to be 20 games. On top of that, Staal suffered an upper-body injury just five days before that announcement. Partially as a result, lineup change was a major theme for the Flyers in the season’s opening month. With one too many top-nine forwards on the roster and a bevy of defensemen worthy of getting looks, especially before Staal’s injury, Tortorella decided to rotate young players in and out of the lineup quite a bit early on.
During the team’s first six games, Foerster and Brink sat once, Zamula and Andrae twice and Frost, uh, four times. The trend would continue throughout November, with Frost in the press box for seven of the Flyers’ first 14 contests. It wasn’t a secret Tortorella wasn’t sold on Frost’s play in 2022-23. But given that Frost let the team in points from Jan. 1 through the end of the season, outright not dressing him with such frequency was a surprising leap.
The Flyers ultimately finished October with an unimpressive 4-4-1 record. By the end of the month, they decided Andrae needed some more seasoning, sending him to the American Hockey League on Oct. 26. But there were plenty of positive takeaways. Travis Konecny was building off his excellent 22-23 campaign, tallying 11 points in eight games. Travis Sanheim was playing some of the best hockey of his career — and the most, averaging almost 26 minutes of ice time per game. Sean Couturier was picking up close to peak form in his first game since December 2021 as well.
Some of the young players were having a bit harder time, though. Tyson Foerster found himself without a goal on the month, and Ersson possessed a brutal .760 save percentage in two starts. It wasn’t all bad, as Brink and Joel Farabee (six points apiece) played well. Overall, October went about how fans were expecting the rest of the 2023-24 season to play out.
November
Not much changed to start the first full month of the Flyers’ 2023-24 campaign. The team started November 1-3-0, scoring just eight goals in those games and allowing five twice. The culmination of the woes came on Nov. 7, when the Flyers faced a San Jose Sharks team fresh off allowing 10 goals in back-to-back games and winless on the season. Naturally, they beat the Flyers 2-1, dropping Philadelphia to 5-7-1 and tied for 25th in the NHL in points percentage.
That loss could’ve easily been a key signifier, confirming that the Flyers were destined for another season of futility. And with nearly two months of hindsight, we can say that the game seems like it was a turning point — just in the opposite direction. The Flyers won their next five games and closed November on a 6-3-1 stretch.
Almost immediately after that San Jose loss, some key players who were struggling to produce such as Frost, Foerster and Owen Tippett started finding themselves on the scoresheet more regularly. Two bigger-picture things started to emerge as well. First, the Flyers were establishing themselves as one of the league’s top play-driving teams. They had played 23 games by the end of November (they were 11-10-2, 19th in the NHL) and they were seventh in the league in expected goals share at 5-on-5, per Natural Stat Trick.
And that wasn’t even the team’s biggest strength — that honor belonged to their penalty kill. The Flyers scored four short-handed goals in October alone and ended November top-10 in PK percentage. Both of those were trends in the season’s first month, but they needed a larger sample size to be taken seriously. November provided that. Slowly but surely, the team was starting to build an identity.
December
It’s hard to imagine a better month for the Flyers than how they closed out 2023. Only the Winnipeg Jets had a higher points percentage in December than Philadelphia, who went an unbelievable 8-2-3. A month that starts with sweeping a home-and-home with the hated Pittsburgh Penguins is always a good one, and the Flyers rode the wave all through the holiday season. They took down two of the league’s top five teams in December, beating the Colorado Avalanche and Vancouver Canucks on the road by identical 4-1 scores. They also won all four of their games against Metropolitan Division foes, albeit needing overtime or a shootout in all of them.
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That all happened despite Carter Hart missing a large chunk of the month due to illness. Ersson stepped up big time in his absence and has a .922 save percentage since Nov. 1. The team’s young skaters continued to develop, with Tortorella pressing the right buttons and building up a case for the Jack Adams Award.
There are no guarantees the Flyers keep thriving in 2024. Maybe the weaknesses the team has on paper finally catch up to them. The roster could be weakened if Brière sticks to the long-term plan and sells at the trade deadline, even if the Flyers are in a playoff spot. Perhaps the youth buckles under the pressure of (for many) their first playoff push and comes up short down the stretch.
But in the second half of 2023, the Flyers earned the respect of the hockey world back. The laughing stock they were at the start of the year feels distant right now. This is still just the first step of the Flyers’ return to relevancy and keeping the good times rolling will only get harder. What they showed during the beginning of 2023-24 suggests, though, they might have what it takes to meet the challenge.
