The Philadelphia Flyers are off to a hot 10-7-1 start to their season and have done so with one of the most difficult schedules in the NHL. With them winning games despite being in a rebuild, it might be difficult for them to disassemble the roster and opt for a full-scale blowup rather than staying the course and trying to win games. The Flyers’ unexpected success could alter how the rebuild goes entirely.
The “True” Rebuilding Path
There is really no such thing as a “true” rebuild, but the consensus is that it involves stripping a team of talent and trying to obtain the highest draft picks possible over the course of a few seasons. With how well the Flyers have been playing, this doesn’t seem like the right thing to do out of the blue. If the Flyers see significant regression and find themselves toward the bottom of the standings by the trade deadline, this might be the best path that they can choose. This would result in the rebuild taking a bit longer, but it would also mean that the Flyers likely get a few top-notch prospects while they are struggling. There are both pros and cons to this approach, but it has resulted in Stanley Cups for those who employ it well.
If general manager (GM) Danny Briere was going to sell everything on the team, he likely would have done it during the offseason. In hindsight, it is obvious that choosing to do this might have been the worst thing he could have done, with individuals such as Travis Sanheim and Joel Farabee both having the best seasons of their careers.
Trade value is always important, but the best way to maximize getting a top pick in the draft would be by selling everything worth something to other teams. It isn’t always efficient, but this approach helps teams get generational players that cannot be acquired through trade or free agency.
Some teams do not have to fully commit to a fire sale rebuild to achieve success, however. After a disappointing 2007-08 season, the Tampa Bay Lightning won the draft lottery and selected Steven Stamkos with the first-overall pick. On that roster, they had Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis leading the way with 92 and 83 points. By no means were they a team committed to a rebuild, but instead one that benefitted from an abnormally high floor for NHL team points that season, with their 71-point campaign being the worst in the league.
With that said, the Lightning were lucky to be in the position to draft a superstar. Most teams that have a top-end player on their roster that they acquired through the draft had to sell virtually every good player on previous teams to get them, so there are risks to trying to obtain a star NHL athlete.
Looking at some previous teams that employed a sell-all process, the Toronto Maple Leafs might be the most accurate to where the Flyers are now. After Toronto traded Phil Kessel for a rather small return, their rationale was pretty evident. They were gunning for Auston Matthews in the 2016 NHL Draft and wouldn’t be deterred. Fortunately for them, that’s exactly who they got. The Flyers are ahead of where the Maple Leafs were before they landed the superstar in terms of prospect talent, but they also do not have a player in their system that could rival the 2022 Hart Trophy winner. Russian phenom Matvei Michkov makes it close, but expecting him to match Matthews’ level of success is unrealistic.
It certainly wouldn’t hurt the Flyers if they were able to get another star prospect, but that would have to be their plan moving forward. If they want to go for a rebuilding approach that tends to be the most successful in terms of championship success, they have to go all in.
Opting for Winning Hockey
The rebuilding process that seems the most likely for the Flyers at this point is one that involves selling veteran players when necessary to maximize value but trying to find star players through trade, free agency, or simple draft luck. Instead of trading every player worth anything on the roster, the Flyers could pick and choose which ones could be beneficial to them down the line. By doing this, Philadelphia probably won’t be picking too high in drafts, but they will still be getting assets along the way as they wait for their prospects to make the transition to the NHL.
One of the best examples of a team staying competitive without drafting any superstars has been the Vegas Golden Knights. They had some help during their inaugural Expansion Draft to build a solid team, but they made the choice to build around these players rather than selling them at the trade deadline while their value was sky-high. Signing defenseman Alex Pietrangelo and trading for star forwards Jack Eichel and Mark Stone eventually put them over the hump, winning the Stanley Cup in the 2022-23 season. With no first-round picks of their own on that roster, the draft was not a worry for them at all. They went for a championship every season and were rewarded with one in their sixth season of existence.
Not every team can be the Golden Knights, but their construction isn’t impossible to replicate. Excellent depth with a few star players on offense and defense granted them a title, and that is something that the Flyers can go for, too. If Michkov and Cutter Gauthier are the real deal, that would set them up nicely as is. They have several forward prospects that could end up making an impact in the future, so their depth looks solid on paper.
Related: Flyers Prospects Report: NCAA D1 Players
Star free agents aren’t always available, but a player that can be the leader of either an offense or a defense could be there from time to time. Investing in a player like that would cost the Flyers a hefty amount, but it could elevate them from being a playoff contender to a Stanley Cup contender down the line.
For example, Artemi Panarin’s $11.6 million cap hit is a huge price for the New York Rangers, but he is also one of the best players in the NHL in his fifth season under their payroll. Scoring at a pace above a point per game every season since his 2017-18 campaign, there are entire draft classes that do not have a player as good as him. If the Flyers want to have a chance of landing a player like this, they have to be competitive enough to make playing for them desirable. With William Nylander becoming an unrestricted free agent (UFA) this offseason, there is a slight chance that their time to land a star could be close.
The Flyers are in a position where they can choose to go for a rebuild that involves more winning. They have high-end prospects who could lead a franchise, and they have players on their roster that fall in the category of both helping them in the future and helping them fetch more stock in the draft. If they want to win a championship with this method, they are banking on their prospects living up to the hype.
Flyers Have to Make Their Decision Evident
Whatever the Flyers choose to do, they have to commit to it. Part of the reason why they’re in their current situation is because they never truly committed to anything until it was far too late a few seasons back. They were on the cusp of being a rebuilder and a team that was trying to progress forward at the same time under GM Ron Hextall. Always around the middle of the league’s standings and acquiring no star prospects in the process, the Flyers’ attempt to reinvigorate hockey in Philadelphia was a massive failure. If the team chooses to do the same exact thing with this rebuild, the chances of being a Stanley Cup contender down the line are slim.
There is really no wrong choice for the Flyers, but they would be wrong in just letting everything play out and not making any moves. They have to be active. Otherwise, their window might slip away. The Flyers have years’ worth of mistakes in their recent history to learn from, so there are no excuses for them this time around.
Ordinarily, some early success for a rebuilding team isn’t the norm. If the Flyers continue to win hockey games, they will be faced with a difficult decision as to where they choose to go with their rebuild. Their management’s preference has yet to be determined, so how the Flyers perform through the rest of their 2023-24 season could be the deciding factor.
