The success of the rebuilding Philadelphia Flyers will look much different than it would for the juggernauts of the league. In reality, the Flyers’ success will boil down to several storylines and not just making the playoffs or getting the first-overall pick in the draft. What factors could contribute to a good year for the Orange and Black?
Young Flyers Take a Step
One of the most important things to monitor for the Flyers will be how some of the younger players in their lineup develop over the course of the season. With just one more roster cut to make, there will be numerous young options available to head coach John Tortorella entering the season. Their success is paramount to how the Flyers’ rebuild goes.
This season, the Flyers will have one of the younger rosters in the league even though they still have quite a few veterans on the team. It seems as though almost the entirety of their lineup still has some of their best years ahead of them, and that is almost true. 13 of the team’s 23 roster players will be the ages of 26 or younger barring a veteran being a roster cut, which is about 57 percent of the entire team. Even for a rebuilding squad, this is a fairly large amount.
Tortorella is putting a lot of faith into his young players, much like he did last season. This time around, it seems as though that faith was earned rather than given to them, as spots on the team were gotten through training camp and preseason excellence rather than mounting injuries. This serves as a bit of inspiration that some younger individuals can do great.
For the sake of the Flyers’ rebuild, they will need a few young players to have a terrific season. Prime candidates for that would be Tyson Foerster, Bobby Brink, or Emil Andrae, especially since they are all rookies between the ages of 21 and 22. There is legitimate potential that every single one of them sees through the entirety of the team’s rebuild. If they all perform well, that becomes more of a reality.
The rookies of the Flyers aren’t the only youngsters who will need to have a good year. Forward Noah Cates was a defensive wizard in his rookie campaign last season, but he has unseen offensive potential to this point. If he gets there, he could be a dangerous player as soon as next season. The same applies to Morgan Frost, who was “up and down like a toilet seat” according to his coach. He has shown signs of offensive progression, and this could be his chance at a full-fledged breakout. Joel Farabee and Owen Tippett are another couple of players just like this, so one of these four should continue their progression and prove to be a hit.
It is unrealistic to assume every player for the Flyers has a breakout campaign. Many of them have that sort of trajectory, but hockey isn’t always a logical sport. A rebuild revolves around youth, and some of that is already on the team. The Flyers will need them to play.
Flyers’ Veterans Recoup Trade Value
A big part of rebuilding is getting good assets back in trades. Veterans who have a good track record in the league and show that they are still capable of playing at a high level are a massive target for a playoff team. Desperate teams will often overpay for these types of players, so it is vital that the older players on the team can play their best to give the Flyers that option if they please.
As the Flyers saw with their trade of Ivan Provorov, veterans have immense value in the league. The best part about the deal was that he was three years removed from his last objectively good season, which was in 2019-20. The value that Philadelphia could get for a player who is coming off of a great season could be even more.
Related: Evaluating Philadelphia Flyers’ Rebuild After Ivan Provorov Trade
With the salary cap reportedly rising pretty significantly, there will be quite a few general managers (GMs) on the hot seat ready to make a move to get their team where they want. A rebuilding Flyers team could swoop in to take advantage of some desperate clubs.
Players like Sean Couturier or Travis Sanheim would be perfect players to offset if the value is right. They can still be very useful to the team and make the rebuilding process take less time, but if an offer was on the table that could help the Flyers in the future, they’d be taking it. Teams might not be biting on them now, but they could be some of the hottest commodities on the market in only a few months.
Flyers Consistently Competing
The possibility of the Flyers making the playoffs can’t be written off entirely, but that doesn’t mean it’s anything other than unlikely. It might not seem like it for a team that is rebuilding, but a competitive season that results in the Flyers winning a few more games than expected would be a successful season. In order to progress as a team, they need to show that they are on the right track.
Last season, the Flyers were all over the place. They started off well with a 7-3-2 record through their first 12 games, and then immediately followed that up with 10 straight losses. A seven-game losing streak toward the end of the season was good in that it allowed them to draft Matvei Michkov, but it didn’t necessarily help the team at that time. Now that the Flyers have a superstar-level prospect in the 18-year-old, the goal should be to win as much as possible, even if the Flyers move back in the draft a few spots. The reality is that the difference of a few picks doesn’t really matter, so the on-ice product needs to come first.
A consistently competitive Flyers team would mean being an easier team to predict. Instead of having several multi-game losing streaks, the team will need to limit them as best as possible. Being a streaky team isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the Flyers would have had much more respectable records in the past two seasons if they were able to stop the bleeding when a few losses became a streak in the double-digits. The Flyers have what it takes to win, but it’s just about putting everything together.
The Flyers probably aren’t winning the Stanley Cup next year, but they can still be a successful hockey team in their own way. Having a shiny Macklin Celebrini or Cole Eiserman would be lovely, but the future of the team depends on more than lucking into players of that nature. This can be a good year for Philadelphia, but it won’t be easy.