Prior to the start of the 2017-18 season, the Philadelphia Flyers’ prospect pool was highly regarded freshly off of a draft that saw them select with the second-overall pick. How have some of the top prospects in the pool fared?
Nolan Patrick
When the Flyers finished just seven points out of a wild card spot in their 2016-17 campaign, it came as a shocker when the team was awarded the second-overall pick in the 2017 NHL draft thanks to some lottery luck. Being the highest a team has ever jumped in the history of the draft lottery, it was a moment that changed the franchise when they were able to select Nolan Patrick – just not the way they had hoped.
The only true worry for Patrick entering the draft was his extensive injury history that spanned all the way to his early-teen years. However, the Flyers were in a position where they felt they had to ignore this. With their highest point-scorer at the time being Jakub Voracek with 61, the team needed an elite forward pretty badly. After requiring abdominal surgery just two weeks before the draft, his health concerns were the only reason he became available to the Flyers. They quickly swooped in to select what they hoped could be a franchise-altering talent.
Patrick was decent in his first two seasons with the Flyers, where he registered 30 and 31 points in the two campaigns while only missing a total of 19 games in that span. The start of the 2019-20 season marked the beginning of the end for his Flyers’ tenure, despite the team finishing with a 41-21-7 record. Missing the entire season with a migraine disorder, he lost all the momentum he had in his career after that point. With just nine points in 52 games in 2020-21, he was the primary piece the Flyers used to acquire Ryan Ellis from the Nashville Predators in the summer of 2021. By no real fault of his own, one of Philadelphia’s most cherished athletes in recent memory was gone within four years of being drafted.
Travis Sanheim
Travis Sanheim has more or less met the expectations set for him as a whole but definitely has more to show after a disappointing 2022-23 NHL season. Signing an eight-year, $50 million contract extension, he was given that money to be a top-end second-pairing defender, or perhaps a low-end first-pairing defender. He has been both in the past, but more recently, he was neither.
Sanheim has been up and down so far in his career. There’s a reason why he signed his extension in the first place. Due for a bounce back this season, he should probably return to form. Even if he does, it could be argued that his career has been a bit underwhelming thus far based on his expectations.
Carter Hart
It is without question that goaltender Carter Hart has met the expectations set for him. He hit his peak in 2019-20 then hit a wall shortly after with the Flyers’ defense struggling to provide for him. While that might still be the case, he has worked on improving himself year after year.
Other than his nightmarish .877 save percentage (SV%) and 3.67 goals-against average (GAA) in 2020-21, he has been a very reliable netminder for Philadelphia. He has had his bad moments, but he has been a player who can outright steal games for the club.
At times, Hart was seen as one of the best goaltending prospects in the league. Before 2017-18, an above-average starting option would have been a positive. He has been that and much more in his career, and he has the potential to be in Philadelphia for quite some time.
Morgan Frost
Morgan Frost is the last player on this list who remains with the Flyers before the 2023-24 NHL season begins, and he is another athlete who has arguably met what was expected of him. It took a while to find his legs, but when he was given opportunities in 2022-23, he took advantage of them.
Selected with the 27th-overall pick in the 2017 NHL draft as part of the package received when the Flyers traded forward Brayden Schenn to the St. Louis Blues, the center did not project to have elite upside at first. At the time, a second-line talent would have been serviceable to most fans.
Related: Flyers’ Morgan Frost Has a Future in Philadelphia
After scoring 40 points in his final 54 games last season when given top-six minutes, he projects to be just that. With some upside for more before his 2023-24 season, it should be very interesting to see what his future in Philadelphia entails.
Philippe Myers
Philippe Myers started to truly emerge as a promising player around the time that many prospect pool rankings were coming out. Standing at 6-foot-5, he was highly touted for his ability to throw the body and play great shutdown defense. By the time he was playing for the Flyers regularly, it seemed as though he was exactly what the team had hoped.
In his 2019-20 campaign for Philadelphia, Myers was fairly impressive and was a plus-17 on the season. He was a solid second-pairing defenseman early, but that quickly changed for him after the 2020-21 season. He struggled in his own end and became an expendable piece rather hastily for the club. Included with Patrick in the trade to Nashville for Ellis, he has only played in 38 NHL games since leaving the Flyers.
Oskar Lindblom
For the Flyers, Oskar Lindblom was an intriguing piece that moved his way up in the team’s prospect pool. Selected in the fifth round in 2014, he worked hard to make the team in 2017-18. With some solid third-line production in his first two seasons, he earned an expanded role in 2019-20. With 11 goals in 30 games, he was already projected to be better than some expectations.
The confidence wave he was riding came crashing down after his diagnosis with Ewing’s sarcoma in the middle of that season. While he was able to make a full recovery and serve as an inspiration for the team, his play was never able to return to that level. In 2020-21 and the following season, he frequented the fourth line and never met the expectations for his three-year, $9 million contract that he was signed to. His tenure with the team ended with a buyout and left fans wondering what could have been.
German Rubtsov
Selected with the team’s lone first-round pick in the 2016 NHL draft, German Rubtsov had some high expectations but was never considered to be a vital prospect to the Flyers’ success. He was still one of the better prospects the team had at the time, though.
Rubtsov only played four games and a total of 27 minutes with the Flyers, having not registered a single point. Philadelphia failed to develop him to become a regular NHL player, so as he aged, he was not held to as high of a standard as he was when he was drafted. After being dumped to the Florida Panthers in the trade that shipped off Claude Giroux, the team officially ended his chances of becoming a long-term Flyer.
Overall, the hype around the Flyers’ prospects entering the 2017-18 season proved to be a disaster. At that point and even a bit after, the Flyers were supposed to be one of the best teams in the league by the 2023-24 season. It didn’t happen that way, and they were forced to start from scratch.
