Since the Philadelphia Flyers are rebuilding, it would seem logical to want the team to finish low in the standings to have a chance at a top-end draft pick after the end of the 2023-24 season. That sounds fine in theory, but the draft lottery will be standing in their way. How has their luck been in the lottery since it was instated in 1995?
A Chance for Patrick Kane
In the 2006-07 season, the Flyers finished as the worst team in the league by a substantial margin. Their 22-48-12 record for 56 points still stands as the worst in team history, and no team came within 10 points of them that very season. If there was any team that had earned the right to draft the prize of the 2007 NHL Draft in Patrick Kane, it was them. Alas, it never turned out that way.
In the draft lottery, the Flyers had to settle for the second-overall pick, while the Chicago Blackhawks were awarded Kane. With Philadelphia’s pick, they selected forward James van Riemsdyk, but he never really hit his true ceiling with the team despite having multiple stints with them.
In the 2009-10 season, both of the clubs reached the Stanley Cup Final, but one player was clearly more impactful than the other. For the Flyers, van Riemsdyk had a respectable 35 points in 78 regular-season games and six points in 21 playoff games. He wasn’t one of Philadelphia’s more impactful players, but he did what he had to being such a young player at the time.
As for Kane, he scored 88 points in the regular season, along with 28 points in the playoffs in 104 total games. He would also go on to score the now-infamous series-winning goal in overtime. If there was a simple turnaround in how the luck played out, the Flyers would have gotten the winger with a Calder Trophy, a Hart Trophy, an Art Ross Trophy, three Stanley Cups, a Conn Smythe Trophy, and over 1,200 points in the NHL on their team. Essentially, their dead-last finish in 2006-07 didn’t matter at all.
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If anything, their finish probably hurt the team in the future, with players such as Ryan McDonagh and Logan Couture getting taken less than a dozen picks later. Luck alone can make or break a team and how a process turns out. Losing plenty of games could have its benefits, like getting a team a top player, but missing could cost them everything. The Flyers saw this happen to them just a decade later.
Flyers “Win” 2017 NHL Draft Lottery
Just barely missing the playoffs in the 2016-17 season, the Flyers finished as the 12th-worst team in the league, needing an impactful player to truly help get them over the hump. Their prayer was answered when they slotted into the second-overall slot in the 2017 NHL Draft, and being a massive winner of the draft lottery, they were able to select from a multitude of eventual elite players in the NHL. This was actually a curse in disguise and set the team back further than they ever could have imagined.
The Flyers ignored the injury risks of taking Nolan Patrick in order to get themselves what they hoped to be a generational star. Ranking 20th in the league in goals for in 2016-17, they needed a star forward in particular to help them maximize their upside. This was smart in theory, but it never really worked out for the player.
Patrick was decent in his first two seasons, with 30 and 31 points, but his 2019-20 campaign would really determine where he was in his development. Unfortunately for him, he never got that opportunity, as a migraine disorder kept him out for that entire season. By the time he was ready to return in 2020-21, he was a shell of himself and was consequently traded after that season.
In the NHL, every single draft pick matters. As the Dallas Stars showed in that very draft, just one class of picks can change the future of a team entirely. Missing on a top-end pick is costly, and it essentially placed the Flyers into the rebuild they are in now. Even players who seem to be destined to have a high floor in the NHL never turn out that way.
Flyers 2022 NHL Draft Lottery “Losers”
More recently, the Flyers had an absolutely dreadful 2021-22 campaign. In a season that began with promise, everything collapsed, and one of the best players in franchise history in Claude Giroux was shipped off at the deadline. This essentially began the Flyers’ rebuild, and a fourth-last finish in the standings was evidence of that.
The Flyers weren’t so lucky in the draft lottery, finishing with the fifth overall pick. It’s still very early, but right now, this doesn’t seem to have mattered at all. If anything, it might have been a blessing.
So far, the Flyers’ fifth-overall choice in Cutter Gauthier looks like the right move. The two consensus best players in the draft were Juraj Slafkovsky and Shane Wright before it occurred, and both have struggled a bit at the NHL level so far. The Flyer has yet to make his NHL debut, but his progress is certainly promising.
The reality is that it can still be beneficial to not select with a top-three pick in the draft. It seems as though a lower finish in the standings than their 61 points that season got them might have made them worse off than they were in actuality.
With the Flyers being predicted to finish pretty low in the standings, the draft lottery will probably come into play for them. Based on their history, it might be for the best if they are not solely relying on luck to make their 2023-24 campaign worth it.