Offseason

[3iverson3]

AV was good this year at instilling work ethic, walking the line of calling out our vets who have under performed for the entire Hak and most of Berube era. He makes adjustments well enough mid game but didn’t match lines well in the playoffs and his underlying system still doesn’t choke out NZ entries through the middle of the ice, or control the middle. Him playing Grant and Thompson as much as he did was what we expected of him (not playing rookies) when he got here ... he didn’t follow that trend during the regular season, he did in the playoffs ... maybe this is the move forward year for all the youth.

He gets a solid B+ ... but year 2 is huge, ... no progression is a failure ... and Lavy being in Washington is his unspoken measuring stick.

in the playoffs he just completely abandoned what he did in the regular season. The amount of times we just flipped the puck out with those NZ lobs was infuriating. Just giving possession away left and right. But you are right...he did pretty damn good with the rookies and that was a huge ?...

he played farabee a lot and played him on the top pp
he played frost and on the top as well which is something hak would never do. He also played frost for 20 games on the 2nd line with g/tk which is something hak would never do so those are thing that i like. I agree with the rating and in the playoffs he gets an even lower one and that blame falls on himself as well as Fletcher. Fletcher gave him that ammo to play grant/thompson as much as he did with tanner glass in nyr.

The forward year for the youth should've been this year but we got super unlucky with lindblom and Patrick taking that away (grant and thompsons spot). This year is shouldn't be an issue with frost, lindblom, AND potentially Patrick coming in...btw you said that he is most likely back...i can't find anything on him so what makes you think that he is 100% coming back?

[SportsNutMike]

I think AV had a very good year with this squad right off the bat. I also think AV got a better look at these guys through the season so he could tell them what they needed to work on this offseason. Personally, the young guys have to get stronger - all of them....and someone on next year's team has to develop that "shoot first" mentality. I have nothing against passing plays, but more then too often the Flyers made one pass too many in the offensive zone. I'd also like to see them get rid of the "slingshot" play on the power play. When they do that they catch their forwards flat footed at the blueline and kill their momentum gaining the zone.

[txravis12]

I think AV had a very good year with this squad right off the bat. I also think AV got a better look at these guys through the season so he could tell them what they needed to work on this offseason. Personally, the young guys have to get stronger - all of them....and someone on next year's team has to develop that "shoot first" mentality. I have nothing against passing plays, but more then too often the Flyers made one pass too many in the offensive zone. I'd also like to see them get rid of the "slingshot" play on the power play. When they do that they catch their forwards flat footed at the blueline and kill their momentum gaining the zone.

The sling shot is a universally used tactic for a reason.

My best guesstimate is while the forwards are flat footed, so are the opposing penalty killers. The PP forwards however are facing forward while the defendint pkers aren't.

If executed properly it's a solid entry plan.

[txravis12]

any move on defense will force us to leave sanheim/myers exposed. Its the wrong move for sure. At forward, its the same issue UNLESS patrick remains on LTIR as he would then be exempt.

7 forwards: g, hayes, tk, lindblom, voracek, couts, X

x: jvr, laughton, nak, player we trade for, patrick (depending on if he plays majority of the season)

We should not make moves unless we trade players that are protected and I am not sure we should

Protecting jake right now is insane to me

[LLMunchie619]

any move on defense will force us to leave sanheim/myers exposed. Its the wrong move for sure. At forward, its the same issue UNLESS patrick remains on LTIR as he would then be exempt.

7 forwards: g, hayes, tk, lindblom, voracek, couts, X

x: jvr, laughton, nak, player we trade for, patrick (depending on if he plays majority of the season)

We should not make moves unless we trade players that are protected and I am not sure we should

You protect Patrick and don't care about Jake? Also, the notion that you don't make a move to improve your team on the assumption of losing someone at the expansion is not a solid strategy. There are other ways to make the expansion work whether it be trading to cover or fully investigating the other players that will be available in the expansion and see who you can expose. I'm sure no one saw Pierre Edward Bellmar being taken in the last expansion draft. lol

I will repeat this again...if you can get Pietrangelo, you figure out the expansion later because I guarantee you can figure out some way to work it in your favor later. Also the thought that you would have to make those two moves (Piets and Laine) in 48 hours is dumb. You see if you can sign Piets and then see what you can do to acquire Laine or even Gaudreau. I will repeat, if you can acquire both Piets and Laine and only lose Sanheim, why wouldn't you do that? You have York coming up soon also so you are likely losing one of Myers, Sanheim, or York in about 4 years anyway fwiw....

That being said, I think we make some sort of big move...I just don't really want Taylor Hall unless he is really going to take a short deal. I dont know, at least we have something to look forward to.

I still don't like the Foerster pick...I hope I'm super wrong about this. I think Lapierre will be one of the best 3 players (not include Laffy) to come out of this draft.

[3iverson3]

Protecting jake right now is insane to me

ya well we will...no way we aren't. Its not something a lof of us fans would do/want but if you were in charge you wouldn't not protect him.

[3iverson3]

You protect Patrick and don't care about Jake? Also, the notion that you don't make a move to improve your team on the assumption of losing someone at the expansion is not a solid strategy. There are other ways to make the expansion work whether it be trading to cover or fully investigating the other players that will be available in the expansion and see who you can expose. I'm sure no one saw Pierre Edward Bellmar being taken in the last expansion draft. lol

I will repeat this again...if you can get Pietrangelo, you figure out the expansion later because I guarantee you can figure out some way to work it in your favor later. Also the thought that you would have to make those two moves (Piets and Laine) in 48 hours is dumb. You see if you can sign Piets and then see what you can do to acquire Laine or even Gaudreau. I will repeat, if you can acquire both Piets and Laine and only lose Sanheim, why wouldn't you do that? You have York coming up soon also so you are likely losing one of Myers, Sanheim, or York in about 4 years anyway fwiw....

That being said, I think we make some sort of big move...I just don't really want Taylor Hall unless he is really going to take a short deal. I dont know, at least we have something to look forward to.

I still don't like the Foerster pick...I hope I'm super wrong about this. I think Lapierre will be one of the best 3 players (not include Laffy) to come out of this draft.

i totally agree its not a solid strategy but you do have to be smart to not lose another asset in the process. I think you swapped patrick/jake...if so, you don't need to protect Patrick if he is still injured. If he isn;t then we absolutely need to. I think patricks situation really put a dent on lapierre. That was actually a pick I think we would've done as we make those kinds of picks. Can't fault them for not wanting to potentially get into that situation again at all

[steagles]

fair warning:
for the last few years, i held hextall's drafting to an extremely high standard and that led me to be very critical of his drafts. the reason i did that was because hextall didn't do anything else throughout the year to improve the team. i don't have that same complaint against fletcher, so i'm not going to be as harsh about his drafts as i was with hextall's. that being said:


one of the things i really liked about hextall was that he drafted 1 or 2 goalies every year, like clockwork. in total, hextall used a 2nd round pick, three 3rd round picks, two later round picks in just 5 years. although only one of them has panned out so far (that's not a very good return rate...), it solidified the quality of our goaltender pipeline and just hitting on one guy made a massive difference. with only 5 picks, i can see how that might not have been feasible this year, but i hope we continue to invest draft capital in the position moving forward.


i don't have any other very strong opinions about this year's draft, but i think this was worth pointing out.

[3iverson3]

fair warning:
for the last few years, i held hextall's drafting to an extremely high standard and that led me to be very critical of his drafts. the reason i did that was because hextall didn't do anything else throughout the year to improve the team. i don't have that same complaint against fletcher, so i'm not going to be as harsh about his drafts as i was with hextall's. that being said:


one of the things i really liked about hextall was that he drafted 1 or 2 goalies every year, like clockwork. in total, hextall used a 2nd round pick, three 3rd round picks, two later round picks in just 5 years. although only one of them has panned out so far (that's not a very good return rate...), it solidified the quality of our goaltender pipeline and just hitting on one guy made a massive difference. with only 5 picks, i can see how that might not have been feasible this year, but i hope we continue to invest draft capital in the position moving forward.


i don't have any other very strong opinions about this year's draft, but i think this was worth pointing out.

well hextall didn't have late picks as well so we needed to be more critical in his choices. They were huge for the future and its showing rn. Chuck didn't have many picks due to trading up and I don't mind that when you want to get someone your scouts value in mid rounds.

i like what we did this year though. we went to get shooters and drafted a nice young dman. I don't mind not getting a goalie as we have so many due to the points you made. We have a ton of d on the team already and two great ones coming in york/zamula still so it was nice to get a bunch of fwds. good points though

[steagles]

I will repeat this again...if you can get Pietrangelo, you figure out the expansion later because I guarantee you can figure out some way to work it in your favor later. Also the thought that you would have to make those two moves (Piets and Laine) in 48 hours is dumb. You see if you can sign Piets and then see what you can do to acquire Laine or even Gaudreau. I will repeat, if you can acquire both Piets and Laine and only lose Sanheim, why wouldn't you do that? You have York coming up soon also so you are likely losing one of Myers, Sanheim, or York in about 4 years anyway fwiw....

i agree with this.

i'll throw out one more potential option in the event of a pietrangelo signing: swapping provorov for eichel.



again, i really don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole, but pietrangelo is, inarguably, a top 10 defenseman, and he's just two years removed from captaining a stanley cup champion. if there's a chance to get him, you do it, full stop.

[3iverson3]

if you get rid of jvr's contract somehow and sign hall for 3 years 8 million, do you do it?

hearing that is what he is going to get from colorado...

[3iverson3]

i wouldn't mind koivu at a 1 year deal:

might allow us to trade laughton for a nice pick...or maybe laughton for palat

[lambofgode3x]

So Corrections here. I did the math and for some reason the cap friendly cap space is incorrect. I think they have not taken into account Niskanen's money coming off the books yet. According to my math, as is, we have around 72M on the books in cap hits and 9.5M in cap space while needing to sign NP and Myers (probably not more than 4-4.5AAV total between the two of them).

I just don't see us going into the season with 5M let alone 9.5M (after trading Ghost). We can even trade JVR and end up with closer to/over 15M in space...Pietrangelo would be a nice add if that's the case.

Most teams are operating with internal caps MUCH lower than the actual high number. I have a feeling if we could have dumped the JVR contract by now, we would have. And no on Piets, imo. Not worth it. Contract will not age well and we'd have to expose sanheim or meyers. I'm good.

Once again, my issue with adding pietrangelo is asset management. He's going to have a NMC through the expansion (assuming). This is going to force someone like TK, Oskar, sanheim or myers to be exposed.

Giving players like that away for free is not a good

Not if you only sign him to a 1 year contract... lol jk of course, we all know he's not doing that. And if he is, it's likely not with the Flyers.

[castan_b]

if you get rid of jvr's contract somehow and sign hall for 3 years 8 million, do you do it?

hearing that is what he is going to get from colorado...

No question, but step 1 is hard

[lambofgode3x]

I think the point is moot. Just to get them the Flyers have to find multiple takers for big contracts, while taking zero money back, then convince Piets to sign with the Flyers when the market hits, all...in 48 hours. It's probably not happening on this planet without the help of a video game. So it's almost pointless to argue over.

Right now, I'd like to see the Flyers find a home for JVR. He doesn't have a super useful place right now, and we could use some of that money. It might be a good time to move JVR for another team with a player who has some money and isn't as useful. I'm not exactly sure who, off the top of my head, but I doubt someone's just taking his contract with a flat cap here. Money will likely have to return. They might be better off trying to find another version of JVR (a player who still is holds value, if a bit overpaid, but isn't as necessary to the team any longer) as a return.

Overall, though, I think we can put the Piets/Laine dream on the shelf and not worry too much about what it means for the expansion draft, because it just doesn't seem very feasible.