Post-Game Talk: #21 | FLYERS 1 at Rangers 4 | Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021 | 7:00 pm ET | NHLN, MSG, NBCSP+

[tictactoe]

How about our true snipper Cam Atkinson, rocking a sweet 1 goal in 16 games.

I do not disagree but at least Atkinson has 7 goals on pace to score 27.

 

[Curufinwe]

Yandle is struggling because he can't play anymore. He's the least effective player on a pairing with an AHL dman, and he's absolutely hopeless on the PP. That pairing is so bad together that the coach is being forced to go to extreme lengths to split them up. Talk about highly sheltered.

 

[deadhead]

Frost should have come up in early November when the goal scoring swoon started. He already has 2 points in 4 games.

Since 11/1, MacEwen, Brown, Thompson, NAK, Willman, Lindblom and Bunnaman have 2 points in 53 combined games.

NHL Stats

I expected him up in mid-November, they were too conservative by a couple of weeks, but while he adds a little offense (I don't think we'll see what he can really do until next season) he's also an adventure out there. Though compared to Laughton or aging Brassard at 3C, he's a breath of fresh air.

It's one thing to want to see Frost in action, it's quite another to expect him to make a significant difference this year. Missing last season set his development back and it shows.

 

[Beef Invictus]

Pretending Ghosts' scoring stats are a good indicator of his quality of play is also illusionary.
We know scoring is stochastic, and often falls off for long periods, that's why you look at the underlying metrics to see if the scoring is due to puck luck or skill.

Sure Ghost would be better than Yandle, but not that much better. He's best in a sheltered role, just look at his Flyer metrics last year in a sheltered role and his Zona metrics this year in a major role. The bigger role he plays in Zona, the more his metrics have declined - and the same would have happened here. Yandle has struggled b/c the Ellis injury left him exposed, Seeler isn't the ideal partner for him and he's playing too many minutes.

Going from Ghost and Hagg to Yandle and Seeler is a downgrade, but not a huge one.
The problem is Braun is a year older and not suited to the first pair. And that has ramifications for both the first and third pair.

Me, I happy to have Ghost gone, and I'll be happy when Yandle and Seeler are gone.
The future is York, Zamula, Hogberg, St Ivany and Attard. Maybe Andrae in a couple years if he keeps improving. Millman is well down the line.

Not much better?

This is delusion. It isn't reality. Yandle has to be the worst dman in the league. Ghost is far from that. Ghost is much better than Yandle. A lot better. Yandle and Seeler are a big downgrade on Ghost and Hagg. You are in denial because you are being proven wrong, and desperately pretending reality doesn't exist only makes it worse.

Ellis being injured has absolutely nothing to do with Yandle individually. He looks like he's trying to skate in cleats. Yandle sucked while Ellis was playing. It doesn't matter.

 

[Captain Dave Poulin]

i dont see how anyone can watch them play and not come to the conclusion that the entire coaching staff needs to go.

And the GM, and the CEO, and the players, and the mouth-breathers who are thickwitted enough to accept any of it.

 

[Beef Invictus]

I disagree. There is a repair underway.

So far Fletcher and Flahr appear to have drafted very well, thankfully. We'll start seeing for sure soon.

A lot of their vets are on one-year deals. A remaining high salary vet like JVR stands to be bought out this summer. If they aren't in contention this season, Giroux is easily traded at the deadline to help with the repair and in clearing out more cap room for the summer.

Everyone including Comcast was hoping this could be fixed this year, but it's not going to happen. Like I said, this is a mess a decade in the making. Their young players aren't good enough to take over, and their top veterans are either getting too old to carry the team or are hurt.

I don't think they need scorched earth. They just have to continue pruning and reshaping. The old era that was led by Giroux is unfortunately dead on the vine.

How is making the roster actively worse and paying lots of draft picks to do so repairing anything? Fletcher honestly believed he'd be pushing us to contention this year, not engaging in repair for the future.

The team is worse and they've refused to willingly take steps to fix it. That's the opposite of repair.


Fletcher is the problem. You blame the players? He picked them. It's all on him, and the idiots who hired their precious crony so he and AV could bring in their garbage cronies.

 

[Fight4yourRight]

Pretending Ghosts' scoring stats are a good indicator of his quality of play is also illusionary.
We know scoring is stochastic, and often falls off for long periods, that's why you look at the underlying metrics to see if the scoring is due to puck luck or skill.

Sure Ghost would be better than Yandle, but not that much better. He's best in a sheltered role, just look at his Flyer metrics last year in a sheltered role and his Zona metrics this year in a major role. The bigger role he plays in Zona, the more his metrics have declined - and the same would have happened here. Yandle has struggled b/c the Ellis injury left him exposed, Seeler isn't the ideal partner for him and he's playing too many minutes.

Going from Ghost and Hagg to Yandle and Seeler is a downgrade, but not a huge one.
The problem is Braun is a year older and not suited to the first pair. And that has ramifications for both the first and third pair.

Me, I happy to have Ghost gone, and I'll be happy when Yandle and Seeler are gone.
The future is York, Zamula, Hogberg, St Ivany and Attard. Maybe Andrae in a couple years if he keeps improving. Millman is well down the line.

Bad Deady, bad.

 

[deadhead]

Yandle is struggling because he can't play anymore. He's the least effective player on a pairing with an AHL dman, and he's absolutely hopeless on the PP. That pairing is so bad together that the coach is being forced to go to extreme lengths to split them up. Talk about highly sheltered.

If Ellis is healthy, Braun gets 5th D-man minutes and Yandle gets limited, sheltered minutes with a smart, CYA partner. And he's probably have good metrics, like in Florida last season. And the defense would look much, much better.

There is a timing issue this year, York and Zamula should be much better prepared for NHL minutes this spring with 40 or 50 AHL games under their belt, they missed a lot of development time due to COVID and neither is an uber-talent that can skate his way out of mistakes while he learns on the job. Ellis missing 20 games in February would have been far less damaging than at the beginning of the season.

That's why most teams need "hockey luck" to make a run to make and go deep in the playoffs, only the top few teams have the talent and depth to survive a series of injuries for very long.

 

[Harhis]

How productive do you think Ghost would be in Yandle's role? Note he has a LOWER xGF/60 on the Zona PP than Yandle on our misfit PP. He has far worse metrics on a team as bad as the Flyers as Risto.

Ghost and Voracek were neither the problem or the solution. The team was mediocre with them, it's mediocre without them.
Yes, the draft picks hurt, but given our pipeline, not the end of the world unless you think Fletcher is a much better drafter than Hextall (and all his 1st and 2nd rd misses).

Yandle was taken off PP after like 5 (?) Games. Those first games PP was fine, they were using some imagination at least.

Risto is playing with Sanheim, basically anyone playing with him over the years is looking fine on shot shares.

Jake is PPG player in f***ung Columbus. Atkinson has been missing since game 6. You were on of the biggest Jake critics on him being useless when he doesn't produce. Well he was still better than Atkinson has been for the last 15 games.

And again even if Risto is (he isn't) marginal upgrade to Ghost it sertainly is not worth 1st + 2 2nds ffs.

 

[Captain Dave Poulin]

Torts is a complete jackass. Even worse than AV for arrogance, even if marginally less incompetent.

Who, incidentally, hasn't won jack shit in recent memory. Genuinely have no idea what people are thinking suggesting that ass clown.

 

[kudymen]

Fletcher's balls are the shiniest in years, fffing christ

 

[Ghosts Beer]

So wait, all of this is Hextall and Holmgren's fault but not Chuck's fault? At what point does this become Chucks' team? 3 years is not enough time?

And he's in "the recovery process?" I thought he was brought into "Win Now?" You can't have it both ways. You can't say it's not his team when he's been here for three years, and you can't say that here's to do a "recovery" when he was brought here to win now and not rebuild.

You aren't going to recover from a decade of damage in 3 years.

When Fletcher took over there was still hope in someone like Nolan Patrick as a stud young center to take over as the veteran core aged. There was still hope that Provorov could be a top 10 or 15 defenseman in the league. That TK could be a perennial 30 goal scorer.

Now it's apparent that their young players aren't good enough to take over from their aging veteran core.

Sure, they gave an effort to fix things immediately. But with the young guys not living up to hopes, and core vets either getting too old to keep carrying the load, declining, or injured, the reality is that it's not going to happen this year. They don't have youngsters the caliber of a young Richards, Carter, Giroux, Couturier. A young Voracek. A young Simmonds. They haven't had oodles of cap room to fix it by signing a trio like Timonen, Briere, and Hartnell.

So it's going to take a little longer. It's going to take their new prospects to start entering the lineup and hopefully being good. And it's going to take a couple vet contracts being shed and replaced with younger high-end players. That's the reality.

 

[Curufinwe]

The aging veteran core of Atkinson, Ellis and Hayes? They will be the oldest guys left if Giroux goes and JVR is bought out. Can't blame Hextall and his "5.5" years for that.

 

[deadhead]

Yandle was taken off PP after like 5 (?) Games. Those first games PP was fine, they were using some imagination at least.

Risto is playing with Sanheim, basically anyone playing with him over the years is looking fine on shot shares.

Jake is PPG player in f***ung Columbus. Atkinson has been missing since game 6. You were on of the biggest Jake critics on him being useless when he doesn't produce. Well he was still better than Atkinson has been for the last 15 games.

And again even if Risto is (he isn't) marginal upgrade to Ghost it sertainly is not worth 1st + 2 2nds ffs.

Have I ever praised the Risto trade? Always called it an overpay.

Voracek has the same metrics (actually slightly worse xGF%) as he did last year, he's a limited player, other than excellent passing skills, he doesn't bring a lot to the table, and let's see what happens when teams adjust to him on the CBJ PP the way they did here - dare him to shoot and take away the passing lanes. At ES 0-8 8 in 20 games, that's 3RW territory, except assists aren't as valuable as goals.

Atkinson is also limited, but he looks like a good fit with Frost, won't surprise me if he has another hot goals streak once AV is fired. He's also been excellent on the PK. He's also overpaid, but the pay isn't as much and could be move with say $2.75M retained for two years (2x3 for the other team) in the summer of 2023 if Brink emerges.

 

[dragonoffrost]

Torts is only good for his work with animals and the military... as a hockey coach he's AV all over.

 

[deadhead]

Torts is only good for his work with animals and the military... as a hockey coach he's AV all over.

I think the problem is retreads have an expiration date, even Q, notice after he was forced out Florida didn't miss a beat under the new HC.
One reason not to hire a "name" retread is if you're gong to be firing HCs every 3-4 years, don't give out expensive contracts that make the FO reluctant to fire one when they no longer work.
But it shows in most cases, the bump from a new HC isn't due to real changes but just the psychology of the clubhouse, and once that wears off, it's business as usual.

Only a few HC hires really change a team permanently, Brind'Amour in Carolina, Sullivan in Pittsburgh.

Which is why you should be looking for a young innovative coach, one who has success rising through the pro ranks, and has demonstrated both strategic and developmental skills, and who is not the product of having superior talent handed to him.

Which is why I say no Torts, no Julien, no Boudreau, and why I'd have said no Gallant.
Hockey lifers who are two decades behind the times.

 

[DancingPanther]

Burners are against the terms and conditions agreed to when using this website. Who would do that?

 

[Ghosts Beer]

Hextall was the GM from May 2014 until November 2018. That's four years and six months. It was in 24th place when he was fired.

Fletcher has been the GM since November 2018. That's already three years, and the team is once again in 24th place. There is not some huge gulf in the amount of time the past two GMs have had to reshape the team according to their vision.

Hextall was in his 5th full season as GM. 5 full offseasons.
Fletcher is in his 3rd full season as GM. 3 offseasons.

If the Flyers are in 24th place in the league at the end of November 2023, I will defend him no further.

Mind you, I was not calling for Hextall's removal in his 3rd season, either. It takes any GM more than 3 years to be accurately judged. I actually was surprised when he was fired into his fifth season. I said I couldn't argue with it, though, given the lack of progress. And the ripple effect thereafter has shown how much of a failure his tenure was.

 

[Columbus Hockey Dad]

You aren't going to recover from a decade of damage in 3 years.

When Fletcher took over there was still hope in someone like Nolan Patrick as a stud young center to take over as the veteran core aged. There was still hope that Provorov could be a top 10 or 15 defenseman in the league. That TK could be a perennial 30 goal scorer.

Now it's apparent that their young players aren't good enough to take over from their aging veteran core.

Sure, they gave an effort to fix things immediately. But with the young guys not living up to hopes, and core vets either getting too old to keep carrying the load, declining, or injured, the reality is that it's not going to happen this year. They don't have youngsters the caliber of a young Richards, Carter, Giroux, Couturier. A young Voracek. A young Simmonds. They haven't had oodles of cap room to fix it by signing a trio like Timonen, Briere, and Hartnell.

So it's going to take a little longer. It's going to take their new prospects to start entering the lineup and hopefully being good. And it's going to take a couple vet contracts being shed and replaced with younger high-end players. That's the reality.

Nope, don't try revisionist history here. Chuck was brought in because upper management felt like Hextall was going too slow with his rebuild and not transitioning to win now mode fast enough. He was not brought in to rebuild, he was brought in to win now. Not only has he completely failed that mission, we're now clearly in need of a rebuild after three years of mistakes from HIM. But yeah, let's lay this at Hextall's feet and say that he was brought here to rebuild....when he wasn't.

 

[DancingPanther]

I expected him up in mid-November, they were too conservative by a couple of weeks, but while he adds a little offense (I don't think we'll see what he can really do until next season) he's also an adventure out there. Though compared to Laughton or aging Brassard at 3C, he's a breath of fresh air.

It's one thing to want to see Frost in action, it's quite another to expect him to make a significant difference this year. Missing last season set his development back and it shows.

No you didn't Nostradamus, you pinned December 4th multiple times as Frost Day

 

[deadhead]

Nope, don't try revisionist history here. Chuck was brought in because upper management felt like Hextall was going too slow with his rebuild and not transitioning to win now mode fast enough. He was not brought in to rebuild, he was brought in to win now. Not only has he completely failed that mission, we're now clearly in need of a rebuild after three years of mistakes from HIM. But yeah, let's lay this at Hextall's feet and say that he was brought here to rebuild....when he wasn't.

Fletcher was brought here to win now, but that was based on an illusion that the team had enough talent, they just needed the right HC and a few tweaks to the roster. And that's basically what Fletcher did his first year, 2nd and 3rd for Braun were all the assets he spent, and he recouped a 2nd rd pick in the draft. And Braun has been worth that price.

Problem came after last season, there was obviously a mandate to make big changes to win now, whether Scott down or AV up, Fletcher made different moves than his first two years here. Suddenly he's trading real assets to bring in new players. Its' almost as if he was told to.

The real problem was 2017-18 was a mirage, Hakstol was a much better coach than given credit for here, b/c that wasn't a good team, one line, mediocre defense, below average goalies. But hiring AV signaled Scott thought 2018-19 was the aberration.

2019-20 was a better team, then COVID hit, Niskanen retired, and Hextall's prospects were MIA. Patrick was dead in the water, Frost got hurt, no one stepped up, Myers and NAK regressed, Voracek was no longer interested in playing defense. What became apparent is Fletcher had patched this team into a good season, but it wasn't sustainable.

Which is why I don't care about Voracek and Ghost leaving, and I'd flip G at the TDL if he wants to go to a contender (he's earned the right of refusal if he wants to stay and sign an extension). This team needs a reload, not a rebuild, but it'll take a couple seasons to do it right - and a commitment by Scott (or his replacement) to stop pretending the team is a contender and build it into one.

 

[WayneCashman]

I guess that what I am still tryin to figure out 1/4+ through this current season is why the talent evaluation has gone so badly by the coaching staff and management with this present team. I am not buying it that the Ellis and Hayes injuries are the sole reason for their problems. AV was given everything that he wanted. CF signed off on it. The responsibility rest solely with the two of them. These are big boys making big money. We know how professional organiztions and companies hold people accountable. We also know that the fans ultimately pay for the mistakes. This is a very easy decision frankly for Dave Scott.

 

[Ghosts Beer]

How is making the roster actively worse and paying lots of draft picks to do so repairing anything? Fletcher honestly believed he'd be pushing us to contention this year, not engaging in repair for the future.

The team is worse and they've refused to willingly take steps to fix it. That's the opposite of repair.


Fletcher is the problem. You blame the players? He picked them. It's all on him, and the idiots who hired their precious crony so he and AV could bring in their garbage cronies.

Oh please. Stop with the blanket "he picked them" BS. He "picked" less than half the composition of their roster.

If you said going into the season that, by December 2, Ellis and Hayes would have a combined 7 games played between them, no one would have picked the Flyers to be in legitimate contention. The team just isn't deep enough to withstand that, and that's mostly because of Hextall's failed rebuild.

So while they were hoping to compete during the repair process, unfortunately it looks like that won't be the case this season. As I said before, it pretty much marks the death of the Giroux era on the vine. Let him go to a contender. Clear out his cap space. Buy out JVR. Let the one-year veteran stopgaps contracts expire. Let the kids start flowing in. And use the open cap space to bring in a younger prime high-end player.

 

[Ghosts Beer]

Fletcher was brought here to win now, but that was based on an illusion that the team had enough talent, they just needed the right HC and a few tweaks to the roster.

Accurate.

 

[Striiker]

This is literally AVs system lol