Post-Game Talk: #41 | FLYERS (H) vs. Sabres (A) | Sunday, Apr. 11, 2021 | Loss 5-3

[Flyrs21]

It's like he's so ignorant of the sport that he doesn't realize the Caps and Pens both shoot this nonsense down. Both teams had people insisting their cores were the issue. Turns out they weren't, they just needed competent coaching and management to handle those cores and build around them.

I remember plenty of people were saying trade Malkin

 

[deadhead]

Actually, I think Fletcher may have a clearer vision.
Last two drafts Millman might be the only "soft" pick.
York and Andrae are short but stout D-men who play defense. Attard a big D-man
Brink is far more physical than Cole.
Wisdom, Foerster, Desnoyers.

Though Hextall generally stressed IQ and motor. Especially later in his drafts.
But he didn't draft many physical players, Myers was a UDFA, NAK was 2014, after that ???

 

[wankstifier]

Time to bring in all the North Dakota boys to right the ship. Gavin Hain check?

 

[Fight4yourRight]

Washington crushing Boston makes this loss even worse

No, it doesn’t. If Philly had won today, Fletcher would have just had the right amount of optimism to make a stupid trade.

 

[Flyrs21]

With the way things have been going in the NHL, Giroux will become a Maple leaf. Lol

 

[Brett K]

goaltending has lost so many games this year

Even average goaltending and this team is easily in the playoffs

Yes, that hits the nail on the head. But not many are talking about that. Hart has lost it... it's a complete reversal from last year. In my opinion, the horrific goal-tending is the leading factor for the lack of confidence from the rest of the team.

 

[AaronTrieu]

Dave Scott is Dan Snyder 2.0. If you don't think his fat sausage fingers aren't all over this mess, I don't know what to say. Comcast needs to crap can him and his competent hockey people. It's time for guys like Holmgren and Clarke (and that pains me to say that) to go home. They don't need to be around the club anymore. Bring in a hockey guy to run operations. They had a chance to have Mark Hunter come in and run the show and they blew it the first time around. There's your new president and GM. As for coach, Benoit Groulx is ripe for the picking. Replace the entire scouting staff. Rebuild from the ground up. Someone mentioned bullies 2.0 and that can be done. They don't need to beat the shit out of everyone, but they need to be tough, physical, fast and skilled. And by tough, they don't just need to be physically tough, they need to be mentally tough. It also doesn't hurt to have a vocal and emotional leader in the ice, not just the dressing room.

I want the identity of “we don’t need to make money. Screw the books. We are already rich. We don’t have a cup in 50 years” type of mentality.

 

[Garbage Goal]

The question of identity is an interesting one, and one that should really be posed to Hextall.

With such a clear disconnect/age gap between the talented older forwards and the young crop, and Couturier soon to hit 30...

Both HC’s have been trash but the roster is primarily of Hextall’s making. What exactly was the vision here?

We can nitpick over whose roster this really is, but the decision to retool and not rebuild was a 1000% made by Homer and ownership from the moment they traded Richards and Carter onwards. That’s in no way on Hextall. On that note, Homer is still here and still got kicked upwards.

 

[Redpath]

We can nitpick over whose roster this really is, but the decision to retool and not rebuild was a 1000% made by Homer and ownership from the moment they traded Richards and Carter onwards. That’s in no way on Hextall. On that note, Homer is still here and still got kicked upwards.

Are you saying that as a bad thing? Retooling was never the issue, deciding t0 never build off the retool was.

 

[FlyerNutter]

We can nitpick over whose roster this really is, but the decision to retool and not rebuild was a 1000% made by Homer and ownership from the moment they traded Richards and Carter onwards. That’s in no way on Hextall. On that note, Homer is still here and still got kicked upwards.

Its something one day, I'd like to find out. Whether there was a mandate to not fully bottom out from someone, or Hextall was indeed given full carte blanche.

Doesn't mean much now of course, as the tracks we are on are basically chosen.

 

[dats81]

Past mistakes and missed opportunities aside, I for one think that this actually IS a roster that can be retooled and go deep in the playoffs as soon as next season.
Retooling is no dead end by definition.

 

[marcsson68]

I don’t know whether the current state we‘re in is about full or partial rebuilt in the past. It rather seems we haven’t drafted as well as the common opinion was. Patrick is no No. 2 pick yet and probably will never even have the value of a first rounder. Sanheim is talented but no No. 17 pick yet. The future of Carter Hart is in doubt. Konecny, Provorov and Farabee come close to the expectations, but aren’t going through the roof either.

EDIT: Morin obviously hasn‘t turned out to have a first round value either.

And it took too long to keep G and V in God mode.

 

[Beef Invictus]

I don’t know whether the current state we‘re in is about full or partial rebuilt in the past. It rather seems we haven’t drafted as well as the common opinion was. Patrick is no No. 2 pick yet and probably will never even have the value of a first rounder. Sanheim is talented but no No. 17 pick yet. The future of Carter Hart is in doubt. Konecny, Provorov and Farabee come close to the expectations, but aren’t going through the roof either.

And it took too long to keep G and V in God mode.

I don't see how Sanheim has underperformed his draft spot. If that first round were redrafted he'd go higher.

 

[Ironmanrulez]

HOW THE f*** IS GHOST THE ONE WHO NEED TO BE IN FRONT OF THE CAMERAS AFTER SUCH A LOSS.

ASK HAYES!!! I DONT SAW AN INTERVIEW OF HIM FOR 3 MONTHS AFTER A LOSS. HE WAS SIGNED FOR BEING THE NEW SHINNY STAR IN TOWN. DEADHEAD SAYING HE WILL BE OUR CARRY ON THE 2nd LINE FOR YEARS.

I SEE NOTHING OF THIS TILL NOW!!!!

Another drunken rant. Flyers and Corona is too much for me. Save my soul Dave and fire all the stupid useless veteran dinos in your franchise. Thx

 

[marcsson68]

I don't see how Sanheim has underperformed his draft spot. If that first round were redrafted he'd go higher.

He has outperformed Morin so far (a similar draft spot), but is that the benchmark? Isn‘t the benchmark for a first round D to play on the top pairing or at least be a special team expert?

Travis can still grow into this but right now I don’t see him this high.

 

[CowboyDan]

man, we suck.

 

[deadhead]

The drafting has been fine, with average goaltending this is a 100+ point team. The goaltending has been that bad all season.

Morin and Patrick may have been overdrafts, but both players have also been plagued by bad luck.

Unlike 2016-17, this team has solid depth and a lot of young players with more upside than downside.
And more talent on the way.
AV will get one more season to turn it around, and maybe this is what he needed, to be humbled a bit and more open to change (starting with his assistant coaches).

 

[JojoTheWhale]

with average goaltending this is a 100+ point team. The goaltending has been that bad all season.

They're a roughly break-even team at 5v5 with a bottom 10 PP and bottom 10 PK by Goaltending-independent metrics. How the hell does that equal 100+ Points? You can't actually believe this.

 

[deadhead]

They're a roughly break-even team at 5v5 with a bottom 10 PP and bottom 10 PK by Goaltending-independent metrics. How the hell does that equal 100+ Points? You can't actually believe this.

I can. Bad goalie play beats a team down psychologically.
Since the COVID break they've had solid metrics.

ES: CF% (3), xGF% (12), HDCA/60 (13), Sh% (22), Sv% (31), PDO (31) - .945 which is ridiculously low
PP: xGF/60 (18), GF/60 (20)
PK: xGA/60 (15), GA/60 (21), Sv% (26)

Winning begats winning, we've seen this numerous times, teams get hot and it builds on itself, teams go into a death spiral and players press and things get worse.
Game after game, we see our goalies get out dueled (yesterday was a perfect example).
That leads to players trying to score on every shift instead of playing within themselves.

This team needs a clean slate, a full offseason, a few tweaks but not a demolition job.
There's too much talent (and more on the way) to be this bad.

There are teams that lack the talent, the Flyers most of the last decade, if they had a good season, it was unsustainable as we've seen - Flyers probably shouldn't have made the playoffs from 2012-13 to 2019-20, Mason carried them one season, the Couts line one season but it was never sustainable.

This team has a lot more talent than those teams. 2020-21 was clearly a team playing below its talent, coaching, COVID, luck, the perfect storm.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

I can. Bad goalie play beats a team down psychologically.
Since the COVID break they've had solid metrics.

ES: CF% (3), xGF% (12), HDCA/60 (13), Sh% (22), Sv% (31), PDO (31) - .945 which is ridiculously low
PP: xGF/60 (18), GF/60 (20)
PK: xGA/60 (15), GA/60 (21), Sv% (26)

Winning begats winning, we've seen this numerous times, teams get hot and it builds on itself, teams go into a death spiral and players press and things get worse.
Game after game, we see our goalies get out dueled (yesterday was a perfect example).
That leads to players trying to score on every shift instead of playing within themselves.

This team needs a clean slate, a full offseason, a few tweaks but not a demolition job.
There's too much talent (and more on the way) to be this bad.

There are teams that lack the talent, the Flyers most of the last decade, if they had a good season, it was unsustainable as we've seen - Flyers probably shouldn't have made the playoffs from 2012-13 to 2019-20, Mason carried them one season, the Couts line one season but it was never sustainable.

This team has a lot more talent than those teams. 2020-21 was clearly a team playing below its talent, coaching, COVID, luck, the perfect storm.

So throw out when they were terrible and they'd be good. The Goaltending has been the biggest on-ice problem, absolutely. We just don't have to get carried away and blame it for everything. Nothing went well this year. I just hope Fletcher understands that.

 

[deadhead]

So throw out when they were terrible and they'd be good. The Goaltending has been the biggest on-ice problem, absolutely. We just don't have to get carried away and blame it for everything. Nothing went well this year. I just hope Fletcher understands that.

It was a clusterf--k season from the get go.
"Mama said there'd be seasons like this, seasons like this mama said"

But the goaltending was the biggest issue, followed by Frost going down, Patrick and Lindblom struggling, Provorov and Myers regressing, and so on.
Couts, G, Voracek, JVR and Hayes were fine, they just aren't good enough to carry this team when the kids aren't all right.
The coaching was subpar, especially the STs, but lots of good teams have mediocre STs, they weren't the primary reason this team struggled.

There are teams that need to be blown up, the 2012-13 Flyers should have been blown up after that playoff collapse, a team that goes into a death spiral without a full talent pipeline is doomed to mediocrity if you just resort to patches. Firing the coach without addressing the underlying issues got us a half-hearted rebuild.

This team is different, the talent is there, the mix may need to be tweaked but hold off on the dynamite.
AV will get one more season, both for contract reasons and b/c of 2019-20. But this is a situation where the HC has to produce.
But Fletcher should be building a team independent of AV, b/c he may not be around in 2022-23.

 

[Beef Invictus]

He has outperformed Morin so far (a similar draft spot), but is that the benchmark? Isn‘t the benchmark for a first round D to play on the top pairing or at least be a special team expert?

Travis can still grow into this but right now I don’t see him this high.

If you review first round drafts going back the last decade you'll find many first round dmen aren't even in the league much less first pair. Especially outside the top 10.

Sort of like how not every first round forward is a top six player

 

[Curufinwe]

Because the penguins player evaluation was far superior than the Flyers. Over The years when you watch the pens it's hard to differentiate from their 3rd and 4th lines and sometimes their 2nd line. Because of the speed and work ethic of their players. You watch the flyers 3rd and 4th lines and wonder how they're in the NHL.

3rd and 4th lines in this game were

Laughton-Hayes-Patrick
Lindblom-Laczynski-NAK

I don't wonder how any of them are in the NHL

 

[Curufinwe]

I don’t know whether the current state we‘re in is about full or partial rebuilt in the past. It rather seems we haven’t drafted as well as the common opinion was. Patrick is no No. 2 pick yet and probably will never even have the value of a first rounder. Sanheim is talented but no No. 17 pick yet.

Is this a joke? Getting a top 3 defenseman like Sanheim at #17 is great value.

 

[deadhead]

Nor are some of the flops guaranteed flops.
Patrick is 22, coming off a bizarre series of mishaps (botched groin surgery at 18 that had to be repeated at 19, lost his 21 year season to migraines).
JOB is 21, coming off a college season which would have made him a solid prospect as a college junior.