Do the Flyers make the Playoffs in 2017-18?

[BackToTheBrierePatch]

I think the top of the Metro is going to come back to the pack. Not going to see 4 100 point teams this year. Having said that, I still think they are not as good as Washington, Pittsburgh and CBJ. So it will be a fight for WC spot.
the Rangers took a step back even with adding Shattenkirk. The Devils will be brutal again. But I expect Carolina to take a step forward this year.

 

[Rebels57]

Voted 0-20. As far as I can see, the Flyers have not improved from last year, maybe they have even regressed a little. Losing Schenn is going to hurt. Lindblom and co. are promising, but they are still rookies. One cannot expect too much from rookies. Teams that were behind us in the standings last year have improved.

I would wager the Flyers will finish around 10-12 this season.

In

Nolan Patrick
Oskar Lindblom
Full season of Jordan Weal
Full season of Val Filppula
Jori Lehtera
Samuel Morin
Robert Hagg
Travis Sanheim
Brian Elliott

Out

Brayden Schenn
Nick Cousins
Chris VandeVelde
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare
Roman Lyubimov
Mark Streit
Nick Schultz
Michael Del Zotto
Steve Mason

Yeah I can totally see how we regressed

 

[tade]

Voted 0-20. As far as I can see, the Flyers have not improved from last year, maybe they have even regressed a little. Losing Schenn is going to hurt. Lindblom and co. are promising, but they are still rookies. One cannot expect too much from rookies. Teams that were behind us in the standings last year have improved.

I would wager the Flyers will finish around 10-12 this season.

...

 

[YEM]

Yeah I can totally see how we regressed

take off the orange-coloured blinders and it's certainly possible
the truly naive POV is thinking that all those rookies you listed [5] step in and play well...

 

[Striiker]

In

Nolan Patrick
Oskar Lindblom
Full season of Jordan Weal
Full season of Val Filppula
Jori Lehtera
Samuel Morin
Robert Hagg
Travis Sanheim
Brian Elliott

Out

Brayden Schenn
Nick Cousins
Chris VandeVelde
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare
Roman Lyubimov
Mark Streit
Nick Schultz
Michael Del Zotto
Steve Mason

Yeah I can totally see how we regressed

Nevermind... he's right, we've regressed...

 

[BackToTheBrierePatch]

I dont have high expectations in point productions for the kids as I usually temper my expectations with rookies. Still they should be an improvement over some of the slop they Flyers iced last year.

 

[Hakroach]

Losing Schenn hurts the most and I even didnt like Schenn. Elliott is at best equal to Mason. I would expect a little worse performance. Its all about the rookies, how they perform and how Hakstol plays them. I dont trust Hakstol and the rookies will have their growth pains. There is only Provorov.

Full season of Filppula improves the third line, but its still only third line. I wouldnt expect much from Lehterä.

 

[Rebels57]

take off the orange-coloured blinders and it's certainly possible
the truly naive POV is thinking that all those rookies you listed [5] step in and play well...

Yeah 5 rookies playing well is completely unheard of..

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/leagues/seasons/teams/0000382017.html

It has nothing to do with orange-colored blinders and no one is saying that our rookies are going to all finish top 10 in Calder voting. However, they are replacing players that were absolutely horrible last season (most of them anyway) and these are highly touted rookies with impressive skill-sets and accomplishments thus far in their young careers.

This should be a time of optimism now that many of the players we have been patiently waiting for are NHL ready.

Instead, some people want to **** on it for some reason.

 

[Striiker]

I dont have high expectations in point productions for the kids as I usually temper my expectations with rookies. Still they should be an improvement over some of the slop they Flyers iced last year.

Yep.

What DFF Jr doesn't realize is that you can evaluate players and then judge how their skillsets/production could transfer from one league to another. So, even though they're certainly not flawless and will almost definitely have growing pains, you can make an educated guess and say that they should be an improvement over the godawful deadweight we've shed this offseason.

But hey, why consider that when you can instead lazily accuse people of having "orange-coloured blinders".

 

[YEM]

Yeah 5 rookies playing well is completely unheard of..

yr not proving much by citing as example just one team that had 5 first yr players [2 very highly thought of as well] contribute and play well, it's easily an exception to the rule
be as optimistic as you like but I'll believe it when I see it for the younglings

 

[Rebels57]

yr not proving much by citing as example just one team that had 5 first yr players contribute and play well, it's easily an exception to the rule
be as optimistic as you like but I'll believe it when I see it for the younglings

How about the 2011-2012 Flyers?

This may jog your memory..

http://www.seaforthhuronexpositor.com/2012/04/12/flyers-rookies-making-major-impact-2

Here is an exerpt..

No fewer than six rookies were in the Flyers lineup here Wednesday night, some of them logging big minutes and ultimately providing huge points in the dramatic 4-3 overtime win against the Penguins in Game 1 of the best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinal.

If the rookies are better than their replacements by a fair margin, the team will play better. That's the situation we are in.

My only concerns heading into the season are Goaltending and Hakstol.

 

[tade]

Lehtera and Filppula massively improves bottom 6. Players like Raffl or Weise does not need to play in the top 6 anymore. Sanheim, Hagg, Morin are all established young defensemen with plenty of experience in the AHL, they are used to handle tough minutes, they are not teenagers, but fully prepared players and they are talented enough (especially Sanheim) to be better than some of d-men we had last year, the bar was not set high.

There's plenty of potential to Jordan Weal, from what he showed at the end of the season. Nolan Patrick & Oskar Lindblom are not your arbitrary rookies.

Maybe some of you guys should take your negative one sided colors rather than us, who are rightfully positive about the upcoming season.

There are no Bellemare & VDV anymore, there is not Schultz, MDZ anymore. Losing Schenn means almost nothing given the players we are going to insert into the line-up.

 

[Rebels57]

Lehtera and Filppula massively improves bottom 6. Players like Raffl or Weise does not need anymore play in the top 6. Sanheim, Hagg, Morin are all established young defensemen with plenty of experience in the AHL, they are used to handle tough minutes, they are talented enough (especially Sanheim) to be better than d-men we had last year, the bar was not set high.

There's plenty of potential to Jordan Weal, from what he showed at the end of the season. Nolan Patrick & Oskar Lindblom are not your arbitrary rookies.

Maybe some of you guys should take your negative one sided colors rather than us, who are rightfully positive about the upcoming season.

There are no Bellemare & VDV anymore, there is not Schultz, MDZ anymore. Losing Schenn means almost nothing given the players we are going to insert into the line-up.

This guy gets it!

 

[TheKingPin]

yr not proving much by citing as example just one team that had 5 first yr players [2 very highly thought of as well] contribute and play well, it's easily an exception to the rule
be as optimistic as you like but I'll believe it when I see it for the younglings

They are rookies but they are not vey young. Add to that the players they are replacing are pretty bad. They are also pushing players that were previously getting larger minutes to smaller roles like the fourth line. Mason was good for us overall but he was horrible for the first half of last year.

 

[tade]

All depends on many other factors like coaching, PP, PK, our top veterans and their performance (Giroux, Voracek, Simmonds, Couturier)... improvements or stagnation from Provorov, Konecny. Whether Gostisbehere can return to his rookie season or at least comes close to it, goaltending and so on... It's so hard to predict, then there are injuries, which ultimately will happen to someone, that's why I don't like predicting, but from the off-season moves we have seen, the draft and Nolan Patrick.. This kid could be one of the best centers in the NHL in a few years if he can stay healthy and injuries will stay away from him, his potential is massive. I think some people does not realize Patrick's potential and the fact that we drafted him, part of it obviously comes from his draft-injury season, but come on people, wake up.

It is absolutely reasonable to be excited and positive about the upcoming season.

 

[David St Hubbins]

Bottom 6
3C: Filpula > Schenn
4C: Lehtera > Bellemare
4W: Raff/Laughten/Weisse> VdV/Read

Defense
Morin/Hagg (Sanheim)/Manning > MDZ/Streit/Manning/Schultz
Prov/Ghost 17-18 > Prov/Ghost 16-17
Gudas/Mac 16-/17 ~ 17-18

Tell me those differences don't net out 15 more points this season.

 

[Hakroach]

Positivity is good and all, but one can also be realistic and doubtfull even. There are just so many unknowns in this team that I personally want to keep my expectations at a resonable level.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

There's an understandable tendency to to tie together team point totals and improvement, but that 10 game streak propped up the point totals last year. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the team was massively improved and only a handful of points better in the end.

 

[deadhead]

I'm totally confident in this team b/c Hextall doesn't add young players who aren't ready to play - I mean all people did was b***h about him keeping everyone in the AHL and juniors last year - now "they're too young."

The point of being patient with young players is you don't play them until you're confident they can contribute to a winning team.

So I think Patrick, Lindblom, Morin, Sanheim and Hagg is a big talent upgrade, and Laughton should be much better than he was two years ago. Add Filpulla and Lehtera, and a healthy Giroux and Ghost, and that's a huge jump from last season.

Just as important, the roster is being reshaped to run Hakstol's scheme the way it should be run, think of the beginning of last season with more speed and skill on both the forward lines and the defense. The young defensemen will make mistakes, but they also have the speed to catch some of those mistakes. Instead of starting the season with 2 1/2 lines, they will have 4 legitimate lines.

I expect a more up tempo style of play this year - Hextall choose Hakstol because that's the kind of team he wants - not a grind it out, physical conservative style but a skate 200 feet, forecheck, backcheck and keep the puck moving style. But that requires players who can skate.

Hextall has been moving toward this for four years, look at all the average to below average skaters he's dumped. He's not looking to add great skaters, more like good skaters with size and skills. This is not going to be the fastest team in the league, but it's moving toward becoming one of the best combinations of speed/size/skill in the NHL.

 

[bauer]

In

Nolan Patrick
Oskar Lindblom
Full season of Jordan Weal
Full season of Val Filppula
Jori Lehtera
Samuel Morin
Robert Hagg
Travis Sanheim
Brian Elliott

Out

Brayden Schenn
Nick Cousins
Chris VandeVelde
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare
Roman Lyubimov
Mark Streit
Nick Schultz
Michael Del Zotto
Steve Mason

Yeah I can totally see how we regressed

have to be careful though, cause we did the same thing last year when we added Provorov and Konecny and lost Vinny, Schenn, Grossmann, etc.. and we actually did regress a little. never underestimate the suck that is Hakstol.

 

[bauer]

Nevermind... he's right, we've regressed...

are you weady for a whole season of Weal puns striiker? it's gonna be weally fun!

 

[Les Averman]

Positivity is good and all, but one can also be realistic and doubtfull even. There are just so many unknowns in this team that I personally want to keep my expectations at a resonable level.

I agree to some extent with the caution of getting your hopes up with a new, young lineup. However, I think it's a bit over the top to say that we've regressed. The talent level has gone up significantly and I don't think that can be argued. It's certainly reasonable to suggest that some guys will not play as we'd hope, but as others have mentioned, it's not as though these are all 18 year olds that are being slotted into the lineup.

If you look at the lineup in comparison of last year to this, the odds are pretty good that they'll be a better team.

 

[deadhead]

Other than goalies, we DIDN'T regress last year.

2016-17: GF 212, PP 54, SH 50, S% 8.2, SV% .905, E +/- +28.7
2015-16: GF 211, PP 53, SH 51, S% 8.3, SV% .920, E +/- -52.4

There was actually a huge turnaround in expected plus/minus, which is based on the probability of scoring of different shots, which suggests they were playing much better but giving up easy goals and not scoring on good chances.

In other words, they played much better last year but the goalies were much worse and the shooters didn't finish the deal.

As far as Provorov and Konency, they were 19-20 year olds with one post-draft junior season, not players 2-3 years older with experience in professional leagues. As talented as they are, that's a big learning curve. Which is why I expect both players to make big jumps in the next two years.

 

[Rebels57]

have to be careful though, cause we did the same thing last year when we added Provorov and Konecny and lost Vinny, Schenn, Grossmann, etc.. and we actually did regress a little. never underestimate the suck that is Hakstol.

There were other factors at play though, such as the suck that is Hakstol like you mentioned, but also major regression from veterans on D in Streit, Del Zotto, and Schultz (MacDonald and Manning were their normal level of suck). Provorov should be even better next year. Robots are not at risk of sophomore slumps. Ghost already busted out of his slump before last season even ended. Gudas is in his prime and with the simple game he plays, I doubt he regresses, but he would be the only candidate for that IMO.

 

[Captain Dave Poulin]

Positivity is good and all, but one can also be realistic and doubtfull even. There are just so many unknowns in this team that I personally want to keep my expectations at a resonable level.

Well yeah, we shouldn't get carried away, but I don't see a lot of craziness in these predictions and thoughts about this season. There's a point at which "realistic" tips over and becomes "pessimistic" and I don't see any reason to feel pessimistic about the upcoming season. Except for the head coach, obviously, who at this very moment is pricing chicken feed on the farmers' exchange.