At some point you've gotta stop shooting yourself in the foot by presenting information made useless by stripped context and pretending it's a gotcha.
Well it is a gotcha, but for yourself.
Nothing stripped, I presented his minutes each year.
And the players who had similar minutes (a few seconds either way is noise).
People just don't like when facts refute extreme positions:
1) no evidence that the Flyer "development" is ruining players, at worst, it hasn't maximized the value of marginal forwards
2) no evidence that the Flyers hemorrhaged talent the last decade, unless you pine for Cousins and NAK.
3) that suggests the primary problem was
obtaining talent in the draft and
acquiring value in trades. Other than draft picks, who have they picked up in trades, waiver wire claims, etc.?
The rebound by the Phantoms, and their improved quality of play with lesser talent, points to years of bad coaching that may have hampered the development of marginal prospects (defined by those who don't stand out in CHL D+1, D+2, college, SHL seasons) - but it didn't seem to slow the progress of top prospects.
The loss of talent doesn't explain the decline from 2019-20 to this season, Voracek, Myers and Hagg v Risto, Yandle and Atkinson isn't enough to move the needle. Ghost wasn't even playing when they looked like a real team two years ago.
And the other other Flyers still playing from the 2019-20 team are Raffl, NAK, and Pitlick. Vorobyev is in the KHL and Twarynski in the AHL.
The problem is the loss of Ellis (Niskanen), Couts, Hayes, and AV's coaching meltdown.
What stands out is the lack of new talent two years later.
York is the only player added since that run. Frost has returned. Bunnaman hasn't improved. Willman?.
Where are all the prospects drafted in 2016-18 that should have arrived by now? Hart and Farabee were on the 2019-20 team.
