Worse stretch in Flyers history?

[FlyerFan22]

I was born on 1996. So I voted this era.

But I feel sadly for these fans who lives in that 89-94 era too. These trades like Propp or Poulin... or Jarri Kurri refused play for Flyers. It really seems like a bad times...

On another side, at least Flyers acquired two franchise players in Recchi and Lindros. This era did nothing. Poor Giroux. Waste his time. This organization don't deserve G.

I have been around for both.
The Poulin and Propp trades soured me on Clarke. Never really appreciated him as a GM after them. Draft picks and Linesman, ugg. How many great pkers have we had since Poulin was shipped out. Always felt like a shg was moments away with him on the ice. Duchene was a good pickup, but I was excited to have a name like Kurri on the team. Remember being so pissed that he "only wanted to play with Wayne". That hurt. At first hated the Tocchet trade as he was my favorite but Recchi became a favorite very quickly. As for Lindros, the day we acquired his rights, I told anyone who would listen that the flyers would go to the finals and win in 97. I still maintain the league stepped in and told Philadelphia they couldn't play the hard nosed hockey that they did the previous rounds. Oh well.

As for the question, I say now. I feel like coaching has been our biggest concern and has been holding us back, well in addition to some of the lesser players. I think the roster was better in the early 90's, just needed to put it all together.

Personally, I don't think we are that far off now, I think we are that 93 team ready to start breaking out.

 

[BackToTheBrierePatch]

They fare no differently.

Eh debatable. Forsberg was the better overall player in his prime

 

[Beef Invictus]

Eh debatable. Forsberg was the better overall player in his prime

Unless he brings a goalie and a couple more lines it makes no difference.

 

[BackToTheBrierePatch]

Unless he brings a goalie and a couple more lines it makes no difference.

Well yeah. That is something I would never understand about some of the GMs this team has had with wanting to devalue the goaltending position. Especially with Clarke knowing full well the Flyers may not have won those 2 Cups without Parent

 

[madlee]

The reason why i voted for this era is simply because there is no end in sight

lol, I wrote something similar in another thread and got shamed for it.

It's true though. This team can miss the playoffs again next year.

 

[madlee]

This era has been worse and it's not close. The 90-94 Flyers always played hard every night and there were always things happening. If they didn't win at least someone would kick someone's ass. We didn't have to suffer through Dave Hakstol or waiting interminably long periods for a prospect to get a chance. We didn't have to watch countless ex-Flyers win Cups every year.

It's way worse. We were in the cup finals in 1987 and lost in 7 games. Could have gone either way. Lindros arrived in 1992, which totally changed the vibe around this team. They were fun to watch. Sure they didn't really do anything until spring 1995, but those two years were still way better than what we have now.

 

[Rebels57]

Well yeah. That is something I would never understand about some of the GMs this team has had with wanting to devalue the goaltending position. Especially with Clarke knowing full well the Flyers may not have won those 2 Cups without Parent

They tried drafting them but it just kept not panning out, so they got desperate to find Hextalls successor and kept acquiring past their prime stop-gaps. It was a vicious cycle.

I still don't understand how Boucher flamed out so quickly. He rose through the ranks perfectly and was incredible in 99-00. I'd like to dive deeper into this one day.

 

[Tripod]

They tried drafting them but it just kept not panning out, so they got desperate to find Hextalls successor and kept acquiring past their prime stop-gaps. It was a vicious cycle.

I still don't understand how Boucher flamed out so quickly. He rose through the ranks perfectly and was incredible in 99-00. I'd like to dive deeper into this one day.

Meanwhile a team like Montreal gets 12 years of Roy and a decade of Price...with league MVP Theodore in between the 2 for awhile.

 

[Normand Lacombe]

This current era is the worst. While the teams from 89-94 sucked, at least they played hard and were exciting for the most part. With the early 90's Flyers, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel as I was fully confident that Mr. Snider would do anything to return the Flyers to Cup contenders. That happened when he green lighted the Lindros acquisition. I don't have that same confidence in Scott.

 

[BackToTheBrierePatch]

They tried drafting them but it just kept not panning out, so they got desperate to find Hextalls successor and kept acquiring past their prime stop-gaps. It was a vicious cycle.

I still don't understand how Boucher flamed out so quickly. He rose through the ranks perfectly and was incredible in 99-00. I'd like to dive deeper into this one day.

any chance teams just figured out his weaknesses and Boucher could not correct that? He had a good run early in his career. That 99/00 run was fun. I am in the minority on why that series ended against NJ. Which still irks me.

 

[Embiid]

This current era is the worst. While the teams from 89-94 sucked, at least they played hard and were exciting for the most part. With the early 90's Flyers, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel as I was fully confident that Mr. Snider would do anything to return the Flyers to Cup contenders. That happened when he green lighted the Lindros acquisition. I don't have that same confidence in Scott.

Spot on....

I am saddened by the last 9 years of Flyers hockey....

 

[freakydallas13]

For me, the "current era" flyers started after the 2012 penguins series. People might say it started at the beginning of that season (trading carter and richards), but I had genuine joy and excitement in the playoffs watching the pens and the flyers play. That ended after the second game of the Flyers/Devils series, where it was clear there was no chance the flyers were going to win and they looked lifeless and boring. Watching the rest of that series was a chore.

And so has been every post season since. There is no "maybe we could make a run!" atmosphere, no excitement to get me invested. Even the regular seasons since 2012, the only one that was exciting was the 2015-2016 season when ghost was brought up. For a period of over 7 years, half a regular season and no post season of excitement is just not enough. I check the scores, and tune into a game if I'm not busy, but I haven't had to make time in my schedule to actually sit and and watch the team in 7 years, and I feel like that is the most damning thing of all.

I used to be so passionate about this team, but we're coming up on a decade of futility now, and there has been very little to be excited about. The future looks promising, but I'm skeptical it will be at the "force me to make time for this team" point anytime soon.

 

[madlee]

Meanwhile a team like Montreal gets 12 years of Roy and a decade of Price...with league MVP Theodore in between the 2 for awhile.

Flyers' early to mid history was an embarrassment of riches when it came to goalies. Everything seemed to turn when they had the contract dispute with Hextall, which kind of screwed up his career (was arguably on a HOF trajectory) and ever since the Flyers have mismanaged the position.

Cechmanek, Bobrovsky, Bryzgalov, the ongoing issues with goaltender health...

 

[orangecrush8]

Blaming Paul Holmgren for this era of mediocrity is the biggest cop out ever.

 

[deadhead]

All this futility is about to end.

The goalie black hole has been eradicated by Hart, with Sandstrom, Ersson and Ustimenko right behind (and Fedorov waiting in the wings).
The Flyers will have skill again with the young players coming up, no more plodding hockey.

It's been a long walk in the wilderness, for which we can thank Mr Holmgren (and probably Mr Snider as well).

Hextall has laid a great foundation, it's up to Fletcher and AV not to screw it up.

I'm glad Hextall stuck with the VdVs and Mannings of this world, instead of trading a bunch of picks and prospects to try to get to the second round of the playoffs for a couple seasons. I wished he would have traded Simmonds and Voracek in 2015 (or the FO would have allowed him) and done a complete rebuild, but we're pretty close to the same place on the same timetable.

 

[deadhead]

Blaming Paul Holmgren for this era of mediocrity is the biggest cop out ever.

It's the absolute truth.
Go back and look at the 2013-14 roster, now tell me how you'd have made that team a winner.
With no cap room to add free agents, and almost nothing in the talent pipeline (Ghost, Laughton, Hagg, Morin, Cousins, Leier, Manning).

 

[renberg]

Every good team has a goalie that can bail out the club when the game gets tough. This period of poor hockey, IMO, goes back to the Bryzgalov/Bobrovsky debacle. SB was on the roster and ready to blossom as a top tier goalie and Snider stepped off of the curb an sent him to CBJ in order to go with Bryz. Its been a mess ever since. I could be wrong but I think that part of this was due to Laviolette and the jam style of hockey that he used. It left SB handling too many odd man rushes which he couldn't deal with at that point of his career. Lavy seemed to think that SB was a choker in the POs. Lets just hope that the mess in the nets has finally been eradicated with Hart.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

I’m too young to remember the early 90’s so this is by far the worst tenure of the Flyers during my lifetime where I had enough wherewithal to understand my surroundings.

 

[freakydallas13]

It's the absolute truth.
Go back and look at the 2013-14 roster, now tell me how you'd have made that team a winner.
With no cap room to add free agents, and almost nothing in the talent pipeline (Ghost, Laughton, Hagg, Morin, Cousins, Leier, Manning).

He also had this team the most exciting it's been since.....the 03/04 season? He took the team back to the cup finals within 3 season of inheriting a team that finished far and away in dead last.

 

[PEIslander]

I think we're in the worst stretch right now. I was born a few months before the Flyers won their last cup and have been a fan since I was about 6 or 7 years old. In the 80's and 90's it felt like the Flyers organization still viewed themselves as a winner. There was pride in the history, in the current teams, and at least for me, and probably many others, as a fan. But the powerhouse teams of the 80's and Legion of Doom years are long behind us. Being just barely in or barely out of the playoffs has become the yearly story for the Flyers. There always seem to be hot streaks that bring a little hope, that are always followed by brutal losing streaks. I have been a Flyers fan for a long time, but I've been losing interest over the last several years. The team just seems to be content to be mediocre. I want the Flyers to be in it to win it from the top down. I'm not interested in being entertained by Gritty or appeased by the removal of Kate Smith. I want a team that's passionate about winning the cup and does what it takes to get there.