For The First Time In A Long Time, There's Plenty Of Reasons To Give A Shit About This Upcoming Flyers Season
Mitchell Leff. Getty Images.Philly is such a great hockey city. For anyone who is around the same age as I am (32 now, which is hard to reconcile with), your childhood was filled with so much orange and black. Early on it was the Lindros era. The Legion of Doom. Ron Hextall. Incredible Flyers teams that were constantly in the mix. Then came the Mike Richards and Jeff Carter era. A new generation of stars wearing the Flyers sweater going toe-to-toe with the best players in the world like Crosby and Ovechkin every night. Pronger, Jagr, a Cup Final appearance in 2010, hosting the Winter Classic in 2012. The Flyers were just as integral to the heartbeat of Philadelphia as any other team.
And then….
Years and years of organizational failure. It seemed like the moment Ed Snider passed away, the Flyers lost their identity. They became a cold and calculated corporate shell of themselves. That led to alumni feeling distanced from the team. That led to disappointing teams that have won just one playoff series since 2012, and that was in the COVID bubble so it barely even counts. Eventually it got to the point where Philly fans were no longer disappointed in the Flyers, they just stopped caring all together. The team had become completely irrelevant in this city.
But all of that has changed over the past few months, and especially over the last couple of weeks.
For the first time in a long time, there is a reason to care about this upcoming Flyers season. It's not just about Matvei Michkov, but it's a lot about Matvei Michkov and everything he means for this organization moving forward. Obviously it's just been a few preseason games, but everything we've seen out of this kid so far is telling us that he's going to deliver on the hype that has been surrounding him for years. That Michkov vs Bedard is the 2nd coming of Ovechkin vs Crosby, and now the Flyers are right there in the middle of it all instead of being stuck on the outside looking in like we've been over the last 19 years.
And is if having one budding superstar on the roster wasn't enough, the Flyers will have 18-year-old Jett Luchanko become the youngest player in Flyers history on Friday night when he makes his debut with the team.
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Luchanko hasn't had the type of preseason that really jumps off the paper at you in the same way Michkov has, but every single time Torts talks about the kid you can tell how excited he is about him. He'll be 18 years and 51 days old when he makes his NHL debut on Friday night, but Torts constantly mentions about how he handles himself like a veteran already. He can fly around out there, he's really gifted on both ends of the ice, and constantly makes the adjustments the coaches ask of him. He fits that Jonathan Toews mold of player that you need to compliment a guy like Michkov out there. If you look at what the Blackhawks were able to do with Toews and Kane, that seems to be the exact formula the Flyers are trying to follow here with Luchanko and Michkov.
Obviously there's a chance he's just here for 9 games and then gets sent back down to the OHL. Personally, I don't see the Flyers being too worried about burning a year off of his ELC, and maybe Luchanko sticks around longer than the 9 games but still doesn't spend the entire season with the Flyers. Either way, he was one of the youngest players in this draft class. A late bloomer who really surged up the draft boards late. Whether it's for 9 games or more, it's huge that the Flyers think he's already NHL ready because if he was born a month later, who knows how high he would go in the 2025 Draft. But definitely too high for the Flyers to get a chance at.
The rest of the forward lineup looks just like last year, which isn't a bad thing at all. Last year's Flyers team might have been considered "overachievers", but this is a group that has some new life injected into them. All of these guys are solid. Couturier and Konecny are all-stars. Tippett has gamebreaking speed and is a shoot-first type of player that the Flyers have been missing since Jeff Carter. Foerster looks like he's ready to take that next step to becoming a legitimate scoring threat in the NHL, and could see a 30-goal season out of him real soon. And you're not going to find many NHL 4th liners than Scott Laughton, so that just goes to show how deep this lineup is.
Defense
How good this Flyers defense can be really relies on a healthy Jamie Drysdale. If he's anywhere close to 100%, he's a game changer. He's an incredible skater, great with the puck, and is going to be a weapon on the powerplay. He was the 2nd defenseman taken in the 2020 Draft for a reason, so expect some big numbers out of him this year as long as he stays healthy through an 82 game season.
Sanheim is still going to be your horse on defense and the guy you can rely on the most. Drysdale and York are both smooth, puck moving defensemen. Ristolainen is an absolute mutant who can create chaos physically. Travis Sanheim is the perfect hybrid of somewhere in the middle. He's paid to be a #1 defenseman and that's what you should be able to expect out of him.
I'm still not thrilled at the fact that Erik Johnson is on this team, but at the same time he's a former 1st overall pick and a Stanley Cup Champion. You need those guys in your locker room. Because realistically, the Flyers' main focus should still be a few years from now. So having a guy like Erik Johnson there to mentor some of these players is going to be huge for their development when the time comes that the Flyers are actually trying to take a shot at this thing. So the blueline isn't anything to get too excited about this year, but there's a lot of potential there.
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Goalies
This will be the first year Sam Ersson goes into an NHL season with complete control of the net. He's looked really good during preseason so far, so I have no reason to think that won't carry over into the regular season. There has to be a pretty big mental advantage heading into the year knowing that you're the #1 guy, and maybe that's exactly what he needs to take the next step in becoming a true #1. Fedotov being here for the whole year is huge and I'd imagine these guys split the net pretty frequently. There's a chance this turns into a really good goalie tandem, which would be a massive relief for the Flyers considering the hand they were dealt last season. And if for some reason this duo doesn't quite click, Alexei Kolosov is up next and he is dying to get a chance to prove he belongs in the NHL full time.
And if for any reason that doesn't work out, the Flyers have yet another Russian in the pipeline with Yegor Zavragin who is taking the KHL by storm right now.
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Everywhere you look on the ice, there's a reason to be excited about this year's Flyers team and what these guys mean for the future years of this franchise. Maybe they make the playoffs, maybe they fall just short again. But I can promise you one thing right now, and that's the fact that the days of the Flyers being completely irrelevant are over. Both in the city and as far as the whole league goes, the Flyers will finally mean something again. The kids are coming.