Coming into this season, it was thought that the rebuilding Flyers would struggle.
Several internet personalities even predicted that the team would be last in the division.
After a strong middle of the season lasting from December to March, the Flyers were comfortably in a playoff spot until the bottom fell out in the last month of the season.
There are many questions as to what the team will look like next season, but one thing that is for sure is that the team is resilient.
Starting with the Cutter Gauthier trade, when a team’s top prospect demands a trade before ever playing a professional game, people start to question the team’s leadership. But if anything, this might have lit a fire in the Flyers, as this happened in January when the team was playing at its best. The addition of Jamie Drysdale was also valuable, as he slotted right into the number two defenseman spot right behind Travis Sanheim.
While the second headline was the departure of goaltender Carter Hart who is currently waiting trail on sexual assault charges. A team losing their top goaltender would be crushing, but with how good Sam Ersson was playing, he easily took over the starting role. And newcomer Ivan Fedotov will give the Flyers a solid, young goaltender tandem for the coming future.
But the biggest question for the Flyers is coaching. It is expected that head coach John Tortorella, as well as assistant coaches Rocky Thompson, Brad Shaw, and Darryl Williams, would all return next season. Questions were placed about Rocky Thompson as he works with the forwards and runs the power play, which finished with the league’s worst 12.2% scoring rate. Along with the baggage and coaching style that John Tortorella carries with him.
Several times this season, the Flyers lost less than a minute into overtime because Torts did not put their A Team out on the ice. Instead, he tried new combinations that ended up costing the Flyers a valuable point.
This would be a good strategy for a team well outside of a playoff spot trying to find team chemistry, but not for a team fighting for a playoff spot.
It is also believed that the benching of captain Sean Couturier threw off team chemistry and upset several players, which might have played into the Flyer’s late-season collapse.
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