Isn’t This Flyers Stretch Kind Of What We Wanted?
It’s November 28th as I write this, and it’s officially been 20 calendar days since the last time the Philadelphia Flyers won a hockey game. That is what we in the business call “not great”. Over the course of those days, they have played 10 games, and have a goal differential in those 10 contests of -29. They’re not just getting beat; the Flyers are getting absolutely railroaded by anyone and everyone who lines up against them right now. Since the losing streak began, the fan base has grown more and more restless, with the “Sell The Team” crowd becoming louder with each passing day and Head Coach John Tortorella becoming more annoyed in his media availabilities. I mean, can you blame him? That being said though, aren’t we kind of complaining about what we wanted to see from the Flyers this season?
No, I’m not saying that Comcast has been a good owner of the Philadelphia Flyers. If the organization was to change ownership tomorrow, that would be more than fine with me, and I’m sure with plenty of Flyers fans as well. However, this was never supposed to be a winning season. The Flyers were in injury trouble before the season even started, and even if they were fully healthy, this team did not seem to have the talent to compete for an NHL Playoff berth. It always seemed like the best path forward might be to not win for a short period of time, whether that would be intentionally (without saying so, obviously) or in spite of the best efforts to win. Flyers fans, welcome to The Process.
We’ve been here before. In fact we’ve been here before in the same exact building. The Wells Fargo Center is seeing its 2nd epic rebuild project in the past decade, and I’m not talking about the building itself. Unlike the NBA, though, the NHL at least has more parity leading to the opportunity for a quicker rebuild. Bring in a veteran coach like John Tortorella, and the path to contention gets shorter. Lose enough to win the Connor Bedard sweepstakes, and you could be looking at adding one of the best draft prospects in a decade. I can’t speak for every fan, but coming into this season, I was rooting for the Flyers to be bad enough that they could (attempt to) draft a generational talent to transform this team and replace Claude Giroux as the face of the franchise. God knows Chuck Fletcher isn’t going to sign one in free agency. Hope you’re doing well Johnny Gaudreau. It certainly isn’t fun in the moment, but in stretches like these, you have to take yourself back to the offseason and what the true goal for this season was. Hey, only 60 more games to go.
