97.5 The Fanatic Flyers Weekly Roundup: Travis Konecny Named NHL All-Star
The Philadelphia Flyers lost their fourth game in a row on the same night that the NHL announced Travis Konecny as an All-Star. A fast start to the 2023-24 season has made a playoff appearance realistic. However, John Tortorella and the Flyers now recognize that they have a slim margin for error.
- Friday 12/29: Seattle Kraken 2, Flyers 1 (OT)
- Sunday 12/31: Calgary Flames 4, Flyers 3
- Tuesday 1/2: Edmonton Oilers 5, Flyers 2
- Thursday 1/4: Columbus Blue Jackets 3, Flyers 2 (SO)
Flyers Face First Sign of Trouble
The Metropolitan Division standings have tightened. The Flyers have dropped to sixth in point percentage just before the halfway point of the 2023-24 season. They’ll need to recover quickly if they hope to hold off some of the most talented teams in the division.
The New Jersey Devils and the Carolina Hurricanes had relatively slow starts to the season. However, the pair of returning playoff teams are both in position for a second-half hot streak.
The Flyers deserve credit for maximizing their talent early in the season. However, they now face real trouble in the standings during their first slump of the season.
Travis Konecny in the 2024 NHL All-Star Game
Konecny scored both Philadelphia goals on Thursday after learning before the game that he’d earned his second NHL All-Star Game appearance. The location at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto is extraordinary for the London, Ontario native. After the loss to Columbus, he spoke about family and friends from the area reaching out to him about the news.
Konecny has grown into a team leader throughout his eight seasons with the Flyers. He’s on pace to shatter a career-high 31 goals set last season. He spoke proudly about his accomplishment but also humbly deflected the glory.
“It’s also that my teammates have done so much to help me get to this point. Credit goes to them.” -Travis Konecny
The 2024 NHL All-Star Weekend takes place February 1-3.
Cam Atkinson Scratched
John Tortorella chose to sit struggling veteran Cam Atkinson against Columbus on Thursday night. The 34-year-old has no goals and just six assists in his last 22 games. He looked visibly frustrated after taking a tripping penalty in a 5-2 loss against the Oilers on Tuesday.
Atkinson came out of the gates strong in 2023-24 after missing the entire previous season with a neck injury. His scoring has dried up, and it’s fair to wonder how much he has left in the tank. Morgan Frost also sat as a healthy scratch after a tough Western road trip out of the holiday break. Rhett Gardner played his first game with the Flyers on the fourth line.
Noah Cates will return soon from a lower-body injury that’s kept him out since November. Jan. 9 would mark six weeks since the organization estimated a 6-8 week recovery time on Nov. 28. The former Minnesota-Duluth captain scored one goal and added three assists in 21 games before the injury.
The Ed Snider Legacy Game
The Flyers will celebrate the Ed Snider Legacy Game when the Calgary Flames visit the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday at 1 pm. The organization will pay tribute to their legendary franchise founder on what would’ve been his 91st birthday.
Snider brought the NHL to Philadelphia as part of the expansion wave of 1967. The Broad Street Bullies quickly became the first expansion franchise to defeat an Original Six franchise on the way to their first of two Stanley Cups.
97.5 The Fanatic color commentator Todd Fedoruk spoke about the incredible legacy of the franchise founder who established the Flyers as part of the identity of the city of Philadelphia.
“If you forget where you came from, you never will find where you’re going. Mr. Snider is the epitome of everything that the Flyers are. It was his actions in the community. It was his actions toward the players. It was who he was as a man.” -Todd Fedoruk
The Flyers will make a generous $300K donation to the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation on Saturday. The foundation creates opportunities for under-resourced youth of the Greater Philadelphia Region to prosper. The continuing initiative is a tribute to Snider’s legacy as a philanthropist beyond his recognition as a successful NHL owner.
Looking Ahead
The Flyers will play a packed schedule through January leading into the NHL All-Star break. They’ll play their next three at the Wells Fargo Center before a road trip to the Midwest.
- Saturday 1/6: vs. Calgary Flames, 1pm on 97.5 The Fanatic
- Monday 1/8: vs. Pittsburgh Penguins, 7pm on 97.5 The Fanatic
- Wednesday 1/10: vs. Montreal Canadiens, 7pm on 93.3 WMMR
- Friday 1/12: @ Minnesota Wild, 8pm on 93.3 WMMR
97.5 The Fanatic, the flagship radio partner of the Philadelphia Flyers, provides a weekly roundup with news, analysis, and the outlook on the 2023-24 season.
The All-Time Roster of Underrated Philadelphia Flyers
Mike Knuble
Peter Forsberg and Simon Gagne were the stars at the top of the lineup coming out of the 2004-05 lockout. However, there are three players on an NHL line.
Mike Knuble spent four seasons with the Flyers from 2005-06 through 2008-09, and he returned for a cup of coffee in 2013. He provided the perfect complement to a crafty playmaker like Forsberg and a finesse star like Gagne. He scored a career-high 34 goals in his first season in Philadelphia and followed it up with 24, 29, and 27 goals in the next three seasons, respectively.
Knuble knew his role as a garbage goal-scorer, and he played it damn well. He added 14 points in 24 playoff games with the Flyers, including an overtime game-winning goal against the Washington Capitals in 2008.
Kimmo Timonen
The NHL still associates the Broad Street Bullies mentality with the Flyers. Players like Chris Pronger feed into the identity of the fan base. The 6-foot-6 defenseman resonated with the fans perfectly as a fearless, powerful defenseman who became the workhorse on the Philadelphia blue line during the run to the 2010 Stanley Cup Final.
Kimmo Timonen didn’t have the same reputation. The Finnish puck mover was more of a classy guy off the ice who didn’t bring as much grit as Pronger, but he actually had a longer run as the top blueliner in Philadelphia.
The Flyers acquired Timonen as part of a series of trades with the Nashville Predators that pulled them out of the disaster of the 2006-07 season. He averaged over 20 minutes of ice time in each of his seven playoff series wins with the Flyers. Only Mark Howe and Eric Desjardins scored more points among defensemen in franchise history.
Dan McGillis
Hockey in the late 1990s and early 2000s required more physical defensemen while modern roster construction prioritizes puck movers on the blue line. The Flyers acquired 6-foot-3, 220-pounder Dan McGillis in 1998 during a window of Stanley Cup contention.
McGillis played 380 regular-season and playoff games in orange and black. He was the physical presence a contending team needed, but you won’t see his name in the franchise record books too often.
Stay-at-home defensemen are harder to glorify than offensive catalysts. McGillis recorded a career-high 49 points in 2000-01, and it’s no coincidence that it was the only one of his nine NHL seasons when he received Norris Trophy votes.
Steve Mason
Anyone who follows the Flyers knows the notorious reputation of the “Goalie Graveyard” in Philadelphia. The revolving door of goaltenders reached its peak with the Ilya Bryzgalov nightmare that ended in 2013, right around the time the Flyers really started to lose popularity in the Philadelphia sports landscape.
Coincidentally, the Flyers acquired Steve Mason in 2013. He spent four seasons as the top option between the pipes for forgettable Flyers teams that never won a playoff series.
Mason wasn’t some Vezina Trophy winner who would reverse the “Goalie Graveyard” narrative. He was never going to demand the attention of casual hockey fans in Philadelphia who were only interested in a contending team, but he was the type of solid goaltender for a good period of time that the Flyers haven’t usually had.
Daymond Langkow
It’s tough to identify any reason why Daymond Langkow is underrated. Like Joffrey Lupul and Sami Kapanen, he doesn’t seem to come up in conversations about the Flyers too often. The NHL journeyman notched at least 50 points in each of his two full regular seasons in Philadelphia.
He helped the Flyers advance to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final in 2000 with 10 points in 16 games during the playoff run.
The Daymond Langkow trade tree had remarkable ripple effects on the franchise. The return package acquired from the Phoenix Coyotes in 2001 indirectly led to the acquisitions of Jeff Carter, Jakub Voracek, Sean Couturier, Cam Atkinson, Jason Smith, Joffrey Lupul, and Chris Pronger.
