On Thursday’s episode of "Daily Faceoff Live," Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuck discussed if there’s any reason to be optimistic about the Philadelphia Flyers this upcoming season.
Tyler Yaremchuck: In Philly, Frank there’s no hope, right? Atkinson and Couturier coming back is a good story but what are you getting out of them? I don’t even know if this management group is necessarily trying to be bad Frank, they just have a very bad roster.
Frank Seravalli: They do, but here’s the disappointing part for the Flyers I know that they said goodbye to Kevin Hayes and Provorov, and Tony DeAngelo of course. But they’re probably going to be better than they want to. That’s what makes this part really tough, and I mentioned this on the DFO Rundown.
This is going to sound bad but I actually mean it as a compliment in that I still firmly believe John Tortorella’s the worst coach for the Flyers and where they’re at. That’s because he’s actually good and he squeezes every drop out of his teams. They compete and they work, all those new “Era of Orange” things that the Flyers are trying to do. The lunchpail mentality is great except you don’t want to be grinding out points and wins with this team. You want to try to get to the bottom, they’re not tanking, and they’re not trying to lose, the problem for the Flyers is that getting Sean Couturier and Cam Atkinson back is probably going to make them a little bit better.
I see them somewhere in the 80-to-84-point range where they’d probably rather be south of where they were last year. Carter Hart is going to cover up a lot of those problems that they have. They’re in a tough spot because they don’t want to actively be losing but the key to some of the success of some other teams we’ve seen rebuilding is that they don’t tell their GM or coach or players to lose. They just take away all the pieces so that you can’t win, and the ceiling is only so high. That’s kind of the spot I see the Flyers in, better than their own good.
Tyler Yaremchuck: It’s unfortunate because that can just leave you middling for a long time. You’re never going to actually get to a point where you can become a cup contender, you’re just going to keep pushing off the inevitable. Your rebuild is just instead of starting now, it’s just going to start in five years when you try to do it half-assed right now and you miss on it.
Frank Seravalli: I don’t think they’re doing it half-assed at all. But I think this year you want to try and get a top-three pick. Maybe they can get there, but each year you don’t, you’re kind of just making things a little bit harder on yourself. Unless you can somehow have Matvei Michkov fall to you at seventh in the Draft.
Tyler Yaremchuck: They should just be trying to build things up for whenever he can eventually get here. Can you imagine if you rebuilt well for two years and then when Michkov shows up you’ve got him on an ELC (entry-level contract) for three years as a 20-year-old?
Frank Seravalli: That’s the plan, is that when he gets here is when you begin to start building. But you need more tear down between now and then. You need some demo work.
You can watch the remainder of the episode here:
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