What Has Kept Flyers From Recent Sustained Success? – The Hockey Writers – Philadelphia Flyers

The Philadelphia Flyers were no strangers to the Stanley Cup Playoffs during the 2010s. They made the Stanley Cup Final to begin the decade and qualified for the playoffs six times during the decade, also winning a round in 2011 and 2012. But that last series victory marked the start of an ominous trend, as the Flyers began flipping back and forth from the right and wrong side of the bubble for the next decade.

It eventually spiraled into a franchise-record-tying five-season playoff drought that ended this spring. But even though only three players on the current roster were around for any of the past runs, history says those who don’t learn from their past are doomed to repeat it. The current team is well-positioned to build on last season’s success, but that doesn’t guarantee future results, as these teams of Flyers past learned the hard way.

2013: A Shattered Defense and Sinking Goalie

The Flyers’ backend for the lockout-shortened 2013 campaign looked much different than it did on opening night the season before. The 2011-12 season saw Chris Pronger’s NHL career cut short by an inadvertent high stick to the eye, then ended with Matt Carle departing for the Tampa Bay Lightning in free agency. The failed bid to land Shea Weber on a whopping offer sheet meant Philadelphia would be without a true superstar on defense for the entire season.

A move from the previous summer haunted the Flyers throughout the season. Ilya Bryzgalov started 40 of the team’s 48 games, but his .900 save percentage (SV%) was eighth worst among goalies with at least 15 games played. As a result, the Flyers finished tied for 22nd in goals against and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2007. Not to mention Bryzgalov was given a compliance buyout with seven years remaining on the contract he signed back in 2011, ending his time in Philadelphia.

2015: Poor Signings Hamper Depth

After a poor start and a near-instant coaching change, the Flyers recovered to make the playoffs in 2014 and took the Eastern Conference champion New York Rangers to seven games in the first round. But there were reasons they changed general managers, from Paul Holmgren to Ron Hextall, after the season ended. Perhaps the biggest: their cap situation was a mess.

In 2014-15, the upper limit of the salary cap was just $69 million. The Flyers were using $4.5 million on 20-point Vincent Lecavalier, $4.6 million on 15-point R.J. Umberger, $3.6 million for eight goals out of Matt Read after three straight seasons of 20-plus goal production, and $5 million on Andrew MacDonald for a performance that would get him sent to the American Hockey League in 2015-16.

Philadelphia’s high-end performances were actually incredibly high that season. Jakub Voracek was second in the NHL in assists, and Claude Giroux was tied for 10th in points. And for once, you can’t blame goaltending, as Steve Mason posted a spectacular .927 SV%. But there was almost nothing behind them. Wayne Simmonds and Mark Streit were the only other Flyers to crack 50 points, and only Simmonds and Michael Raffl surpassed 20 goals (and Raffl did so with just seven assists).

In atypical Flyers fashion, they decided to sell at the trade deadline, a move that benefits the team to this day. Acquiring an extra first-round pick from the Lightning for Braydon Coburn allowed them to trade up and take Travis Konecny late in a loaded 2015 first round. They also finished seventh-worst in the league, their lowest finish since 2007, and took Ivan Provorov, a long-time blue-line staple who they dealt in 2023 for significant futures.

2017: Peaked Way Too Early

Following a surprise playoff berth in 2016, the Flyers appeared to ride that momentum into the 2016-17 season. With Konecny and Provorov providing a jolt of energy as rookies, Philadelphia rattled off 10 consecutive wins from Nov. 27 to Dec. 14, 2016, tied for their third-longest run in franchise history.

Unfortunately for them, it was only the third-longest streak in the Metropolitan Division that winter, as the Pittsburgh Penguins and Columbus Blue Jackets rattled off even longer runs. That meant to maintain a playoff spot, the Flyers had to keep winning… which they did not. After Mason and Michal Neuvirth both cleared a .915 SV% in 2015-16, they regressed below .910 in 2016-17, with Neuvirth tumbling to .891.

Health was also a problem. Giroux and Shayne Gostisbehere, two of the team’s leading forces in 2015-16, underwent core muscle surgery following the season and struggled upon their returns. Giroux’s 58 points were his second-fewest in any of his full seasons as a Flyer, and Gostisbehere went from Calder Trophy runner-up to a healthy scratch on multiple occasions.

2019: Netminding Nightmares

If having two quarterbacks means you don’t really have any, how many goalies do you really have if you use eight? The answer for the 2018-19 Flyers was not enough, as they failed to build on a 98-point campaign in 2017-18. Choosing James van Riemsdyk over fortifying the back end or adding a more established netminder to pair with Brian Elliott backfired when JvR broke his hand two games into his second stint in Philadelphia.

There also wasn’t enough progression from the existing young core to overcome those issues. Konecny and Nolan Patrick’s offensive production stagnated while Provorov and Gostisbehere saw their numbers fall off a cliff. The same happened to veteran Wayne Simmonds, whose run as one of the NHL’s top power forwards was coming to a rapid end, eventually leading to his being shipped out at the trade deadline.

Depth was an issue once again, too. Corban Knight, Jori Lehterä, Phil Varone, and MacDonald combined to play 144 games in Orange and Black that season; none played in the NHL after that season ended. But a goalie carousel and a defense short a top-four option couldn’t sort things out, although they fought valiantly back into the race in February and March.

2021: Back to the Beginning

The 2019-20 Flyers were easily the best playoff team of this run since the 2012 group, winning their first series since then and looking like a legitimate contender when the regular season ended prematurely in March due to COVID-19.

However, just like when the drought began in 2013, they were playing in a shortened season. But the parallels didn’t stop there. The defense was dealt another unexpected loss when Matt Niskanen retired with a year left on his contract. And a goalie expected to be a safe bet struggled, as Carter Hart posted a ghastly .877 SV% in just his second full NHL season.

The losses piled up after a solid but deceiving start record-wise, with blowouts popping up all over the place. The core that had made up the bulk of the last decade would quickly be stripped apart; Voracek and Gostisbehere were traded after the season, Giroux the following year as the Flyers finally found consistency, just not in the way they wanted to.

What to Learn

Just because the Flyers are young doesn’t mean they’re exempt from a step back. The 2017-18 and 2019-20 teams had lots of young players driving the bus, and they still crashed and burned just one season later. Are Alex Bump, Denver Barkey, and Oliver Bonk closer to Wade Allison, Mikhail Voroboyev, and Robert Hagg or Konecny, Tyson Foerster, and Travis Sanheim? More importantly, does Porter Martone provide the jolt the Flyers hoped they’d get from Patrick in the late 2010s?

Except for 2014-15, goaltending was always a culprit in the Flyers’ demises in the 2010s. The Flyers did fortify that position more than any other in the offseason by adding Joseph Woll to pair with Dan Vladař. There’s no quicker way to unravel a season than with poor netminding.

The last time the Flyers made consecutive playoff appearances, Peter Laviolette was head coach, Scott Hartnell scored their first-round series-winning goal, and Read was the NHL’s rookie goal-scoring leader. It sure has been a while. We’re almost ready to find out if a new streak is set to begin.