Better seasons to come...
2024-09-09After having taken the reigns of this franchise back in June 2023, GM Bélanger planned on starting a rebuild process, but on-the-ice results were quite surprising and forced him to do a re-tool instead. The Philadelphia Flyers were actually amongst the best teams in the league at one point last season and unfortunately they crashed and burned while still making the playoffs.
After losing in the first round of the playoffs to Carolina in 6 games, GM Bélanger decided that he was going to be very busy in free agency. Having lots of cap space, GM Bélanger spent over 89 million dollars total over the next 4 seasons on 7 players : Andreas Athanasiou, Niko Mikkola, Sean Kuraly, Cal Clutterbuck, Jarred Tinordi and Olli Maatta and Pierre Engvall. "We will try once again to be in playoff contention and hope that these acquisitions can bring more depth and grit to our team. Our young guys won't be rushed to make the big team and we plan on continuing our retool".
It was a "different" type of entry draft for Philadelphia in using the strategy to only draft older players other than highly reguarded Michael Brandsegg-Nygard who was drafted 23rd overall. Aku Raty, James Stefan, Jacob Quillan, Yevgeni Volokhin, Jakub Malek, Cooper Black, Connor Punnett and Justin Hryckowian were brought along in surprising fashion.
With all the recent acquisitions, and before starting the training camp, Philadelphia is looking to ice this lineup :
Foligno-Strome-Palat
Zucker-Schwartz-Engvall
Clutterbuck-Kuraly-Athanasiou
Katchouk-Boqvist-Cuylle
Kulikov-Mikkola
Tinordi-Vlasic
Maatta-A. Vlasic
Vanecek
Husso
It might be a long season in Philadelphia without having any star forwards or any star defencemen, but it's been known that coach Rod Brind'amour can work miracles with what he has. Ryan Strome will center the 1st line alongside veterans Nick Foligno and Ondrej Palat. Jaden Schwartz will bring secondary scoring on a 2nd line with Jason Zucker and Pierre Engvall on his wings. Sean Kuraly will center the 3rd line with pest Cal Clutterbuck and speedy Andreas Athanasiou. Jesper Boqvist will center the 4th line alonside Boris Katchouk and young upcomer Will Cuylle.
On defence, there won't be a consensus of who's #1 through #6 or #7 with an over-matched D who will try to hold off the other teams offensive.
There are no high hopes in nets with the duo of Vitek Vaneck and Ville Husso. That is why GM Bélanger acquired Joel Blomqvist this off-season in a trade for Charlie Lindgren. Lindgren was to be the goaltender for this season, but he had a falling out with GM Bélanger during his contract negotiations. "The things he said during our talks were quite inconceivable and rude. I won't be repeating them. We decided it was best to part ways with him."
In what is rumored to be a very trying 2024-2025 season, the team is happy to bring back it's fan favorite mascot Gritty. He might be the only good thing to come out of this next season...
Islanders are pro Gritty. Nothing but ups in Philly!
Better seasons to come...
Big offseason moves in Philly