Should We Even Care About The 2nd Half of The Flyers Season?
It has been a miserable first half of the season for our Philadelphia Flyers. Anything and everything that could go wrong, has and it has been dreadful to watch and follow along with. So that brings me to this post, should we even care about this team the 2nd half of the season?
Now, that the All Star break is over(Shoutout my captain Claude Giroux winning the MVP) the Flyers have 37 games left in the 2021-22 season. Currently sitting 17 points out of the final wildcard spot for the playoffs, barring a miracle it’s pretty much safe to say the Flyers season will end on April 29th. The short answer to if we should care about this team is no. But if you’re like me and like to torture yourself you will be tuning in to each game hoping to see some sort of positives.
A little bit of good news is hopefully the team will start getting healthy within the next few weeks. Derrick Brassard could be back in the lineup as early as Wednesday night. Joel Farabee should be back before the end of the month, and Sean Couturier is getting closer to returning each day. Obviously injuries aren’t the only reason the Flyers have struggled this season but they have definitely played a factor. Farabee and Coots are two big pieces of the Flyers future so the quicker they can draw back into the lineup the better idea we can have of what this team could possibly do next year.
One of the biggest off-season additions in Ryan Ellis has only played in four games this year and it doesn’t appear he will be back this season. Ellis was supposed to solidify the Flyers blue line which has just been awful once again this season and we didn’t get the chance to see how much of a help Ellis would have been. For the rest of the season it would be nice to see Cam York develop some more and start playing a bigger role for the defense. It would be great if we could get Ivan Provorov back to the level he was at a few years ago when Matt Niskanen was his partner. I still believe Provorov can be an elite defenseman and I will stand by saying that Niskanen retiring was the worst thing that could’ve happened for Provorov. Justin Braun and Keith Yandle I would be fine with if we didn’t see them here next year. Rasmus Ristolainen has been the Flyers best defenseman this season and he deserves to get a contract extension, especially after what we gave up to acquire him. Finally, as for Travis Sanhiem I don’t think he has been as bad this year as he was last year and there have been times this year he has looked really great. However, If I’m the Flyers I’m not married to the guy and if they can include him in a trade I wouldn’t be opposed to it.
Now onto the forward group…It pains me to even think about but it is becoming clearer each day we get closer to the trade deadline that Claude Giroux will be dealt.
As you can see from this Tweet from @NHLRumorsDaily on Twitter, Colorado is one of the teams who has been rumored in being interested in Giroux. The bottom line is that it comes down to if Giroux wants to waive his no movement clause and it appears Colorado is a team he would do that for. I for one am hoping he stays in Philadelphia because as much as he deserves a Stanley Cup he should be one of those players that only plays for one team in his career and it should be here in Philadelphia.
Moving on…if the captain does get traded there will be a major void to fill on the Flyers offense and guys are going to have to step up. Cam Atkinson has been a fantastic addition and hopefully his play continues into the second half of the season. Travis Konecny has been up and down all year but seems to finally be finding his scoring touch again. James Van Riemsdyk has not been the goal scorer we all wanted him to be but his contact is one that would be tough to move so it appears likely he will be here for the foreseeable future. Maybe we will get lucky and he will become a 40 goal scorer somehow next year. Oskar Lindblom is starting to show signs of his game returning back to how it was before his cancer and the Flyers will need that going forward for their offense to be more consistent. If the Flyers want to get back to being a Stanley Cup contender they will need to add a dynamic player to the offense. Whether it is via trade or free agency, the offense needs an upgrade and hopefully Chuck Fletcher or whoever the general manager is come the summer (*Cough, Danny Briere Cough*) will be able to make a move to get us what we need.
Finally the biggest reason to actually care about the Flyers during the 2nd half of the season is the goaltending. Great teams are built from the net out and thankfully Carter Hart has bounced back this year in a great way. If you actually have been watching the Flyers this season and you still think Carter Hart is the problem, you really are on another level of stupid at this point. In the 29 games he has played this year he has a save % of .915 and a Goals against average of 2.80 with 1 shutout to his credit. Clearly his record isn’t great at 9-14-5 but if it wasn’t for Hart the Flyers would be lucky to have the 15 wins that they do have. If the Flyers are going to come anywhere close to being a Stanley Cup contender Carter Hart is going to have to be the main reason for that.
My only hope is that the second half of this season is not as miserable as the first half and that we can start to see some signs of positivity leading into next season. I am not sure my mental health can handle another god awful season like these last two have been for the Flyers.
Side Note: In regards to my Danny Briere comment, he will be named the Assistant GM in the near future(Here’s the report from Crossing Broad) and while I don’t think the promotion to GM will be as quick as this summer, the writing is on the wall for him to be next in line once Fletcher gets canned.
Will you be continuing to follow along with the Flyers for the rest of the season?