#i mean it's probably way higher but there were some that i couldn't choose bc i was too PICKY

[st-louis]

do you think the flyers problems are bc of the front office? the medical team? the lack of identity? all of the above ?? (also sorry ur two favorite teams suck this year)

it's a variety of things.

historically we have not drafted well. we have sooooo many first and second round guys who either aren't playing in the nhl at all (sometimes through no fault of their own, it's not sam morin's fault he has the worst injury luck although honestly he was still a stretch pick at where he was picked) or aren't playing for us (n*lan p*trick, which again, arguably not his fault but definitely just not a good fit for this city at this point). when i used to be able to predict the kinds of prospects the flyers would choose because they had good hockey sense but were small and couldn't fucking skate, that's bad.

we're still suffering from hextall's insistence that the answer to the team's problem was to slowly build up from within. which is a fine way of doing things but like... you gotta draft well or get late round steals to do that. we have some guys who looked like they could be it, but then shit happened (oskar getting cancer during his breakout season).

a lot of guys are underperforming or being forced to play in spots higher than they should be playing and haven't been able to pick up the slack. unfortunately, as of this year, it does not look like provy can be a 1d and carry the defense on his own.

we've been suffering from injuries. nowhere near as bad as montreal but look at who's out. our 1d. our 1c. our 2c. even brass is out. wade allison, who probably would've had great energy on the third line, missed most of the season. we are so thin down the center and our defense is also a house of cards that ellis was supposed to shore up but look at how many games he's played. i guess to some extent you could argue the medical staff has contributed to it by clearing guys too early and having them get hurt again. whatever was going on with letting kevin hayes come back was like malpractice as far as i'm concerned.

the front office? i guess you could argue hextall fucked us. we're still paying for his mistakes, as i said.

current front office? idk. i don't think fletcher moved quickly enough to fire av and i don't think he was aggressive in the right ways in the offseason. ellis looked like a great move from the few games he played, but then he didn't. martin jones has been solid as a backup, but when the defensive structure falls apart in front of him like it did today... he can't compensate. risto hasn't been as bad as expected, but compared to what he was in buffalo... it's definitely not good enough to compensate for what philly needs.

i guess fletcher's main problem is being too conservative about changes needed and giving things too much time.

av lost the room last year. the roster wasn't built for his preferred style. yeo doesn't seem to be able to do much with it either although he's stuck playing with what he has. the power play has always been mediocre to bad so like... i don't know. is that coaching? personnel? who knows?

i think identity is an easy out. what does "identity" even mean when it comes down to it? this is one of those things like "leadership" where if the above stuff worked out properly you wouldn't even be asking the question.

this is just the inevitable of a mediocre prospect pool that occasionally overperforms not overperforming anymore. we have a few very talented guys (g, coots, hart this year; beezer and to some extent provy) and a few guys who try really hard every shift but a few guys can't make a team. a guy like laughts is a great bottom six player when the rest of the team is playing well. but he can't carry a team on his own. basically these last two seasons have been the chickens coming home to roost in different ways.

i also am unhappy with the ownership, but that's a different story.

thanks. hockey is pain this year, haha.