A Child's Garden of Chicanery with Flyers Captaincy

Courtesy of the Inquirer

By Bob Herpen

Phanatic Hockey Editor

This is the first in a two-part series examining the specifics and broader implications of the choices the Philadelphia Flyers hockey staff have made regarding the team captaincy. This section will concentrate on the quarter century from the mid 1970s through the end of the millennium.

The second part, due in a little less than two weeks, will examine the 2000s up to now. 

Hey. Remember back five or six years ago, an eternity in internet years, when hockey twitter would regularly explode when the Flyers would go into the tank and a certain segment of fans would vehemently insist the Flyers strip the “C” from Claude Giroux?

Remember how Giroux stans would clap back and mock anyone who made the suggestion by Wheel-of-Fortuning his name every successive mention? Of course you do, because whoever you are out here reading this was probably someone who did it. 

_laude Giroux.

New Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet faces a question of leadership, with current captain Sean Couturier not expected to last through his current contract extension, a roster overhaul and perhaps no more than 3 years at the helm. Although team lore places the captaincy somewhere in the pantheon of the hockey gods, history says the impact of the mantle ranges from something like the Kiss of Death to the Quickest Way out of Town. 

The way I see it, all this nonsense began with the sainted Bobby Clarke. Given the “C” in 1973 after defenseman Ed Van Impe willingly handed it over, Clarkie held onto the captaincy and brought a level of mischief, chaos, dignity, success and class by which all others are still held. He won two Stanley Cups, two Hart Trophies along with the envy and respect of players and coaches alike around the National Hockey League.

Clarke was regarded well enough as he headed into his 11th NHL season, that then-head coach Pat Quinn tapped him to take on additional duties as an assistant coach. Problem was – and pretty much everyone BUT Clarke and Quinn saw it that way – a massive conflict-of-interest between his on-ice duties which required him to stick up for his teammates and the more objective behind-the-scenes role for Quinn. 

“Obviously this could backfire and destroy what it’s taken me 10 years to build,” Clarke was quoted by Jay Greenberg in Full Spectrum. “If a guy is going to be resentful of me or my position, then he’s looking for an excuse.”

Solving the problem was as easy as stripping the franchise’s all-time most notable player of the captaincy he so richly deserved. Also according to Greenberg’s book, Mel Bridgman was named captain the day of the Flyers’ 5-2 season-opening home win over the Islanders. Two games later, the club embarked on a pro sports record 35-game unbeaten streak.

Bridgman lasted only parts of three seasons at the helm. After the Year of the Streak, a contract dispute dragged on and pulled down his point production in 1980-81. The following season, he broke out with the best offensive start of his career, only to be swapped – still wearing the “C” –  for another team captain, Calgary’s Brad Marsh. Upon that November 1981 trade the closest living thing to Clarke, Bill Barber, was given the letter.

Clarke eventually got it back for no good reason other than Quinn’s successor, Bob McCammon, decided to take it away from Barber midway through the 1982-83 season with an offhanded comment: “Billy didn’t do anything wrong. I just think there are only a chosen few who can lead.”

Barber had been plagued by several injuries during that legendary Cooperall season, including a knee issue which sidelined him for a month and a broken jaw which he gamely played through.

Let's not forget Clarke's final game with the "C," a dismal 5-1 home playoff loss to the Capitals, who completed a 3-game series sweep. Memorable for McCammon essentially throwing in the towel early on by sending several lines to goon it up.

Let’s all have a moment of silence for the captain who never was, Hockey Hall of Famer Darryl Sittler. 

With Clarke retired and kicked upstairs in the general manager’s position in the spring of 1984, Paul

Holmgren traded and Barber mired in a fruitless attempt to salvage his playing career after a knee injury and surgical repair, new head coach Mike Keenan had a virtually clean veteran slate. 

Keenan was primed to officially name Sittler captain at a team dinner on Oct. 10, 1984, one day before the season opener at the Spectrum vs. Washington. Except, Clarke went into full on evil executive mode and swapped Sittler while the event was underway, to Detroit for Murray Craven and Joe Paterson.

Sittler was livid enough to consider retiring on the spot. And bitter at Clarke for the move for quite some time. 

“Here I was helping to plan the retirement dinner the Flyers were having for Clarke, and his had just traded me on the day I thought I was being named captain,” Sittler groused at the time in Full Spectrum. “When Clarke was asked (at the press conference) whether it was true I had been about to be named captain, he said ‘Mike Keenan makes that decision.’ Clarke said it like he wasn’t in on it at all.”

Next on the list was 25-year-old, second-year forward Dave Poulin. Poulin, a rarity for the time as a graduate of Notre Dame who began his pro career in Sweden, impressed Clarke enough in the former’s rookie year to get the nod. Poulin presided over some picture-perfect memories (like lifting the Prince of Wales trophy to show a sellout Spectrum crowd in May 1985 after beating Quebec, creating a wall calendar cover page) over that five-plus-year tenure as team leader. 

Unfortunately, his sixth year was fraught with injury and an overall decline in team play due to injuries and inconsistency. Now the club’s second-year head coach, Holmgren stripped the “C” from Poulin just before Christmas. A month later, he was dealt to the Boston Bruins for retread Ken Linseman. Poulin played another five seasons. 

Ron Sutter got the nod thereafter, holding court over a painful transitional period in Flyers history where they lacked depth, energy and heart and were just not good enough to hold out against improving division rivals to claim a playoff berth when 16 of 21 teams made it. While still team captain in the fall of 1991, Russ Farwell pulled a fast one, dealing him to St. Louis along with Murray Baron for Rod Brind’Amour and Dan Quinn.

Somewhat of an obvious choice from there was Rick Tocchet, entering his 8th NHL campaign having worked himself into a dangerous man with his hands, fists and body. Tocchet, the last player in league history to record a season of 30-or-more goals and 300-or-more penalty minutes, promptly hit the skids. A bad slide in November cost Holmgren his job, and spotty injuries throughout the year cost Tocchet production and stunted his leadership. 

In a mid-February massive roster shakeup, just four games after returning from a 4-week absence due to a stress fracture in his left heel, Tocchet was shipped off to division-rival Pittsburgh. Just over a month later, in the clubs’ first meeting since the deal, a salty Tocchet was quoted as saying – through a freshly broken jaw per Greenberg – that he hoped the Pens would beat the Flyers by 10 goals. He went on to win a Cup that June with the revamped Penguins.

There would be no team captain from that point through the entire 1992-93 season, Eric Lindros’ first with the Flyers. 

Up next on the chopping block was Kevin Dineen, who proved himself worthy enough as a durable forward that one-and-done bench boss Terry Simpson dubbed him just prior to his 10th NHL season. A potential conflict of interest the year before, with dad Bill Dineen as head coach was avoided.

But it didn’t save the younger Dineen from a tough year, which began in the preseason on a sour note when linesman Gordie Broseker grabbed him and dislocated (or separated) his shoulder. In the end, his durability (83 games to 71), goal scoring (35 to 19) and point totals (63 to 42) all declined. The Orange and Black finished lower in the Atlantic Division than the expansion Florida Panthers.

Dineen's contributions continued to be whittled away to the point he was given back, as a gift, to the Hartford Whalers in December of 1995 for a career swan song. He went on to play another seven seasons before packing it in.

As for Lindros, well, despite it happening 25 years ago and both sides having long since reconciled, it should really be common knowledge even among younger fans or casuals how things ended here. In short: a career whose astronomical upside was represented by a Hart Trophy win in 1995 and a lifting of the Prince of Wales Trophy on home ice two years later, was constantly interrupted by injury, cratered by interference by his agent-father and later threatened by repeated concussions. 

Lindros suffered three alone during the 1999-2000 season. The tip of the iceberg was his public criticism of the team’s handling of the final one – reportedly after which he played four more games – that kept him out of action from mid March through late May. Less than a week after the dirty laundry was aired, the move to strip was made in a very public depiction of the “C” being sewn onto the jersey of long-time defenseman Eric Desjardins prior to an ESPN national game broadcast.

Clarke, at it again, quoted in the linked UPI story: "We are trying to be the best team we can be for the playoffs. Desjardins is a leader and a top-quality person. He's having a Norris Trophy year. Everybody in our organization knows how good he is, how important he is to a team and what a good person he is. He has great hockey intelligence and instincts. He's very competitive." Lindros returned for the final two games of the Eastern Conference Finals against the New Jersey Devils, which the club lost despite holding a once iron-clad 3 games to 1 edge. He didn’t make it through Game 7 due to the (infamous) Scott Stevens hit in the first period. Stay tuned for Part 2.

The Flyers Anti-Hall-of-Fame

By Bob Herpen

Phanatic Hockey Editor

With the induction of Mark Recchi in January of 2024, the Philadelphia Flyers have honored 28 former players, broadcasters and team executives by induction into the franchise’s official honor roll.

A generous gap stretching back to the turn of the millennium dredges up few locks for future celebrations except for Simon Gagne and Claude Giroux, so there’s a wide berth for discussing who else may be worthy.

Who cares. 

What about the players who are just as famous, or infamous, for making a distinct lack of impression or the complete and utter wrong impression after arriving in Philadelphia? The ones for whom grit, toughness, glory and desire to play for the crest on the front and not the name on the back in orange and black were as difficult to locate as The Man in the High Castle? 

For all of us waiting 50 years or more for the next Stanley Cups, it’s way more engaging to consider the obscure, the ineffectual, the lethargic and the worthless. So here goes.

God Tier

Billy Tibbetts - The tops. The absolute all-time, all-timer. Acquired from the Pittsburgh Penguins on St. Patrick’s Day, 2002 for Kent Manderville and for reasons beyond all parsing by the Western Hemisphere’s greatest thinkers. 

Tibbetts arrived here with a rap sheet and a bad reputation, yet we have this classic quote from then-GM Bobby Clarke upon the news: "Billy Tibbetts is a very rugged, physical player. We think that he will play for us and not be an extra, like Kent Manderville was. It is an upgrade on the wings, and Tibbetts can play centre as well. If we run into injuries, he could move well up into the lineup." Before all that, Tibbetts had to take team-mandated anger management classes.

With the benefit of hindsight, many would say Clarke was cooked the second he forgot Claude Giroux’s name at the podium during the 2006 draft. But for those who were there, this is likely the dementia-triggering moment which signaled a long, slow slide.

Head coach Bill Barber managed to find a spot in the lineup nine times for Tibbetts, whose lone point came via a helper on a goal 6 days after the trade in a 4-4 road tie vs. the Pens in Pittsburgh.

A game in which Manderville, predictably, scored.

His final ledger: 9 games, one assist, 69 penalty minutes, thousands of itching heads and sudden-onset migraines both inside and outside Flyers Nation.

Courtesy of Pinterest

Since the early 1970s, the organization prided itself on finding tough guys between the lines who could fit *some* kind of mold demanded of them by a head coach, and the exploits of many who suited up could be described by opposing fans, players and staff as “criminal.” 

They went into the stands in Vancouver. And Toronto. Hell, the fans even took on their opponents once or twice. But this was the first time an actual criminal joined their ranks. 

More Clarkie: "The problems that he had was over 10 years ago, when he was a teenager. I think that everything's been fine since. It's not anything that we can do anything about, and he'll have to talk to the press about it."

The press, though, happened to be another adversary.

Following a 3-1 win over the Penguins in Philly on Apr. 6, as Tim Panaccio told me via email earlier in the week, Tibbetts said something vaguely threatening to the long-time beat, causing Panotch to pursue him, fully clothed, into the showers. It was none other than Rick Tocchet who pulled him away from a state of impending wretchedness.

Clarke called Panaccio the following day to apologize, and Tibbetts was waived shortly thereafter.

Tibbets somehow managed to dupe the New York Rangers front office into giving him one last shot, for 11 games the following season. Over the next 9 years, Tibbetts embarked on a global tour o’ the rinks, landing in such sexy locales as Hartford, Rockford, Boise, Las Vegas(!), Cape Cod, Switzerland and Finland.

He made the papers in July 2019, with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review citing a report from the Patriot-Ledger out of Quincy, Mass. as saying the 44-year-old allegedly harassed a South Shore police officer and another member of his family.

Nikolay Zherdev - From the ashes of Gagne being the “good soldier” and sacrificing himself to save the club salary cap space in a trade to Tampa Bay, Paul Holmgren took a dip into the shallow end of the free-agent pool and pulled up some lint that looked suspiciously like an NHL-level hockey player. 

Zherdev spent the previous season in Russia’s Continental Hockey League, but before that, slogged through 365 appearances over five seasons for Columbus and the New York Rangers. The native of Ukraine notched 23 goals and 58 points over a full 82-game slate for the Blueshirts in 2008-09, but as Hank Hill would say “that boy ain’t right.”

Worst of all, we just couldn’t get rid of him.

Courtesy of Flickr

Holmgren attempted to trade the unhappy winger for the balance of a month with (not surprisingly) zero success.

On Feb. 23, 2011, at the request of his agent Jay Grossman, Zherdev was waived with the intention of giving him an unconditional release from the club along with his $2 million salary. He then exited stage right, infamously, from the Skate Zone premises into a black Lincoln Town Car.

But like the cat who came back in that famous children’s rhyme, Zherdev wasn’t going away so easily. Never mind that nobody wanted him and exile to the American Hockey League wasn’t in the cards. He cleared waivers the next day in spite of interest from Atlanta and Nashville, according to the Inquirer. 

With no viable North American options, he eventually sat down with Holmgren and head coach Peter Laviolette for a heart-to-heart. Welcomed back to the team a whopping *three days later* he managed to pick up a goal and two assists in 9 appearances through the end of the regular season, but he sat more often than played. His final ledger: 16 goals, 22 points plus-5 in 56 appearances.

Somehow able to crack the lineup again due to injuries and ineffective play by more trusted sources – although we can forgive Laviolette here for being preoccupied with his goalie carousel – he added 1G & 2A over 8 playoff starts. In early August, Zherdev blew a kiss and said goodbye to North America for good, signing in Russia once more. 

Heroes get remembered, legends never die.

Almost Heaven

Petr Nedved - Believe it or not, Nedved’s Flyers connection can be traced back to the late 1980s, when Russ Farwell was GM for the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western Hockey League of Canadian juniors. Once hired as Clarke’s successor in Philly, as Jay Greenberg recounted in Full Spectrum, it was Farwell’s intention to select Nedved in the first round of the 1990 draft. Instead, despite a trade offer of Scott Mellanby and Terry Carkner to another former Flyer (Pat Quinn) who was Canucks GM, he was plucked by Vancouver at No. 2 with the Flyers picking Mike Ricci two spots later.

Flash forward to 2005, as the NHL began its slow rise from a year’s dormancy.

By now well travelled, Nedved lollgagged through 25 games as a free agent with Wayne Gretzky’s Phoenix Coyotes and Vegas Sideshow before a deal was struck in January to bring the 34-year-old closer to NYC-based model girlfriend Veronika Valekova that shipped Dennis Seidenberg west.

Where he dogged it some more, thanks in some part to an off-season separation with Valekova.

Nedved’s play was so uninspired that Clarke waived him and two others not worth mentioning in the wake of a landmark 9-1 loss in Buffalo on Oct. 17. The Czech winger, who rode shotgun with Pavel Bure and once scored a career-best 99 points with a high-powered Penguins club, wallowed with the Phantoms for 14 games before the Oilers gambled and hit on a second waiver claim just after the new year.

Another one of Clarke’s late-era missteps where he valued veteran help over prospect development.

Money Grabbers and Oxygen Thieves

Adam Oates - OK, so the RPI product centered Steve Yzerman, Brett Hull, Cam Neely and Peter Bondra. He racked up more than 1,000 assists and almost 1,400 points in a career that spanned three decades. 

Two days after Clarkie’s Tibbetts debacle, he liberated Oates from the fading Capitals for Maxime Ouellet and three draft picks, adding veteran depth and acumen in virtually all situations. After posting 11 points in the season’s final 14 games, he was as useless as any of his teammates as they turned in a mind-boggling 2-goal, 5-game, first-round loss to Ottawa. 

Bright side – he logged assists on both (by Ruslan Fedotenko and Dan McGillis for the record).

Dark side – the signing became a symbol for the deep abyss major-market teams faced in scooping up stars on the downside of their careers.

What did Oates do the following season? Made it all the way to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals with a veteran-laden Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. 

Greg Smyth - Supposed to solve the team’s defensive depth issue in the late 1980s, which on its bottom pairs were long on punching (Cochrane, Hospodar, Richter, Stanley) but short on defending, Smyth turned out to be the same old, same old. 

Once shaved his hair into a mohawk. 

The most memorable thing about Smyth’s one full year here is that he was an unwitting dupe in a prank crafted by then-captain Dave Poulin. As he has recounted on several programs, Poulin counseled the rookie Smyth that all he had to do when crossing the Walt Whitman Bridge, was to yell into the toll baskets that he was a member of the Flyers, and he’d be let through without any fuss.

You can figure out how that went over. 

Exchanged with the Nordiques in the 1988 offseason for 5 years of Terry Carkner. 

Correction: he also fought Oilers enforcer Kevin McClelland one dismal night in Edmonton and almost went over the top when McClelland zipped a water bottle in his general direction.

Half of R.J. Umberger - Blameless in his first tenure here as he was a salary-cap sacrifice after contributing 10 goals in 17 tilts during the club’s surprise run to the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals. 

But not in his second go-round, when the Flyers braintrust saw fit to ship Scott Hartnell straight up to Columbus in June 2014 for Umberger and sign him to a 3-year deal at $4.5M.

Hampered by an injury he intentionally kept secret during his first season back on Broad Street, in his second year he rode the pine about as often as Charlie Brown at lunch time. All told, 11 goals, 26 points over 106 games. It may be one of the more positive notes on Dave Hakstol’s ledger that he was willing to sit the former Ohio State winger.

Force Majeure (for players whose tenure was disrupted or interrupted by forces either within or beyond their control)

Normand Lacombe - Acquired from Edmonton in January of 1990 as one of Clarke’s  blockbusters that defined the club’s degeneration during the late stages of his first front-office tenure. Lacombe, by then a Cup winner with the Oilers, spent parts of two ill-fated seasons here whose integration as a regular was slowed by a rare malady called chronic exertional compartment syndrome. The condition caused tissue inflammation and shin splints after vigorous exercise and eventually required surgery. He was released just prior to the start of the 1991-92 campaign.

Wade Allison - That big, dumb and tall kid sure played some mean pinball. Except, he was supposed to be trained as a hockey player. Taken in the second round of the 2017 draft out of Western Michigan, a feeder school since Wade (son of Bobby Clarke) went there and former Flyers assistant coach Andy Murray was a long-time Broncos head coach. 

Allison was built, could skate and could put da puck in da net, tallying 45 goals in 4 collegiate campaigns. So the Flyers had him pegged as a third liner with top 6 potential and the “down low” guy on the power play.

Problem was, he played like an overeager teenager at times and just couldn’t stay healthy.

During a meaningless rookie game against the Rangers in 2021, Allison dropped the gloves to fight Matt Rempe and defend a teammate. During the same game, he went down in a heap during a collision in a rookie game vs. the Blueshirts, sustaining a high ankle sprain.

In January 2022, he came up limping during a game against Buffalo and was eventually diagnosed with a sprained medial collateral ligament. That November, Allison was felled by an oblique muscle strain and hip pointer.

An “unspecified injury” kept him out for three games in March 2023.

I’m not going to list them all. That’s what the internet is for, folks. Allison was placed on waivers at the outset of the 2023-24 season. He spent 46 games toiling once more for the Phantoms before a March deal shipped him to the Nashville Predators.

All told, the ginger who probably stole more souls than earned minutes of ice time logged 13 goals and 22 points in 75 games with the Orange and Black. He hasn’t seen NHL ice since, finishing the year with Milwaukee then signing with Barys Astana in the KHL last year.

Who Are You Again?

Jerome Mrazek - Nobody knows anything about him except he had a hippie-style beard, played guitar and spent a grand total of 6 minutes, 17 seconds in goal once during a blowout home win over the Blues in 1976.

Bo Berglund - A bit player for Quebec and Minnesota in the early 1980s, this Swede was a throw-in to complete a 4-player deal between the Flyers and North Stars two days after Thanksgiving 1985. Probably more famous for the guys Clarke gave up: Todd Bergen and Ed Hospodar.

Somehow made it through the Mike Keenan crucible seven times and managed two assists in one game vs. the Rangers. Played three more seasons in his home and native land. 

Steve Scheifele - A sixth-round selection out of Boston College in 1986, records indicate the DC-area native suited up just one time in the NHL, and it didn’t even count: the Flyers’ second and last exhibition against the Soviet Central Red Army in January of 1990, a 5-4 loss played at the Spectrum.

Marc D’Amour - The undrafted free agent netminder found his way to Pennsylvania in 1988, fresh off a Turner Cup title with Salt Lake CIty of the International Hockey League. Another one-and-done, he played 19:19 in the third period of a loss in Boston late in Paul Holmgren’s first season as bench boss. Shipped back to Hershey, D’Amour’s nickname lived on in a bar, called “Shakey’s” not far from Hersheypark Arena. 

The bar, beloved by players, coaches, team staff, fans, locals and puck bunnies alike, became “Overtimes” and is now the site of a US post office. 

Hal Gill - One of the archetypes for big, plodding defensemen which defined the Dead Puck Era, the hulking Providence College product was lassoed by Holmgren in the summer of 2013 for $700K.  As a spare part, he might have set records for most money earned per regular-season game: $116,666.66 for each of six times he was penned into a lineup. Gill didn’t even appear in a game until Laviolette was canned and replaced by Craig Berube, making his first start in a 1-0 win at New Jersey on Nov. 2. 

A string of 44 straight healthy scratches lasting from Christmas to Easter was rudely interrupted by two more starts in games 81 and 82, then one last appearance in a playoff loss to the Rangers closed the books.

Fixing Flyers power play requires organizational reset

 By Bob Herpen

Phanatic Hockey Editor

Sometime during the winter of 2015, between periods at the Wells Fargo Center, I hitched a ride on the press elevator from the press box down to the main concourse in search of sustenance more satisfying than popcorn, pretzels and candy. 

Standing at the back, ramrod straight, were Flyers defenseman Kimmo Timonen – then taking a season-long sabbatical because of a recurrence of blood clots – along with then-assistant coach Joe Mullen.

The subject, the stagnant power play which suffered from a lack of puck motion and shots on goal. The conversation, it went something like this:

Timonen (a defenseman who quarterbacked the power play during most of his seven-year Flyers tenure): “So what do you think the problem is?”

Mullen (a 500-goal scorer, multiple Stanley Cup winner and Hockey Hall of Fame member): “I really don’t (bleeping) know. All I tell them now is ‘You have to have the mindset of shooting the puck; there’s one less (bleeping guy) out there so you have the time and the room. Just shoot the (bleeping) puck.”

Keep in mind, this was during the long stretch of time when the first unit was led by captain and center Claude Giroux, an adequate shooter but pass first player. And the second unit was led by Jakub Voracek, the only other forward on the roster more “pass first” than the captain. 

The kicker is during that 2014-15 season, the first, only and last full season with Craig Berube as head coach, the Flyers posted an overall PP percentage of 23.4 (60 goals in 256 chances) according to Flyers History. That was the highest mark for any team since Paul Holmgren’s first as head coach clicked at 26.7% and the highest for any team in franchise history to date. 

Things steadily got worse with the gradual jettisoning of Wayne Simmonds, Giroux, Voracek and others culminating in the nightmare of the last three seasons. To recap: 15.56% (32nd), 12.2% (32nd) and 14.95% (30th). 

Is there hope on the horizon, as the meat grinder welcomes newly-minted assistant coach Jaroslav “Yogi” Svejkovsky as the head-victim-in-charge?

Finding and Keeping The Big Gun

To operate a successful power play, you’ve got to have a trigger man, one player on each rotation who can get open and fire away. Have the Flyers drafted and successfully developed a shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later-type-player who made an impact, well…ever? 

The short answer is: Nope.

Jeff Carter is the only one who comes to mind, but he was not strictly “developed” by the Flyers. Carter, an 11th overall pick in 2003, jumped straight from Sault Ste. Marie in juniors to the Phantoms in the spring of 2005, helping them win a Calder Cup. He won a spot on the big club the following September and after compiling 48 man-advantage goals in 468 regular-season games and 6 more in 47 playoff outings, you know how that story ended. 

As for the rest of the franchise snipers, those players who scored at least 37 in one season:

Rick MacLeish - acquired from Boston in 1971.

Reggie Leach - acquired from California in 1974.

Tim Kerr - undrafted free agent signed 1980.

Ilkka Sinisalo - undrafted free agent signed 1981.

John LeClair - acquired from Montreal in 1995.

For clarity’s sake: 

Rick Tocchet - drafted in 1983, was not originally envisioned as that type of player and didn’t score 40 until his 5th NHL season (45 in 1988-89).

Simon Gagne -  drafted in 1998, became that guy with Peter Forsberg and Briere acquisitions later in his career. Exactly half (37 of 74) of his franchise PPG total came from the 2005-07 and 2008-09 seasons.

James vanRiemsdyk - the infamous no. 2 overall in 2007. A victim of organizational ineptitude who was forcibly molded into a “power forward” type rather than a sniper despite playing for a UNH program which embraced skill, speed and scoring.

Scott Hartnell - acquired from Nashville in 2007. Aside from one glorious season in 2011-12 when 16 of his 37 tallies came with the man advantage, was not specifically brought here to be a gunner.

The whiffs:

James Neal - Perhaps the organizational change from Paul Holmgren to Ron Hextall as GM along with the club’s constant salary-cap conundra played a role. It is still hard to forgive the front office for missing this one. 

In the summer of 2014, Neal, who spent the prior 3-plus seasons with the Penguins, was on the market. He worked primarily with Evgeni Malkin on the second unit, totaling 38(!) of his 89 goals there on the advantage.

Cam Atkinson - Brought here with the potential to add some pop and motion to a stagnant power-play system after 21 PPG from 2016-19, Atkinson's tenure here was rudely interrupted by injury and three different head coaches. Only 4 of his 36 tallies over 143 games came while at least one man up.

The hopefuls:

Alex Bump - Fifth-rounder, Western Michigan, 2022. Here’s a kid who set the world on fire last year with 23 goals on 248 shots (four times notching double-digit SOGs with a high of 14 vs. Arizona State) across 42 games for the Broncos, winners of the NCHC playoff title and national champions. 

Courtesy of Western Michigan University

The 21-year-old roster hopeful won conference tourney MVP, earned first-team All America honors, faded out during the Broncs’ national championship run, recovered with 3 points in 2 regular-season appearances for the Phantoms then added 2 goals in 7 games during the playoffs on 18 SOG.

As long as Bump maintains a trajectory of consistence in his development with and without the puck in Allentown under the new Phantoms regime of head man John Snowden alongside assistants Terrance Wallin and Nick Schultz, I hate to say it, Bump “should be fine.”

But I’m still casting some serious side-eye until I see the plans come to fruition.

It was hardly surprising when I read Jackie Spiegel’s Inquirer column from May 1, which quoted Peter Principaled (and now “reassigned”) Phantoms head coach Ian Laperriere saying Jett Luchanko (13th overall, 2024, Guelph Storm), also primarily a puck mover who notched 9 assists in 16 games with the Phantoms at the end of this season, should be more selfish with the puck.

That statement alone should make long-time fans and those attuned to the organization with a critical eye tear their hair out. Why would the club want someone with an obvious desired and crucial skill set, which optimizes driving play, maintaining possession and dishing to the open man, to consider moving away from that skill set? 

Here’s how it’s supposed to go, best of all possible worlds, with linear development: 

Team sees prospect, drafts prospect. Waits an uncertain amount of years before prospect wants to turn pro, signs prospect to a deal and is either shuttled to the AHL or the NHL. If prospect goes to minors, he’s subject to the parent club’s development plan overseen by the AHL staff and is played accordingly until either his play, injury concerns or both warrant a look; if prospect has to be on NHL roster, he’s subject to the parent club’s development plan which involves more intensive and direct supervision. 

Even considering non-linear development that factors in health, utilization, unexpected upticks or downturns in performance or changes in coaching personnel and systems, what is supposed to come out on the other side is supposed to benefit the parent club in the long term. There is a lot of trust placed with an organization that a high-end prospect will be dealt with on the level. 

Problem is, up until this year’s draft, there was exactly one player drafted by either the Fletcher or Briere braintrust, who fits the mold of a puck-hungry winger with a knack for finding the open space and a shoot-first attitude: Alex Bump.

In need of more centers, Briere instead jumped the line in June and brought in both Porter Martone (No. 6, committed to Michigan State) and Shane Vansaghi (No. 48, also sporting Sparty next season). 

Martone appears to be a rush job, a one-and-done who might bypass the Lehigh Valley altogether, so the responsibility is likely on both Martone himself and the big club not to bollocks it up. Vansaghi is an unknown, so is Jack Murtagh (No. 40, committed to Boston University), less so is the 20-year-old Denver Barkey who blitzed through his last 2 years of juniors with 184 points, a pair of OHL titles and last year’s Memorial Cup. 

Has anybody heard anything from Noah Powell?

Nothing is Permanent but Change Is

Historically, it appears the Flyers follow three basic player archetypes for their power plays: 

• Defensemen who collect and move the puck at the point

• Distributors who either remain static in the circles as a principal point of puck motion, or are given license to take play to the opposition

• Bulky wingers positioned along the goal line for muscle and touch. 

It doesn’t matter whether it’s Joe Mullen, Rocky Thompson or Svejkovsky, there’s only so much a particular coaching philosophy or player positioning in the offensive zone can accomplish with these skill sets cast in concrete. Can coaching make it worse? Is the Pope a White Sox fan? Coaching isn’t all of it. The right guys need to be given the right chances to utilize their skills and then given the chance, to execute.

With fewer individual penalties or clear manpower disadvantages called over the last 10 years league-wide and therefore fewer power-play chances available per season, the heat is definitely on a guy whose most famous move was scoring 4 goals on the Buffalo Sabres as a rookie 28 years ago. There’s also a ton of pressure on the presumptive Phantoms hires to properly shepherd the next generation. 

Who on the current roster comes close to being a pure finisher? Most likely the Golden Child Matvei Michkov. Bump and Barkey are on deck but that does nothing to help the big club come October.

Courtesy of the Inquirer

According to Hockey Reference, no Flyers forward has finished with more than 10 power-play goals in an uninterrupted regular season since Wayne Simmonds notched 11 in 2017-18.

JVR notched 10 in the COVID-shortened 2021 sprint. The high water-mark over the last decade for power-play prowess was Brayden Schenn (17) and Simmonds (16) in 2016-17, the last time two players finished with more than 10. 

Likewise, no defenseman has ever logged double-digit PP scores in franchise history and while Gostisbehere was the last d-man to have as many as 8 PPG, that was 10 seasons ago. Even team and Hockey Hall of Famer Mark Howe never had more than 8 in one season as a Flyer. 

Another good question is how will Cam York and, eventually, Oliver Bonk be deployed?

The main question is not whether these prospect’s skill sets suggest a Johnny Vermont or Ghost Bear; it’s whether the organization’s vision for these players suits their skill set, or will they try to wedge them into a role for which they are ill-suited because the new PP strategy demands it?

There needs to be consistent, clear-cut communication between Snowden and Wallin, Tocchet and Svejkovsky, on up to Briere regarding what is expected from player and coach alike. Anything less would be a disservice to both the Flyers’ current roster as well as those in the pipeline.

Right now there are too many questions to sort out, only so many games and so many years before the next Phantoms and Flyers coaches are ushered out the door. Tocchet’s talking a good game but he’s the one who sets the rules and watches the kids play it. Maybe we should all just touch grass and lay in the sand until October.