Phanatic Hockey Editor
The serious question about identity with the Philadelphia Flyers after 5 weeks of the season, one in which they carry the albatross of a 4-8-4 record, is not an easy one with an easy answer.
It definitely reaches deeper than simply the crust of how the team plays each night, down to the mantle of how to proceed with a season that’s rapidly approaching a cliff and steep abyss. It’s a plan that requires some thought and understanding of how the route between Philadelphia and Allentown works.
With the blessing of upper management and as best as I can figure, there are three paths the rest of the year can take. A lot is riding on the upcoming 5-game, cross-country road trip whose results might dictate which path is the most viable.
Option One: Keep all the Phantoms who are apparently outperforming their veteran counterparts at present and let the chips fall where they may.
Option Two: Keep replacing the call-ups with their veteran counterparts and let the chips fall, chalking this up to a lost season (beyond Danny Briere’s imagined “step back”) if performance never recovers.
Option Three: Keep the kids up and write the whole thing off, admitting that the current rebuild strategy is a failure and start over again.
Just a reminder: human logic and hockey logic don’t often intersect. It won’t here.
The role of the Phantoms, or any American Hockey League club for that matter, is simply not to be a conveyor belt to serve the Flyers. There’s a system at work which dictates who gets the call first, and it varies year to year based on need. They need to try and win, too, a task made exponentially more difficult in light of the early-season mess of the NHL club’s injuries and horrendous play.
As far as the crop of longer-term call-ups (Alex Bump, Oliver Bonk, Denver Barkey, Cole Knuble and Hunter McDonald) are concerned, the longer they remain, the faster the sands slip through the hourglass. That means, the clock is ticking until there’s a “book” on each player from which opponents game plan. It also means the supposed linear timeline on their individual development, will likely be interrupted and possibly corrupted, if not handled properly.
By my estimation, the grace period in the NHL is roughly 10-to-15 games. Bump and Barkey are already on the other side of the equation, having had their baptisms last year. Bonk is rapidly approaching the limit, while Knuble and McDonald have some time and freedom remaining. Once that limit is breached, it becomes more difficult for their raw talent and enthusiasm to be impactful.
You can argue the finer points of each shift alongside any intangibles, but here’s the reality:
Bump – 8 games, zero points.
Barkey – 13 games, 5 assists.
Bonk – 5 assists and a minus-6 heading into play on Sunday.
Knuble scored 2x in his debut, and was silent until Sunday’s empty netter.
McDonald fought a couple times and drew power plays(?).
Hunter Mac was rightfully returned to the Phantoms on Saturday, the latter to the bizarre objection of a small cadre of vocal fans and at least two beat writers. Bump followed on Monday.
With an extended call up, it’s about nothing more than tangible results – moreso on players trying to crack a losing lineup to prove their worth than a winning one.
And if you don’t believe in Rick Tocchet’s system or the staff’s coaching, what makes you think *these* players are going to improve the situation beyond a short-term shock? After all, the clock is also ticking on the time it takes to shove the square peg of that raw talent into the round hole of “low-event hockey.”
As for Barkey, Bonk and Knuble – you want to give them all a permanent chance to do better than the veterans who were absent? You want MacD, Gaucher or any other Phantom called up and to stay and replace a lifeless veteran if they contribute? Congratulations! You’re admitting that you want the rebuild to begin again from point zero, trash the remainder of this season and wait an indeterminate amount of time for things to work out.
The Phantoms just endured a lost weekend, losing twice by a combined 14-3 clip. Even though head coach John Snowden publicly stated last week his job is developing the players under his watch and he doesn’t care if these guys come back, there’s zero doubt that the AHL club is in dire need.
Want to keep all these players up because they are helping the Flyers NOW? Congratulations! You’re no better at assessment than the Clarke-Snider-Holmgren regime, which chronically resorted to immediate and short-term positive gains as a means to permanently promote.
Tocchet on Monday admitted that the NHL develops prospects “to a point.” Which probably means, whichever prospect’s on the roster better have a better developed skill and mindset coming in, because further development is a sharp learning curve of right or wrong with every shift. The foundation has to be laid with some lengthy, uninterrupted time in the minors. That goes for whomever is deemed call-up worthy.
“You can’t make mistakes after mistakes and say ‘Let ‘em play out of it,’” he added, though unclear on whether he was talking about the new additions or the prospects. “When is that? You want to play through mistakes but you can’t play through mistakes when the mistakes are always egregious. You’re trying to find some (semblance) of guys that can hold the fort together.”
I realize this column arrives less than 48 hours after the Flyers put together their best game of the season, beating Utah, 6-3, with the return of Travis Konecny, Bonk’s first goal of the season and Knuble’s return to the scoresheet.
But when Tocchet is asked what’s going to happen with the call ups and admits he doesn’t have a full grip on the decision making or procedures, how does anyone else outside the bubble know what the next move should be?
“We just got a lot of young guys. He could get called up very soon,” Tocchet said of Bump’s status on Monday. “So we’re just trying to get whether it’s a rotation and we’ll go from there.”
Whatever. Briere, Tocchet and Snowden better have it figured out in short order and stick to a plan no matter what the wins and losses look like at least through the hypothetical measuring-stick points of post-road trip and Thanksgiving weekend. These decisions are likely to make or break the rest of the season.
