by Bob Herpen Phanatic Hockey Editor
At this weekend’s NHL Entry Draft in Buffalo, Philadelphia Flyers GM Danny Briere and assistant GM Brent Flahr identified needs and selected players which best fit their profile and ready-made template across six picks through seven rounds.
Among the haul were multiple defensemen and a pair of goaltenders. Only one of the bunch were under 6 feet tall and just three picks were under 200 pounds – even as teenagers. No wingers, no centers, no scoring. No chances. No risks. Just purchasing in bulk.
When asked on Friday night why they passed on a puck mover with the first-round slot, Briere had this strange, cryptic response: “I think it’s knowing the board and there’s more out there, too. It doesn’t mean that we’re done, that we’re not gonna draft a puck moving defenseman.”
Even stranger, he cracked a crooked smile and forced a laugh at the reporter who asked the question, then added, “We’d like to have that as well. Let’s see what tomorrow brings, hopefully we can bring you a smaller puck defenseman after losing Emil (Andrae) obviously. At the moment, we felt the value was more on that side.”
Spoiler alert: they did not.
Even if head coach Rick Tocchet continues to pine for bigger, tougher bodies – which is a bit of an oxymoron since he’s publicly come out *against* scrums and other after-the-whistle nonsense but actually makes sense if you want to play a bunch of dudes who can pound the opposition – their choices are as specific as they are bizarre.
Maksim Sokolovskii from the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League was taken as the No. 27 pick after Briere chose to punt on the verge of making the 21st overall selection. Built like an AT-AT at only 17 years old. 6-foot-7, 240 pounds.
Even the pair of goalies had significant bulk behind them as teenagers: Martin Psohlavec from Czechia clocks in at 6-foot-5 despite his 185-pound frame, while fellow netminder hopeful Marek Sklenicka from Seattle of the Western Hockey League stands 6-foot-3 on a wiry 175-pound body.
It’s like Briere and Flahr wanted less to conduct a draft and instead opted to spend some quality time together gossiping and browsing in the supermarket and it just took some time to come upon the right aisle. Over 6-foot? Check. Over 200 pounds? Check. Another NHL-ready body in the mid-range of the first round? Check. Just like Porter Martone, Jack Nesbitt, Oliver Bonk, Carson Bjarnasson.
Grab your coupons, ladies. Head to checkout.
For the first time in the 4-year Briere regime, no players were selected who are either currently on D1 college rosters or would head there in the fall. It was also the first time since 2008 (under Paul Holmgren) there were no wingers selected – that year it was 2 defensemen, 2 goalies and 1 center with just 5 picks.
It may be the first time EVER not a single offensive player was chosen in the 60-year history of the franchise – if you believe one prospect site, Kent Sauer is a center and another says he’s a d-man.
Humangous Beeg
How ridiculous was the scope of the Sokolovskii pick? BoopStats himself, Bob Vetrone, Jr. tweeted that, for just the 6th time since 1967 and first since 2003, the Flyers’ first pick of the draft was actually taller than the Sixers’ first selection.
With the draft complete, here’s a brief rundown at a majority of the club’s rostered and prospective defensemen and their respective dimensions:
Rasmus Ristolainen: 6-foot-4, 208 pounds
Travis Sanheim: 6-foot-4, 222 pounds
Simon Benoit: 6-foot-4, 210 pounds
Nick Seeler: 6-foot-3, 200 pounds
David Jiricek: 6-foot-4, 205 pounds
Helge Grans: 6-foot-4, 205 pounds
Adam Ginning: 6-foot-3, 200 pounds
Oliver Bonk: 6-foot-2, 185 pounds
Maksim Sokolovskii: 6-foot-7, 240 pounds
Carter Amico: 6-foot-5, 225 pounds
Spencer Gill: 6-foot-4, 213 pounds
Kent Sauer, 6-foot-3, 200 pounds
The only outliers in the bunch are:
Cam York: 5-foot-11, 195 pounds
Jamie Drysdale: 5-foot-11, 185 pounds
Brek Liske: 6-foot-4, 190 pounds
Max Laaitikainen: 5-foot-11, 173 pounds
Paradoxically, when asked on Saturday about the continued size differential on the back end, Flahr said, “I don’t think it’s as much of a focus any more. I think we’re a smaller team and I think we addressed that last year and some of that was just circumstance.”
I’m unsure what part of the Flyers’ journey this past season made it a priority in either Tocchet or Briere’s eyes to go this big and this brawny on the blue line. It’s all too reminiscent of the darkest period in modern NHL history, known as the Dead Puck Era.
Or as Tocchet might say, the “Low-Event Period.”
There are many threads which led to the tanking goal totals league wide between 1995 and 2004, but for our purposes the principal reason was the size, strength and skill of the Legion of Doom. Eric Lindros, John LeClair and Mikael Renberg were such a menace for a 3-year period that it gave birth to the neutral zone trap but also gave rise to NHL GMs scrambling to draft the biggest, heaviest defenders who could simply impede progress.
First on the slab was Hal Gill. Selected in 1993 out of Providence College, Gill entered the league in 1997 for the Boston Bruins at 6-foot-7 and more than 240 pounds. At the time, then-coach Pat Burns instituted a strict defensive mindset that shrunk the B’s goals-against by 106 goals in one season, thanks in large part to Gill’s ability to get in the way. Then, Zdeno Chara. A true freak of nature at 6-foot-9, 250 pounds, he was taken by the Islanders in the 3rd round back in ‘96 and loosed on the world.
That, in turn, bred the likes of power forwards such as Todd Bertuzzi and Jarome Iginla, while forcing established stars like Keith Tkachuk, Brendan Shanahan and Jeremy Roenick to increase their mass in offseason training.
It was an arms (and hips and legs) race which eventually exploded in the mid 2000s when the league obliterated its 2004-05 season and returned by embracing more opportunistic offense. It took another half decade before touts, scouts and team braintrusts switched to focusing on prospects under 6 foot and under 200 pounds, however.
When assessing this organizational mindset, I couldn’t help but think back to the summer of 2005. Then-GM Bob Clarke took two steps back after the leap forward in bringing 1991 draftee Peter Forsberg home by heralding two major free-agent defensive signings: Derian Hatcher and Mike Rathje – both straight out of the caveman era. Neither player lasted more than 3 years here due to aggressive wear and tear.
It was the signal, before forgetting Claude Giroux’s name at the podium during the next summer’s draft, that Clarke was resistant to change and checked out.
Briere and Flahr look similarly out of step with a league that has done so much to highlight skilled players, embrace more goals, better and more frequent scoring chances alongside increased offense (expansion aside) over the last 10 years.
Yes, the need for defensemen and goaltending was obvious, but what does he and the rest of the Flyers hockey ops expect – that the current bumper crop of winger/centers is going to last forever without injuries or trades?
Or that the guys good enough to advance will either hook on or fade out?
Let’s not forget, it’s a game of Russian roulette to guess which of these prospects, if any, would be ready to be impactful in 3-to-4 years – which is about the typical time Tocchet would wear out his welcome if he’s allowed to stay close to the terminus of his 5-year deal. Then, the next regime is saddled with the previous coach’s wet dreams.
When pressed on the perceived “wide variance” of development projections for his defensive and goaltending picks, Flahr punted on an explanation, instead mumbling nonsense about a clean draft board, the rationale for trading down in the first round and Briere’s desire to keep feeding the pipeline with goalies.
If the strategery works, I’m afraid the Flyers front office may have accidentally kicked off a disturbing league-wide trend. If it fails, well, the worst is that we’ll suffer through some more traffic cones like Randy Jones.
