Photographer: Kate Frese
Four Flyers will be participating for Team Canada in the upcoming World Championships: Claude Giroux, Wayne Simmonds, Sean Couturier and Travis Konecny.
Jake Voracek put to words what seems to be logic at this point. Another year under the belts of rookies and young prospects can only help the Flyers get better. But if their current core doesn’t start to make something happen when it matters most, they won’t be the ones helping the Flyers return to contention.
After a rough sophomore season as the Philadelphia Flyers bench boss, some are clamoring for Dave Hakstol to be shown the door. Here’s why the Flyers will and should keep the head coach for a third season.
Following Sunday’s game, the Flyers were beginning an early offseason, having missed the playoffs for the third time in five seasons. In those five seasons there has been one constant: Claude Giroux has been the team’s captain. It looks like it’s time for that to change.
The Lehigh Valley Phantoms needed only one point to clinch their first playoff berth since 2009 on Wednesday night, but took two points in a 2-1 shootout win over the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.
The most important player to the Flyers future may actually be the longest-tenured Flyer, captain Claude Giroux. Giroux is facing some scrutiny, as pundits wonder if the Flyers need to move on from the current captain, who will enter his 10th season in 2017-18. It’s not the most absurd idea in the world.
The Philadelphia Flyers missed out on the playoffs by eight points this past season. However, if they won a few key games, they would have had gained the 10 points needed to clinch a postseason position.
For many of the Flyers junior prospects, the playoffs are either over or hanging by a thread. But for the two top minor leagues of hockey, the playoffs are just around the corner.
Positives and negatives are always a part of the game, but a season that ends like the Flyers did with the conclusion of the regular season on Sunday makes the negatives outweigh the positives. Here are six areas where the Flyers season went wrong.
The Flyers feverishly looked for the winning goal in the final minutes of regulation and overtime, but ultimately could not find it as they fell to the Carolina Hurricanes in the final game of the 2016-17 season, 4-3, in a shootout on Sunday night at Wells Fargo Center.
