At long last, we’ve heard from the Flyers General Manager Chuck Fletcher. With the NHL trade deadline quickly approaching on Friday and a slew of trades already taking place in the last week across the league, many Flyers fans are worried about potential returns.
Will Philly be able to shed some expiring contracts and unload some hefty contracts? The GM say he’s had discussions with other teams, but he’s fully open for business.
“Most of the calls I’ve had have been about players on expiring contracts,” Fletcher said to the media Tuesday. “In saying that, we’re willing to listen to just about anything if it makes sense.”
Among the top Flyer names rumored to be available are James Van Riemsdyk, Justin Braun, Nick Seeler, Kevin Hayes, and Ivan Provorov. Van Riemsdyk has been tied to the Minnesota Wild, with Jordan Greenway to be part of the potential return. Greenway, 25, is in the middle of a career-worst season with just two goals in 44 games played this season. Moreover, he’s signed for two more seasons after this one, with a modified no trade clause in the final year. The player alone shouldn’t be that enticing to the Flyers, but the potential draft pick compensation for taking him on should be provided the team can swing a trade.
Fletcher bluntly stated that the team was selling pieces off, but perhaps the most interesting soundbite during the presser—much to the chagrin of fans—was Fletcher’s reluctance to identify the club’s current predicament has a rebuild despite describing one when asked. The general manager even what as far to say the club was the “5th most improved” team from a season ago, as if that’s something worthy of a prize or acknowledgement. He emphasized “not taking shortcuts”, but stressed they wouldn’t strip the club down to its studs. As we understand it, the club’s focus remains on young players and adding the “high-end talent” Fletcher mentioned plainly in his interview.
Perhaps it isn’t so much about the language used that got people fired up (no pun intended), as much as it was about the fact that Chuck Fletcher still remains in charge after helping the team into another bottom 10 finish, the second in as many seasons for the Flyers and doing little in way of rectifying that. He’s squandered value draft capital in adding Tony DeAngelo over the summer and wouldn’t bite the bullet to add high-end talent in trade (Alex Debrincat) or free agency (Johnny Gaudreau). When it boils down to it, this past off-season didn’t look like a rebuild or well-thought-out plan was in place.
However, this presser is as much of an admission that the club is going to continue to rebuild as we’ll see from them. Whether this plan is destined to work or whether or not Fletcher is the right executive to execute it are fair questions to raise. Never have the Flyers ever been more disconnected from what the fanbase believes and at this point, it doesn’t appear that much of the comments made in this presser have those fans putting away their knives and pitchforks in preparation for storming the Wells Fargo Center. The club will never tank, at least not on purpose.
Fletcher plans to focus on the future and for the rest of us, we’ll focus more on what he does and less on what he says. He’s done little in carrying out moves that have helped push the club towards the goal of contention to this point. It’s hard to blame people for losing faith after what they’ve watched over the last decade.
