Daily Faceoff Live: Will the Vancouver Canucks or Philadelphia Flyers make the playoffs first?

Frank Seravalli and Colby Cohen continued on with the This or That segment on Daily Faceoff Live, this time asking which of the two teams clearly needing a rebuild will eventually make the playoffs first, the Vancouver Canucks or the Philadelphia Flyers?

Colby Cohen: “This is a tough question, because these are two organizations with zero direction. You see a little bit of winning happening right now in Vancouver, the discomfort between management and the head coach in Vancouver has been widely tracked, but you could make the same case in Philadelphia. I know Chuck Fletcher brought in John Tortorella, but I think John Tortorella has put a lot of heat on Chuck Fletcher, put a lot of heat on Flyers’ executives, forced some direction coming from the executive team in Philadelphia.

I’m going to go ahead and say the Philadelphia Flyers, and it might be an unfair answer for me, but I’m just more familiar. I’ve watched the Philadelphia Flyers more, I’ve worked in that market, I’ve really enjoyed what John Tortorella has brought to that team. I don’t think Bruce Boudreau is long-term in Vancouver, I do think John Tortorella has a solid window in Philadelphia, so for that reason I’m going to pick the Philadelphia Flyers.”

Frank Seravalli: “I’m going to say Vancouver just because I think they have some better core pieces in Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson and Thatcher Demko, checking some positional boxes.

But, the Flyers don’t have a lot coming, which is the really tough part. You take a look at some rankings that TSN Top 50 that Craig Button put out this week, just highlighting some of the [young players], the Flyers didn’t have a single guy in the top 50. That makes it incredibly difficult to swallow what they’re going through at this exact moment in time, sort of in the NHL’s no-man’s land.”

You can watch the full episode here…