Offseason Review: Pressure Mounts For Flyers As Confidence In Goalies Wanes
At the end of the Philadelphia Flyers’ mediocre 2020-21 season, general manager Chuck Fletcher lamented the team’s performance and promised changes. He came through.
The Flyers had arguably the most eventful offseason of any team in the NHL, moving on from a handful of familiar veterans in order to bring new blood to the team.
Gone are Jakub Voracek, Shayne Gostisbehere and Brian Elliott; in are Ryan Ellis, Cam Atkinson, Rasmus Ristolainen, and Martin Jones. This is going to be a very different Flyers team from previous years and the hope is that the team can rebound after a miserable season and return to the playoffs.
What happened in 2021?
As per tradition, the Flyers followed up a very good season by missing the playoffs, which has been their pattern for nearly a decade. Make it, miss it, make it, miss it, like clockwork.
They were the league’s hottest team when the 2019-20 season got nuked due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the hope was they could carry that momentum through and be good again in 2021. Early on, it looked like that was going to be the case.
Things started off quite well for the Flyers, as they boasted a 7-2-1 record after their first 10 games of play. But everything went south when March rolled around. The Flyers had a tough schedule in March, playing 17 games over the course of the month and they clearly couldn’t handle the challenge.
They rolled into March with an 11-4-3 record, went 6-10-2 over the month and entered April with a 17-14-5 record. Their nightmare month was highlighted by a pair of spankings at the hands of the New York Rangers, one of which was an embarrassing 9-0 loss on national television.
Given how deep the East Division was, the Flyers weren’t able to rebound and finished well outside of the playoffs with a 25-23-6 record.
What did they do in the offseason?
Notable Additions: Cam Atkinson, Ryan Ellis, Rasmus Ristolainen, Keith Yandle, Martin Jones.
Notable Subtractions: Jakub Voracek, Nolan Patrick, Shayne Gositisbehere, Philippe Myers, Robert Hagg, Brian Elliott.
A lot happened over the offseason.
Fletcher said he wasn’t happy with the team’s performance and he certainly went and did something about it.
There were sweeping changes to the team’s blue line, as the Flyers paid a second-round pick to dump the contract of Shayne Gostisbehere on the Arizona Coyotes. They also ponied up three young players (Nolan Patrick, Philippe Myers, and Robert Hagg), along with a first- and second-round pick, in order to add Ryan Ellis and Rasmus Ristolainen.
Ellis is a legit top-pairing defender and is a huge add to Philly’s blue line. Ristolianen is a bit more of a controversial addition due to his horrendous underlying numbers. But the hope is that he’ll do better playing for a team that isn’t the absolute mess known as the Buffalo Sabres.
The biggest shock of the off-season came when the Flyers moved Jakub Voracek to Columbus, the team that drafted him, for Cam Atkinson. Given his big cap hit, moving Voracek wasn’t the surprise, it was the return that came out of left field.
Many expected Philly to possibly pony up a pick to get the Seattle Kraken to take Voracek in the Expansion Draft. Instead, they sent him to the Blue Jackets in exchange for Atkinson, a small-but-tenacious forward who can score goals and bring energy to the team.
The Flyers also made changes to their goaltending, which makes sense given nobody in the league allowed more goals than they did in 2021.
The team let Brian Elliott, who posted an .889 save percentage in 30 games, walk and replaced him with Martin Jones, who *checks notes* posted an .896 save percentage in 34 games and was bought out by the Sharks. Carter Hart was also handed a new three-year deal after putting up an .877 save percentage.
What to expect in 2021-22?
There’s a lot to like about Philly’s new look. Ellis is a great player, Atkinson gives them more energy up front and even Ristolainen is an interesting project playing on a new team. But, despite all of those changes, the Flyers’ rebound is going to come down to goaltending.
Their underlying numbers suggest they were a pretty solid team last season, ranking 10th in the league in shot attempt differential at even strength and in the middle of the pack in terms of expected goals for percentage, but an inability to stop pucks ultimately killed them.
Hart, Elliott and Alex Lyon combined to post a putrid .880 save percentage, the worst in the league by a wide margin. The Flyers need Hart to rebound to where he was in his rookie and sophomore seasons, because banking on Jones, who, again, was bought out by the Sharks because he couldn’t stop a beach ball, isn’t ideal.
One bold prediction…
The Flyers continue their pattern and make the playoffs, but it comes at the cost of head coach Alain Vigneault, who gets fired after a slow start.
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