The Flyers began the season with a 4-5-1 record, which really wasn't that bad for a team that's trying to exit a 2 season long rebuild with no playoff appearances. However, for GM Whittaker, he felt this team was better than the record indicated. With that in mind he made an early season call up that is paying huge, immediate dividends. Enter Jan Sykora. The undrafted FA signing back in 2043 has come in and provided a steady presence between the pipes. Since losing his season debut, he has rattled off 10 consecutive victories while helping lead the Flyers to 2nd place in the Metro division at the ¼ mark of the season. “Without him, there's no telling where we would be sitting right now. I know it's a very small sample size, but the impact he has had is anything but small.” said the GM.

 

Around the same time, Erik Jacques (@PSHLMediaJackson's breakout candidate) was moved from a struggling 3rd line to a prime spot in the top 6 and found instant chemistry with X'Zavier Rivers and Miroslav Ligas. Since that move he has accounted for 10 goals, good for 2nd on the team, and improved his +/- to a healthy +13. “We know we have the players here to start breaking free from this rebuild, it just took a little time to find the right fits and for the line chemistry to develop, but we feel we are in a good place moving forward now” explained Whittaker. 

 

**Prospect spotlight**

 

Kyle Desmond - Kyle had his draft year cut short halfway through the campaign due to a severe concussion. Despite that the Flyers still felt strongly enough about him and his potential to make him the 12th overall pick of the 2044 draft. During training camp the following September he suffered a torn UCL which cost him the entire 44/45 season in Baie-Comeau. Now finally healthy he has exploded out of the gate and is validating the Flyers belief in him that he was worthy of the high draft slot. In only 19 games so far this season he has produced 18 goals and 47 points while centering one of the most explosive and dangerous lines in all of junior hockey. “We were well aware of the potential red flags with Kyle's injury history going into the draft, but we believed so highly in the talent he possesses that we decided it was well worth the risk. The post draft injury was a fluke thing that could have happened to anyone. There is still a lot of development ahead of him, but if he keeps up this production, his ascent to the pro ranks here in Philly looks like a matter of when, not if at this point.”

The Flyers got a big boost of confidence in the teams future this past week, as the team came away from the prospect tournament with a 4-1 record, outscoring opponents 23-9 over the 5 game stretch. Zakarie Janikic lead the way for the Flyers, and finished in a tie atop the tournament leaderboard with 9 points in the 5 games. The most encouraging part though was that the point production was dispersed throughout the lineup, with different guys stepping up each night with big performances. Cameron Sarault netted 2 goals in the first game, helping lead the team to victory over the Vipers. Game 2 it was Pier-Luc Cadieux recording a hat trick, Janikic collecting 3 points, and recent 2nd round pick Gino Bourdages recording the shutout in a 6-0 win over the Lagers. Game 3 was Jan Valenta and Jarrod Segstro each putting up 3 points, and recently acquired D man Ansu Eskelinen getting 2 assists, but couldn't find the back of the net despite firing 7 shots on target. Caleb Aguirre was the top dog in game 4, producing a hat trick, but it wouldn't have been possible without the work on linemate Sarault who assisted on all 3 goals, while adding 1 of his own. The only loss for the Flyers came in the final game, a close 5-4 defeat to the Islanders. Marcus Hassinen lead the way with 2 goals, while Valenta produced another 3 point game for himself. Despite not finding their name on the score sheet a lot, 3 defensemen did their job exceptionally well throughout the tournament, Silvio Huber, Valery Dakhin, & Eskelinen all had very good DGR in all the games and made life easier for Bourdages. Now it is on to preseason games where several of these players will have an opportunity to keep up the strong play and compete for a spot on the opening night roster.

In what surely has to be an all time low, there were merely two trades made on deadline day 2045. They were both significant deals though, and the common factor was the Flyers being at the center of both. Early in the day Kevin Pettersson was sent to the Islanders in a sign and trade for significant draft capital. The former 1st rounder was signed to a 6 year, 3.25 AAV deal before moving to New York. We had every intent to keep Kevin in Philly, but there was an impasse when it came to the number of years on the deal, with the team opting for a shorter term deal. When the Islanders came calling with a package of picks including a 1st, 2nd, & 3rd spread over the next two drafts, it was tough to move on from the player, but ultimately the right move to help accelerate the rebuild either by making these picks or moving them for other players.

As the deadline neared, the Flyers completed another intra-division trade. Sending another former 1st round pick and star d-man Austin Leveque to the Penguins. Leveque had agreed to a new deal with the Flyers in the off season, but given his age and the amount of young talented d-men in the system, he just did not fit within the rebuild timeline. The package of picks again included a 1st, 2nd, & 3rd over the next two drafts.

Making these two tough decisions to trade a couple of very good players and fan favorites was never easy, but the future of the Flyers will be brighter for it. In the next two draft classes the Flyers now own a collection of 18 picks in the top 3 rounds. These are all impact picks to have, and the scouting staff needs to be at there best to hit on as many players as possible in the coming seasons. The team will also be able to promote some top prospects from Lehigh down the stretch to get some games and experience, before hopefully leading the Phantoms on a long playoff run. 

As another season quickly fades away, with another trade deadline as sellers imminent, the Flyers are looking to the future and identifying who they believe will be the key core players to lead them out of the rebuild. Playing behind Anton Hansson & Aleksandr Shaulov, Lukas Machala is not yet a household name outside of Philadelphia, but the young D man has made a solid impression to begin his career. Since being acquired 3 seasons ago from the Leafs, he has been on a steady upward trajectory and the Flyers have rewarded him with a new long term contract. As soon as he arrived in Philadelphia he made it very clear he was grateful to the organization for saving him from the shit show that is the Toronto hockey market, going as far as saying that when he was drafted by the Leafs he lost his love for the game and considered retiring the next day. Now locked in on a 7 year deal with and AAV of $2.39 Million, Machala will be helping to anchor a talented blueline for seasons to come.

Former first round pick Denis Postnikov was the next player to get in on the action, locking into a new 3 year $1 mil AAV contract. Opting for the shorter bridge contract and betting on himself, may already be proving to be a shrewd decision for the young Russian. Since his call up he has played 18 games and is a +15, second only to Illya Ramashchanka's +19 but in 37 fewer games. Drafted to be a stay at home shut down defender, Postnikov is certainly settling right into that role. Machala and Postnikov join other young stars Pekka Olin, Petr Hubackova, X'Zavier Rivers & Collin Jaffray who have all signed long term deals in the past 8 months to stay with the Flyers.

Looking ahead to the trade deadline -

As previously mentioned the Flyers expect to be sellers at this years deadline. The team has fielded several calls so far, and hope to finalize some deals in the next 48 hours. The team is open for business and will listen to any calls regarding nearly any one on the active roster. But for the most part, you can expect the teams UFA's to be the ones involved in most of the conversations, unless a team hits us with a solid offer to move a player with more term on their contract. The Flyers have also made it known around the league that they have cap space that can be utilized, at a cost, like they did earlier in the season when Travis Sandrock was briefly a Flyer on paper before moving on to the Hurricanes.

The Flyers will get some reinforcements this week after dropping the first 3 games of the 44/45 season. Fresh off their strong performances in capturing gold for their native Finland, Kevin Petterson & Pekka Olin return to Philly hoping to help the team right the ship. The national team linemates will now team up with fellow Finn, Eerik Pohto, in what the team hopes will be a natural connection on the 2nd line. Winger Erik Jacques who was battling a minor injury from the preseason appears to be back to full health and will be a big piece of the puzzle moving forward. Late off-season FA signee Dalton Chucko has fit in nicely with his new linemates picking up 2 points over the first 3 games of the season. The biggest surprise coming out of pre-season games was the play of 2043 rookie first round pick d-man Brayden Ashton, who tallied 10 assists across 7 pre-season games, and kept the hot streak alive with 2 more assists in his first 3 games as a pro. Drafted out of the Jr. A OJHL as a high scoring d-man, Ashton was signed to get some pro experience in the AHL this season, but he made it impossible to not keep him around for a look in the PSHL at least to start the season. With the additions to the line up the Flyers expect to get back to the win column this week with games against Vegas, Florida and Ottawa. 

Season opening roster - 

Dalton Chucko - Petr Hubackova - Calum Abbott
Kevin Petterson - Eerik Pohto - Pekka Olin
Filip Levander - X'Zavier Rivers - Jiri Pojer
Erik Jacques - Bent Sorensen - Illya Ramashchanka

Anton Hansson - Lukas Machala
Aleksandr Shaulov - Austin Leveque
Brennan Leitch - Brayden Ashton

 

Collin Jaffray - Istvan Gulyas

Scratches* - Riley Cameron, Daniel Vinopal, Samuli Inkeroinen, Reid Witala

Entering the draft with a large collection of picks the Flyers had two clear objectives - draft some Center's to fill an organizational need, and from there simply draft the best players available when they stepped up to the podium. It was mission accomplished with the 7th overall pick when the team selected versatile forward Markus Hassinen, a projected centerman who can also play both wings. “Hassinen was one of the top projected centers in the draft, and we think him falling to us at pick 7 was a great start to the draft for us. The fact he is comfortable playing all three forward positions provides us and him many ways to get him into the lineup in the coming seasons.” Only a few picks later, the Flyers selected Center Kyle Desmond at #12. “Kyle had an injury shortened season this year, but we had been following his progress and really liked how he played before the injury. He projects as a big strong top 6 center in the future, and that's exactly the type of player we need in our system.” To finish the trio of 1st round picks the Flyers selected Swedish D man Jonathan Johansson. “Johansson is a little more raw, but he is a strong defensive d man, which again is a need in our system. We have several offensive minded d men, but they need that steady stay at home type to play with to allow them to thrive and that's what we have with this pick.” In the following rounds the BPA mentality was adopted and when the final pick of the draft was in the books the Flyers had selected a total of 7 Defensemen, and 6 Centers. 

 

Heading into free agency, the team kicked tires on some of the shiny, big ticket players available, but ultimately decided to do the smart thing and continue to build this team the right way, rather than adding those huge contract commitments to the roster. Instead they focused on trusting our internal players and our development system to fill the holes in the roster. Some of our young players will be given opportunities to earn bigger roles and prove that they are the future of this franchise. The team signed some long term, cost effective contracts with some of our most promising young players like goalie Collin Jaffray (8yrs - 1.5 Mil per year), center Petr Hubackova (7yrs - 2.95 Mil per year), Pekka Olin (7yrs - 2.75 Mil per year). The team did jump into FA to lock up one player, 22 yr old Center X'Zavier Rivers (6yrs - 3.5 Mil per year) to add to our young core and help solidify the center position for seasons to come. Add in the resigning of Austin Leveque (4yrs - 4.54 Mil per year) who is coming off a career year and just entering his prime, and the Flyers have the makings of what they hope can be a quick turnaround and get back to the post season after just a 1 year absence.

The Flyers got off to a slow start to the season, losing their first 5 contests. With new faces in the lineup it took some time juggling the lines to find what will work this season. Since then, they have played to a 4-1 record, to sit at 4-4-2 and get back into the mix in the Eastern Conference. But just when things started clicking, the team suffered a significant injury setback as promising rookie center Petr Hubackova sustained an achilles injury that will keep him out for most of, if not the entire season. Recently promoted to the top line, Hubackova had recorded 5 assists in 9 games this season. Let the line juggling begin again to try and keep the momentum rolling that we had found. The early season waiver pick up of Eerik Pohto could prove to be a much more smart and valuable choice than orignially thought, as he has come in and put up 5 points in his first 3 games, and will get the first chance to center the top line now. The hope is he can keep up his early hot streak and be the solution we are looking for to hold down the first line.

With the trading of Clayton Gustafson, the Flyers were in need of some new leadership. At the end of the day there was only one choice that made sense for the next chapter of the franchise. Welcome Anton Hansson as the new captain of the Philadelphia Flyers. Joining him in wearing the letters will be Dirk Fischer and Aleksandr Shaulov. This trio will be tasked with leading the new look team into the future and despite all the changes, the expectations are still for us to compete for a playoff spot. We are returning the same D core, and group of goalies. Up front the team will be relying on some new faces and some of the youth to step up and replace the goals and points that were traded away or not retained in free agency.

Meet the 2043/2044 Philadelphia Flyers -

Dirk Fischer - Jiri Pojer - Calum Abbott
Riley Cameron - Petr Hubackova - Kevin Petterson
Filip Levander - Bent Sorensen - Illya Ramashchanka
Jiri Mares - Lyric Wardeck - Daniel Vinopal
*Samuli Inkeroinen, Holger Neumann

Anton Hansson - Aleksandr Shaulov
Brennan Leitch - Austin Leveque
Ismo Runtti - Bo Eriksen
*Reid Witala

Collin Jaffray - Magnus Tikkala
*Istvan Gulyas

The Flyers are heading into a new season without some familiar names, after the decision was made to make significant changes to a roster that has had success, but has been unable to take care of business in the playoffs. It started with letting Jaxon Billard, Jason Walker, Rasmus Windahl all test the FA market and all ended up signing with other teams. This was done partially because of the need for turnover as well as being up against the cap for the upcoming season. 

Next came a flurry of trades which started with sending Clayton Gustafson to the great white north (Aka Edmonton). The Flyers received a solid haul for their captain - a 1st round pick, 3rd round pick, Jan Valenta (former 1st), Linus Palmer (former 2nd) & Daniel Vinopal who is a solid middle 6 winger just entering his prime. William Christensen (Portland), Igor Merkushev (Buffalo), Jesse Dolson (Boston), Matthew Cirella (Ottawa) were all traded within days as the roster purge was in full swing. The Flyers were able to stock the draft pick cupboard, receiving a 1st, two 2nd's, and a 3rd round pick along with prospects Vittorio Erni & Erik Jacques. Depth winger Holger Neumann was also added to the team. 

With the new found cap space the team took care of resigning our own RFA's, most notably Samuli Inkeroinen and Reid Witala. Bent Sorensen & Jiri Mares were late FA value signings to round out the forward roster. For the first time in a few seasons there are roster spots available to be earned in the preseason with a lot of promising young players looking to make the jump. Highly regarded prospects Pekka Olin, Petr Hubackova, Collin Jaffray, Lukas Machala, Dylan Brown, Erik Jacques will all look to showcase themselves and prove they deserve all the hype. With trade talks still on going into the preseason there could still be more changes to come for the Flyers before opening night arrives.

 

With training camp and pre season in the books, the Flyers made the final few tough decisions to get their roster down to the 24 player limit for opening night. Some exciting rookies made their cases for a roster spot, but ultimately being able to be assigned to the AHL without requiring waivers was the deciding factor for Aleksandr Shaulov, Kevin Pettersson & Yuri Mikhailov. Expect to see these players as the first call ups in the event of injuries this season. The Flyers also made the unusual move of carrying 3 goalies on the roster to begin the season. All 3 of our goalies impressed during the pre season, so we want to make sure we are keeping our options open and giving our team the best chance to win each night with who we put between the pipes.

Opening night roster -

Dirk Fischer (A) - Clayton Gustafson (A) - Calum Abbott
Nolan Bodie - Jaxon Billard - Matthew Cirella
Dmitry Tyulkin - Adam Nagelvoort - Nick Mainot
Aleksandr Kabanov - Aleksey Mavlevich - Igor Rozinov

Gary Fox (C) - Brennan Leitch
Anton Hansson - Peter Lindkvist
Joona Paavola - Chris Bridges

Ryan Petersen - Kirill Fomich

Scratches - Marc-Antoine Plante, Dustin Bradford, Andrey Pavlov, Vladimir Luchkin

Winning the Presidents trophy in the final week of the season wasn't enough to prevent a major roster overhaul this offseason. Despite the successful regular season, the Flyers again fell well short of there true goal, winning the Cup. Losing to their rival and eventual Cup champion didn't make things any better. So after the champions were crowned, the Flyers got to work to change over what was a good roster, but ultimately not good enough. Watching some really good players (Brant McCormick, Olle Vallin), including some home grown talent (Berkley Adams, Max Norris, Aleksey Lugobov) walk away in free agency was tough, but we believe we will be a better team for it this season. Luke McNamara was bought out as well to create some more cap room for the extensions of the teams young stars.
Nolan Bodie, via trade with Buffalo, adds a young top 6 forward to the group. Bodie has proven he can score 20+ goals in this league, and will slot in on the 2nd line with budding young stars Jaxon Billard & Matthew Cirella.
Joona Paavola, via trade with New Jersey, is a veteran defensive defenseman who will reunite with for Jersey teammate Chris Bridges and form what should be an excellent shutdown pair for us this season.
Dustin Bradford, via trade with Milwaukee, is a highly regarded do everything defenseman. He will help replace some of the offense from the blueline, and is also a very capable shut down player.
Peter Lindkvist, via trade with Prince George, is a unique player who can play defense & winger. His versatility is what attracted us to him. Expect to see him used in many different ways in our line up this season.
Kirill Fomich, via free agency, was signed to a 5 year deal to compete with last seasons break out goalie Ryan Petersen. As it was last season, the goalie who is on his game will get the starts, and we expect a healthy competition for playing time every night.
Aleksandr Shaulov, via draft 3rd overall, was the top D man in this years draft class. He has signed his entry level contract and will see some ice time in the preseason, but his likely path is to start in the AHL this year and build his game from there.
Dmitry Tyulkin & Yury Mikhailov, signed from the KHL, are two young Flyers draft picks who tore up the KHL last season. They will both have a strong chance to earn a spot on the Flyers opening night roster.
On the eve of the preseason the Flyers completed one more deal with the Devil(s), sending promising prospect Roman Honcharenko across the state line in exchange for a 1st round pick and prospect Samuli Inkeroinen. Inkeroinen projects to be a shutdown center with some offensive upside still possibly to be discovered. He is signed in the KHL for the next 2 seasons, where he will get lots of playing time against great competition, which should greatly help him develop.
The 38/39 season is nearly upon us, so only time will tell now if all this roster turnover can help the Flyers get over their playoff failures and complete the misson!