The Flyers keep telling you they are rebuilding. Their latest trade is another sign to believe them.
The Flyers' most recent move isn't meant as a quick fix but centers around removing pieces that didn't fit, freeing up cap space, and taking the long-term approach. It's going to be a long slog.
So the Flyers made a trade late Thursday night with the Calgary Flames, a significant trade, and there was a time in their history when such a development would have meant that they were going big, being bold, maybe a little reckless, maybe a lot reckless, all in the name of securing a playoff berth or pursuing a Stanley Cup that season.
This move was not that.
Gone are Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost, two former first-round picks who were once hoped to be franchise mainstays, who weren’t consistent enough in their performance to pass the exacting tests that John Tortorella administers to his players.
On their way here are Andrei Kuzmenko, an unrestricted free agent who has four goals in 37 games this season; Jakob Pelletier, a restricted free agent who has eight goals in 61 career NHL games; a second-round pick; and a future seventh-round pick.
» READ MORE: Flyers trade Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee to Flames for a package that includes Andrei Kuzmenko and picks
Are Kuzmenko and Pelletier good dudes? Will they blend into the team’s locker-room culture? Those questions probably won’t matter much, because Kuzmenko and Pelletier — unless one or both of them suddenly transform into players they haven’t been lately — probably won’t be around long enough for anyone to find out.
Still, the implications of the trade — what it says about the Flyers now and into the future, what has changed about them and what hasn’t — are interesting. A few factors worth noting …
Here comes Judge Torts
The Flyers’ leadership core of Dan Hilferty, Danny Brière, and Keith Jones continues to put a high value on Tortorella’s input and opinion about whether a player should be part of the team’s long-term plans. Last month, for example, Tortorella made Farabee a healthy scratch for a game against the Anaheim Ducks, telling reporters that Farabee’s game had “gotten stale” over the previous two weeks. “So, he’ll sit out,” Tortorella said. “I’m not sure what happens after this.” And Frost’s standing in the lineup was a constant source of uncertainty and speculation.
There is some risk, though, in relying on Tortorella to be an arbiter, in some cases perhaps the most powerful arbiter, over who stays and who goes. He is and has been a very good coach. But he is not infallible, and he has some particular notions about how players should play and carry themselves. He is old school even for an old-school sport, and just because a guy can’t play for John Tortorella doesn’t mean a guy can’t play.
Same ol’, same ol’ between the pipes
Any trade or signing or any other change to the Flyers roster will matter only so much until they get their goaltending sorted out. They still rank dead last in the league in save percentage (.882), and none of the three goalies they’ve used this season — Sam Ersson, Ivan Fedotov, Aleksei Kolosov — has provided much indication, if any, that he’s the long-term answer at hockey’s most important position.
A goaltending problem for the Flyers … hard to believe, I know. But it is a problem, a major one, and there’s no sign yet that they have solved it.
Remember what the realistic expectations were
As of Friday, the Flyers had lost four of their previous five games, had been outscored, 8-0, over their last two, and were tied for the fourth-worst regulation points percentage in the league. The notion that they might scrap and claw and crawl their way into the postseason was always misguided, and they are revealing just how far they are from competing for a Stanley Cup or anything close to it.
It’s understandable that the franchise’s fans are desperate to experience playoff hockey again, but through their actions, the Flyers keep telling everyone the same thing: This rebuild is going to take a while.