The Flyers Didn't Collapse. They Were Just Always Dog Shit From The Beginning
Icon Sportswire. Getty Images.The Eagles played for a Super Bowl the year before, were heavy favorites to win the NFC again this year, started the season 10-1 and then went on to lose 6 out of their final 7 games of the year with their season coming to an end against Tampa in the wild card round.
That's a collapse.
The Phillies played for a World Series the year before, had a 2-0 series lead against Arizona in the NLCS with 2 more games still left to play at Citizens Bank Park before they went on to lose 4 out of their last 5 games with soul crushing losses at home in games 6 and 7.
That's a collapse.
The Philadelphia Flyers were supposed to be dog shit from the very get go this season. This is a team whose biggest offseason moves were trading guys away and signing Marc Staal. Those are the moves of a team who should be battling for the 1st overall pick in the draft for a couple of seasons to come. But because of Torts, this team overachieved like a mother fucker pretty much all season. He's a coach who requires a tenacious and demanding brand of hockey out of his players. Where you treat all 82 games like it's playoff hockey. It worked great in the beginning, but now we're seeing the side effects of how unsustainable it is.
Bad team overachieves early, eventually runs out of gas down the stretch, it hits the older players like Couturier, Laughton and Atkinson particularly hard, and then all of the Flyers' issues are exacerbated by the fact that their goalie got arrested for being a piece of shit.
I'm not trying to be nice to the Flyers here, but that's not a collapse. That's just water finding its level.
This team didn't "quit" on John Tortorella down the stretch here. They are just a bad hockey team whose gas tank has been on empty the past month. There's a difference when an actual playoff caliber team ends up looking like a total disaster and burn out right before the playoffs. The Flyers were never meant to be in this position in the first place, have been put in a spot where they need to ride a rookie goalie as their #1 down the stretch, and went back to the exact team that everybody expected them to be before the season started.
Which is particularly frustrating because this team truly did have #1 overall draft pick potential before the season started. We were looking at a real chance of having a lineup of Matvei Michkov + Macklin Celebrini. But the team overachieved all season long to the point where now they're going to just miss the playoffs and end up drafting outside of the top 10. That's an organizational failure. That's management not being able to keep their eye on the true prize. I get that having playoff hockey back in Philadelphia would have done wonders for the team as far as getting a rabid fanbase back into the product. But my god, somebody needs to remove themselves from the emotional aspect of things and realize this team will never actually contend for a Stanley Cup unless you get those two key pieces through the draft. Crosby and Malkin. Kane and Toews. Stamkos and Hedman. MacKinnon and Landeskog. The blue print to winning a Cup is to get two guys like that over the course of 3 drafts. The Flyers just wasted this upcoming one, and you know they're going to try to make a push for the playoffs again next year. Don't say I didn't try to warn you all.