Last week the Flyers announced their “new era of orange” by … scoring their jersey release video with Jim Jackson goal calls from the 90s. As disingenuous as “new era” may be, I guess I can tip my cap to marketing. As long as this era doesn’t include Mambo No. 5 like that one did.
Really, my biggest issue with calling this a “new era” is a new era doesn’t start with new uniforms or changes in management. The next era of the Flyers will arrive when a couple of special players recapture the imagination of the city, and we’re still in the prologue as Danny Briere finds those guys.
A prologue to burnt orange probably isn’t selling many jerseys, though. Nevertheless, if you follow anyone from Elliotte Friedman to clickbait Twitter accounts, you’ve seen that Briere is active in trade talks in getting that those players to redefine the franchise.
This is best exemplified by Frank Seravalli’s trade board, which included six 2022-23 Flyers/former Flyers – Kevin Hayes, Travis Konecny, Scott Laughton, Tony DeAngelo, Carter Hart, and Travis Sanheim. Seravalli added the team’s only untouchable is last year’s first-round pick, Cutter Gauthier.
This comes with good reason. Just watch the jersey release video, which marketed the team’s new uniforms with Sanheim, Owen Tippett, Joel Farabee, and Nic Deslauriers. Two forwards who have not cracked 30 goals, a defenseman who’s coming off a nightmare season and had one foot in St. Louis just a few days ago, and the team’s enforcer.
It’s clear the new era is under construction. As evidenced by the Hayes deal, Briere is still in the demolition phase as he attempts to distance this team from its previous iteration. He hasn’t even laid the foundation.
Last week, Golden Knights owner Bill Foley appeared on 32 Thoughts and talked about what Vegas did after making its miracle run to the Cup in its inaugural season. He required an elite center, another top-end forward, and a No. 1 defenseman to truly solidify the Golden Knights as a contender. While hardly an exact science, this feels like a fair, bare-minimum checklist for any team that is questioning whether it can compete for a Cup.
In all likelihood, none of those guys have reached Philadelphia yet. Maybe Cam York develops into a top-end defenseman, but he never projected to be that level of player as a prospect, and while he has been promising, we haven’t seen enough at the NHL level to expect that kind of jump. Gauthier is still another year away. It would require fan fiction to expect a franchise-altering leap from any other young player in the Flyers’ system.
That brings us to tonight’s draft. The Flyers don’t just need depth. If we’re going to have the kind of nostalgia for this upcoming generation that the organization relied on with the Eric Lindros highlights, Briere needs to find the guy whose echo-y goal calls score the jersey rollout in 30 years. They need the star power that won’t get them roasted the next time they need to model new uniforms.
Briere said the team spoke to Matvei Michkov this week. If they think he’s going to be a star, and if some of the rumors are correct and it truly is an arms race with Washington to get high enough in the draft to ensure the ability to draft him, this team needs to do whatever it can to prevail, even if it costs them the 22nd pick. If not, Ryan Leonard or David Reinbacher or whoever the team chooses needs to become a cornerstone piece on a contending team. Anything less would be a disappointment. And while these may be unrealistic expectations for the seventh pick, rarely does a team have an opportunity to change its franchise starting from that draft slot the way it may be able to with Michkov.
Briere’s going to have time. He’s a first-year general manager with an ownership group that accepts the need for a rebuild. But accessibility to prospects with superstar upside is hardly a guarantee, even if he ever drafts first. Even if we’re waiting years for Michkov to come over, we did enter this rebuild with the understanding that this could be a painful process. This could be an emphatic first step in assembling the nucleus of a contender. Patience could result in actually reaching a new era of orange. And again, it better not include Mambo No. 5.
