I remember it like it was yesterday.
Sitting in the second to last row of the then Wachovia Center with my dad, just a month after my 11th birthday for game five of the 2010 Eastern Conference final against the Montreal Canadiens. The night Mike Richards slammed into Jaroslav Halak and cemented “The Shift” into Flyers lexicon forever, the game that sent the Flyers to the Stanley Cup final for the first time since the 1996-97 season.
I remember sitting in that crowd, that was almost so loud you couldn’t hear PA announcer Lou Nolan, and thinking about how fortunate I was to experience such an achievement. As the seconds ticked down, a very drunk (and kind) fan sitting in the row behind me tapped me on the shoulder, and very loudly told me three simple words:
“Remember this day!”
And I always have.
After that magical season ended, the degradation of the Flyers organization began. They’ve only won three playoff series in the 13 years since, and the fanbase that was so frenzied on that special night has been beaten down by bad management, bad coaching, and bad luck. The past decade has been one long exercise in how you can turn away a group of people who want nothing else than to just watch a team that has a plan and an identity.
The Flyers never truly embraced the reality of the modern NHL, but at the same time, they shed the “Broad Street Bullies” image too. Nobody was happy, and slowly fans decided to spend their time and money on the many other teams in the city that actually seemed to have a clue what they were doing.
So that’s why it’s understandable why fans are hesitant to let themselves be caught up in the hype of the latest new era of Flyers hockey. Lately, all their faith has been rewarded with nothing but Ilya Bryzgalov’s, Andrew MacDonald’s, and Nolan Patrick’s.
I regard myself as one of the more cynical fans, my favorite Flyers moments virtually all come from that 2010 run, and over the past few years I’ve watched as the team made moves that seemed targeted to annoy me in particular.
But I’m here today during the dog days of summer, as the dust of free agency starts to settle, to say that it is ok to let yourself have hope in this team again. Over the last five years in particular, there was an onus on trying to always compete, even with rosters that were obviously inferior to the actual contenders.
The Flyers haven’t had a real juggernaut of a roster in a very long time. Even in 2010, the team was essentially an 8th seed that fired its coach, got hot at the right time, and still were just a Brian Boucher shootout save away from missing the playoffs entirely. Claude Giroux’s breakout and heroic playoff performances from Michael Leighton, Danny Briere, and Mike Richards elevated the team beyond what many thought it could be. It was not a sustainable enterprise, it wasn’t built from the ground up to be competitive years into the future.
That is the difference now, for the first time in a long time, the Flyers are tearing it down to the studs, and acquiring a group of players that have the potential to be stars at the professional level. For a long time, the main gripe a lot of fans had with Flyers management was that they never seemed to be willing to take swings at truly elite talent. Whether it be through the draft, free agency, or the trade market, the Flyers would consistently fail to acquire real game breakers, and were constantly forced to elevate players beyond their skill level because of it.
Now, the Flyers have begun to stockpile a bevy of prospects and roster players who have Top-6 forward and Top-4 defense potential. The war chest isn’t full… yet, but there’s finally some young talent that fans can point at and envision playing major roles in the years to come. And the pipeline will only fill further.
Whether or not they reach their projected peaks, guys like Matvei Michkov, Cutter Gauthier, Cam York, Tyson Foerster, Samuel Ersson and Carson Bjarnason all have the potential to be very high level NHLers for a very long time. It’s improbable that they all will be high level NHLers, but you need tickets to play the prospect lottery. And while it may be hard to trust the Flyers to not mess it up (again), what else do you really have to lose?
Seriously, after what has happened over the last decade, I think it’s time to allow some hope back into our lives. Things are looking up for once, there is a tangible plan in place to try build a competent roster in a way that fits today’s NHL, and Danny Briere is going to try his best to provide more of those great memories that he so often brought as a player.
So let’s be excited, for once. And if you still want to be skeptical, I’d at least ask you to give the new regime a chance to make their mark before writing them off. Because this time feels different, and we might as well hope that it actually is.
