By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 
As the offseason progressed, one big question surrounding the Flyers was captain Claude Giroux career and a concerning sign that his career path was regressing.
Giroux completed the 2016-17 season with just 14 goals and 58 points, both being the lowest totals in his career in an 82-game season since his first full season in 2009-10. In 49 games this season, Giroux has matched the 14 goals and is already one assist shy of last season’s total. The 57 points in 49 games has been more than enough to bring him back to the top of the NHL points list this season and earned him an All-Star Game appearance.
But Giroux’s resurgence this season not only has him back to his All-Star status among the elite players in the NHL, it has him in position to cement his place among the Flyers all-time greats.
Giroux entered the season with 180 goals and 395 assists in his nine-year career. That was good for 10th on the Flyers all-time points list, including 16th in goals and tied for fourth in assists. Giroux’s tenure as a Flyer for nearly a decade and his long-running stint as captain, now the fourth player to be captain for a six-year stretch, were already making him an identifiable Flyer and his climb up the ranking had been steady until last season.
But the numbers from last season didn’t lie. Neither did the overall performance. Giroux’s numbers were down. His performance wasn’t that of an elite player. And as he neared his 30th birthday, it appeared Giroux was already starting to turn the corner and be in decline.
It was a daunting thought. Giroux was a clear part of the Flyers leadership core. He was a veteran that was expected to be a guiding figure in the transition to the NHL for a wave of prospects set to make the jump. But Giroux was also supposed to be the captain of that team as well and remain a driving force in the success of the Flyers moving forward. As the team improved right in the middle of Giroux’s prime years, the captain was expected to keep his usual pace and allow the rest of the team and a host of new players to contribute to their return to the playoffs and their transformation back into a contender.
So one of the big questions this season was how the Flyers would increase production, assuming Giroux had another season similar to his previous campaign. The answer turned out to be Giroux himself with the help of a position change.
Giroux moved to the wing and started playing alongside Sean Couturier. He has played with Jake Voracek, Wayne Simmonds and Travis Konecny on the top line during the season and the top power play unit has piled up the points with the strong seasons from Voracek, Couturier and Shayne Gostisbehere. All three could have easily been joining Giroux in Tampa for All-Star weekend.
With his 57 points, Giroux has climbed into eighth all-time in Flyers history. He is just 11 points behind John LeClair for seventh, 18 points behind Tim Kerr for sixth and 27 points behind Eric Lindros for fifth. With 33 games remaining on the season, surpassing Lindros’ point total isn’t out of the question.
Giroux is six goals shy of 200 for his career and while he still has a ways to go to reach the Top 10 — Rod Brind’Amour is 10th with 235 goals.
Giroux easily moved into fourth on the Flyers assist list and now sets his sights on the top three. Bill Barber sits 26 assists ahead in third place and Brian Propp sits 52 assists ahead. And while reaching second place behind Bobby Clarke may be a nearly impossible task this season, Giroux should easily reach second on the Flyers all-time assist list next season.
After all, to be near the top of any of these lists, you have to have longevity. Giroux is up to 705 NHL games, all with the Flyers. By the end of the 2017-18 season, Giroux will be tied for eighth with Eric Desjardins on the Flyers list with 738 games played. By the end of next season, Giroux would likely be third on the Flyers all-time games played list, behind only Clarke and Barber.
But leading into this season, it was difficult to look at Giroux’s career and see a player who stood out among the legends. Clarke and Barber are lifetime Flyers and Hall-of-Famers. Lindros has received the accolades in recent years, entering the Flyers Hall of Fame, the Hockey Hall of Fame and seeing his No. 88 join the rest of the Hall of Famers in the rafters. Even if Giroux is the most recognizable Flyer of the last 10 years, he didn’t feel like a fit in the category.
By playoff success, Giroux likely still doesn’t fall into it either. His best years, and some of his worst as well, have gone by the wayside with early offseasons. But Giroux’s numbers with a single franchise don’t lie either. He’s been among the team’s best players in the franchise’s history.
Now that he has experienced a resurgence and resurrected his career, it’s becoming easier to see how Giroux is cementing his place in Flyers history.
