By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 
In any season where playoff hopes vanish rather quickly, attention almost instantly turns to the offseason.
In the 2006-07 season, the Flyers were in rare territory, flirting with the worst record in the NHL. When the Flyers did finish with the worst record, the thought of having the first overall pick and landed a bonafide superstar left Flyers fans drooling.
In Part 2 of this series looking back at the 2006-07 season, we look at the draft held that offseason and what might have been.
First off, with the Flyers having the highest odds to claim the first overall pick, the thoughts of landing a top prospect were evident. But there was one who stood out among the rest.
That surefire, "can’t miss" prospect was none other than Patrick Kane, a forward for the London Knights who posted 145 points and scored 62 goals in his rookie season in the OHL.
Shockingly, the Chicago Blackhawks, who had the fifth-highest odds of winning the lottery, claimed the first overall pick, leaving the Flyers to pick second overall. Naturally, Chicago took Kane without hesitation.
With the second pick, the Flyers took James van Riemsdyk. In hindsight, it was not a bad pick.
As a rookie, van Riemsdyk scored 15 goals and had 20 assists for 35 points. In the two seasons that followed, van Riemsdyk reached the 20-goal mark, then scored 11 goals in an injury-shortened season.
The Flyers traded JVR to the Toronto Maple Leafs prior to the 2013 lockout-shortened season for Luke Schenn.
That trade proved to be a turning point for van Riemsdyk. In the 48-game 2013 season, JVR scored 18 goals. In the seasons since, with the exception of an injury-plagued season in 2015-16, van Riemsdyk has scored at least 26 goals, breaking the 30-goal plateau in 2013-14. He was on pace to do the same in 2015-16, scoring 14 goals in 40 games.
In the picks immediately following the Flyers selection of JVR, some of the following names were taken:
3. Phoenix Coyotes – Kyle Turris
6. Edmonton Oilers – Sam Gagner
7. Columbus Blue Jackets – Jake Voracek
9. San Jose Sharks – Logan Couture
12. Montreal Canadiens – Ryan McDonagh
14. Colorado Avalanche – Kevin Shattenkirk
22. Montreal Canadiens – Max Pacioretty
Some big names in the NHL today went midway or later in the first round, as it turns out. But the Flyers not only gave up too soon on a player like van Riemsdyk, but missed out on a couple players later in the draft as well.
The second round doesn’t feature too many standout names. In fact, the 31st overall pick in 2007 was current Phantoms defenseman T.J. Brennan. With their second pick, the 41st overall pick, the Flyers selected center Kevin Marshall. Two picks later, Montreal selected defenseman P.K. Subban.
Marshall played in a total of 10 NHL games and has not been actively playing in hockey since 2015. Subban is a well-established All-Star defenseman, who has played in nearly 500 games and won the Norris Trophy in 2013.
One of the other more notable names selected in the second round in 2007 was Wayne Simmonds, taken with the final pick of the round by Anaheim at 61st overall.
The Flyers third round pick was Garrett Klotz at 66th overall. Klotz never reached the NHL and spent the last three seasons in the ECHL. He did not play professionally in 2016-17.
The prize of the third round went to Tampa Bay. The Lightning drafted Alex Killorn 77th overall. Killorn has played in 374 games, scoring a total of 71 goals and posting 172 points. This season, he has 18 goals, a career high, and 34 points.
The Flyers did not have a fourth-round pick that year, but the fourth round did produce players like Alec Martinez, Dwight King and Colton Sceviour.
The Flyers had the first pick in the fifth round (122nd overall), selecting winger Mario Kempe. Kempe briefly played with the Phantoms in 2009, appearing in five games, but has otherwise been a mainstay to the European game, spending the last three seasons in the KHL.
Two players the Flyers missed out on from the fifth round were Dallas captain Jamie Benn (129th overall) and Los Angeles defenseman Jake Muzzin (141st overall).
The Flyers also made mistakes in the sixth round, both with who they didn’t select and how they handled one of their selections moving forward.
The Flyers had two sixth-round picks. They selected Jon Kalinski with their first at 152nd overall. Kalinski actually made it farther as a sixth-round pick than some of the Flyers mid-round picks that year, playing 22 NHL games with one goal and four assists. He was a fixture of the Phantoms for four season and last played in the AHL in 2012-13 as a member of the Hershey Bears.
The Flyers second pick in the sixth round was at 161st overall. The pick was forward Patrick Maroon.
Maroon had a solid season with the Phantoms in 2008-09, scoring 23 goals and posting 54 points. But just as he was heating up in the AHL, the Flyers traded Maroon to Anaheim with David Laliberte for Rob Bordson and Danny Syvret.
Maroon made the jump to the NHL for good in 2013-14, scoring 11 goals and adding 18 assists in 62 games with the Ducks. Maroon had 34 points the following season and 27 points in 2015-16 in a season where he was traded to Edmonton at the deadline. But in 2016-17, Maroon has exploded in a career year, scoring 27 goals and picking up 42 points in 78 games.
It wasn’t just the timing on Maroon and the trade that hurt the Flyers in the future. Shortly after Maroon was taken, so was Carl Hagelin (168th overall), Nick Bonino (173rd overall) and Paul Byron (179th overall).
The seventh round of the draft is usually a grab bag where you hope to find a diamond in the rough. The one standout from the 2007 Draft taken in the seventh round was Sharks defenseman Justin Braun. The Flyers selected goalie Brad Phillips with the 182nd pick to open the seventh and final round.
DraftSite did a re-draft of the 2007 NHL Draft, ordering how players would have been taken if their full potential and eventual success would have been known on draft weekend of 2007. It’s no surprise that the first overall pick then remains the first overall pick now. No one could compete with Kane from that draft class.
In this re-draft, the Flyers would have taken Jamie Benn with the second overall pick. James van Riemsdyk was selected ninth overall. In hindsight, the Flyers eventually ended up with two of the Top 10 picks on their roster — Voracek at fifth and Simmonds at seventh — but pulled the trigger too soon on dealing JVR and Maroon and missed out on talent like Subban with their selections.
Hindsight is 20-20 and with the draft, you never know what you’ll get when you make your selections. The Flyers have put far more effort into molding their prospects under Ron Hextall than they did in 2007, which was Paul Holmgren’s first offseason as Flyers GM.
