Tag: Travis Sanheim

Another veteran defenseman has been added to the mix. The Flyers have signed Keith Yandle to a one-year deal worth $900,000.

The Flyers announced they have re-signed defenseman Sam Morin to a one-year, $750,000 deal. In addition, they extended qualifying offers to forwards Connor Bunnaman and David Kase, defenseman Travis Sanheim, and goalie Carter Hart. They did not qualify an offer to forward Pascal Laberge.

For the better part of a decade, the Flyers have utilized the same core group and struggled to consistently put together successful seasons. After their most frustrating one to date, Fletcher knew action was necessary. “We just can’t keep bringing the same players back year after year and expect different results. We had to make changes this year,” Fletcher said.

On the Flyers end, the selection by the Seattle Kraken was rather surprising. While many focused on names like Jake Voracek, James van Riemsdyk, Shayne Gostisbehere, Justin Braun and Robert Hagg, who were left unprotected, the Kraken selected forward Carsen Twarynski as their pick from Philadelphia.

Who will it be? Will Seattle simply select a player or is there a side deal that could be in place? There are three potential outcomes for the Flyers in Wednesday night’s expansion draft, and we’ll detail each possibility and how it could impact the Flyers offseason plans.

The Flyers have protected forwards Claude Giroux, Kevin Hayes, Sean Couturier, Travis Konecny, Oskar Lindblom, Scott Laughton and Nicolas Aube-Kubel. They have also protected defensemen Ivan Provorov, Travis Sanheim and the newly-acquired Ryan Ellis, as well as goalie Carter Hart in the upcoming Expansion Draft.

The Flyers completed a trade with the Nashville Predators, adding defenseman Ryan Ellis in exchange or defenseman Phil Myers and forward Nolan Patrick. Patrick was sent to the Vegas Golden Knights in a separate deal involving the Predators and New York Rangers.

As GM Chuck Fletcher and assistant GM Brent Flahr met with the media on Tuesday morning, it marked the beginning of what should be a busy few weeks for the team. They need to get better. They know it. And they know time is of the essence.

From a mid-January start with some early positive results to one final win/loss to the New Jersey Devils in mid-May to conclude the 56-game campaign, here are five takeaways from the season.

The Flyers dropped Tuesday’s game to the Devils by a score of 6-4, snapping New Jersey’s 10-game winless streak. Coupled with a win for the Boston Bruins, it reduced their tragic number to be officially eliminated from playoff contention to a combination of three points gained by the Bruins or lost by the Flyers.

In Sunday’s game, the Flyers did everything but score over the first 40 minutes. Then the Islanders started to make their push and ultimately took care of things in an overtime that they dominated. It spoiled an otherwise outstanding goaltending performance on the Flyers end and showcased the Islanders budding young star in goal once again.

It was only going to take one goal to settle things, as both teams skated through 60 minutes without a tally. But at 2:23 of the overtime, Nick Leddy got the bounce and scored the lone goal of the game, handing the Flyers a 1-0 overtime loss to the Islanders.

Thursday night was a really good game from the Flyers if you are strictly looking for positive building blocks moving forward. There were two very notable areas that stepped up and helped get the game to overtime and put them in a position to win. But if you were strictly looking for two points and a chance to stay in the playoff race even just for a little longer, it was another night where even a solid effort came up short.

When it comes down to it, the loss that determined this perfectly defined the season – fall behind, rally back, struggle on special teams both ways, come up short. It should be no surprise that it was another loss to the Bruins, a team that has had their number all season and that has dashed their playoff hopes before, did it again. 

The result was what the Flyers needed. How long it took was what they didn’t. In this critical week in their season, the one that will likely define whether they choose to buy or sell – or do a little of both – at the deadline, the Flyers needed to win games. They have one to start, certainly a step in the right direction. 

Travis Sanheim delivered, with the help of Patrice Bergeron going down as Sanheim moved in on a counter-rush. Sanheim scored on Dan Vladar to give the Flyers a 3-2 overtime win, the team’s first over the Bruins this season, on Monday night in Boston.

The Flyers may be sitting fifth in the East, three points out of a playoffs, still very much mathematically alive. But their defense is in shambles. Almost every core player that was expected to produce on the higher end offensively has shown struggles. The goaltending has been questioned. To put it simply, the Flyers are a mess right now, and it’s become clear that the current system is just not working.

Monday’s game was a battle royale of mediocrity. This was a game that probably played out exactly as it should have in both result and process. Yes, the Flyers are a better team than the Sabres. The standings certainly reflect that. But for 40 minutes, they weren’t close to that, so much so that they not only once again dug a hole to the worst team in the league, requiring another frantic third-period rally, but they also had to shorten the bench to do it.

Sam Morin’s first NHL goal was the difference in this game, one the Flyers absolutely needed to have. It doesn’t solve all their problems and it remains to be seen what effect this has on the team moving forward. But this could be their last chance to take a positive moment, a moment that can bond a team, and turn the season around.

The only thing consistent about the Flyers right now is their ability to be inconsistent. One night, you get a decent effort. The next, you get an embarrassing effort. And on a night when you needed to build on that effort, needed to turn it into a win, needed to start getting things back on the rails right away, the Flyers were as flat as can be.

It may be March, but it sure feels like the Flyers are stuck on Groundhog Day. Tuesday’s game against the Devils certainly was recognizable. The Flyers fell behind due to a lack of urgency and puck management, only to claw back to within one goal late before time ran out. It’s happened at least three times this month now, with the latest installment coming in a 4-3 loss to the Devils. 

Losses are losses at this stage of the season. Whether it’s 9-0, or 6-1, or 2-1 in overtime, they all hurt the same in the standings. It’s a missed opportunity at two points that you had when the night began. But in this game, when the Flyers did deliver the effort and executed better for almost the entire 60 minutes, two glaring mistakes cost them, and this time, they didn’t have the answers to make a couple of mistakes change the result.

On the back end of a back-to-back, coming off a 9-0 drubbing, it was going to take something deep down for the Flyers to win this game. They got it from a line that was powered by their captain, and the goal came from their strongest player, one whose name was branded by an entire hockey community, city, and locker room.

After allowing the first two goals of the game to put themselves in another hole, the Flyers gave up another goal in the first two minutes of the second period. The game was essentially over right then and there, because the 18 minutes that followed were not just the worst the Flyers have played this season, they were historically bad.

Wednesday’s game was rock bottom, one of the most embarrassing efforts in Flyers history. After falling behind 2-0 in the first, the Flyers allowed seven goals to the Rangers in the second. You read that right: seven. A touchdown. That’s how things got to the final score in a 9-0 shellacking.

In the end, the Flyers probably got the deserved result for the chances they had in the third period and the strong start they had in the first. It’s two points they desperately needed and will take any way they can get at this point. The process on the ice may still have a lot of flaws and they were on full display again, but it’s a game the team can put back in the win column, another game where they took care of business against a team behind them in the standings. 

Both Alain Vigneault and Claude Giroux said the Flyers are trending in the right direction. James van Riemsdyk agreed and said they did a lot of good things. But the results don’t lie. The Flyers are not a playoff team at the moment in the standings for a reason. And they need a quick fix or this will be yet another season of disappointment, yet another season of mediocrity.

On Saturday night, things may just have come to a head. For the third time this week, the Flyers were no match for the Capitals for most of the night, having another furious rally fall short and losing for the fourth time in the last five games, 5-4.

Thursday’s game was just another example of how ugly it’s been lately. Washington didn’t have to look their best to put a stranglehold on this game. And on a night when Washington, Boston, and the Islanders all picked up two more points in the standings with wins, the Flyers fell just a little farther behind in the race. Those points are costly no matter when they are lost.