With the Orange and Black’s prospect and full camps set to commence on September 14 and 21, respectively, what are fans’ expectations for the 2023-24 season?
It may not match the excitement of a new Philadelphia Eagles season or Philadelphia Phillies playoff race, but September also heralds the impending start of the Philadelphia Flyers’ 2023 training camp.
Though the June draft selection of potential star Matvei Michkov reinvigorated a moribund fanbase, a scan of social media indicates Flyers followers retain a pessimistic outlook for the upcoming season.
The majority, in fact, seem to believe a near bottom-of-the-league finish is in the offing. A step backward from the Flyers’ 75-point 2022-23 which resulted in a seventh-worst league finish.
To the pro-tanking contingent’s chagrin, I am here to pour cold water on the notion of a worse record than last season.
The Flyers may not be good. The Flyers’ record may not significantly improve. Perhaps they will even end up with the same number of points as last season. They will not, however, be worse.
Five Reasons Why The Flyers Won’t be Worse:
1. Sean Couturier and Cam Atkinson are Back.
The Flyers managed to scrounge 75 points last season despite their #1 center, perennial Selke Trophy candidate, and best player in Sean Couturier missing the entire season. Even if Couturier is a much more limited player following two back surgeries, his elite hockey sense and positional play will bolster a thin center-ice corps. A position that consisted of a rookie Noah Cates, a still-learning Morgan Frost, and a game Scott Laughton who is better suited to left wing.
The trade of Kevin Hayes is of no consequence to the Flyers’ depth at center considering Tortorella did not trust Hayes in the pivot.
Sean Couturier is not the only important Flyers veteran who unexpectedly missed the entire 2022-23 season because of injury. So too did Cam Atkinson, who was second on the Flyers in goal scoring (23) and points (50) in 73 games in 2021-22. Atkinson may be 34 years old, but it would surprise if he failed to supplant the Boston-departed James Van Riemsdyk’s mere 12 goals and 17 assists in 61 games.
On a Flyers squad coming off the fourth-lowest offensive output in the NHL, Couturier and Atkinson represent an improvement over Hayes and JVR both offensively and defensively.
2. Cam York is Ready to Blossom.
Yes, the Flyers traded away their de facto number-one defenseman in Ivan Provorov, ostensibly creating a hole on the team’s first defensive pairing. However, the Provorov trade also offers opportunity for 22-year-old former 14 overall draft choice Cam York, who no longer must play his unnatural right side to receive first-pairing minutes.
Excitement surrounding York has waned following his disappointing camp last September and subsequent 20-game start in the American Hockey League. However, expectations were set too-high too-soon for the talented blueliner, who acquanted himself mostly well following his mid-season call-up.
Longtime NHL assistant coach Rick Wilson said defensemen need around 200 NHL games before you know who they are, and Cam York enters 2023-24 with only 87 NHL games under his belt. York’s skill level is undeniable. He set a US National Team Development Program single-season points record by a defenseman in 2018-19. He captained the United States to the 2020-21 World Junior Championship and later in 2020-21 was named the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year and First Team All-Big Ten as a sophomore for the University of Michigan.
By the end of the 2023-24 campaign, York will be approaching the 200 NHL game mark, and he has the potential to take a large leap forward in his second season under John Tortorella and Brad Shaw.
I will be unsurprised if Cam York is an upgrade over the Provorov we saw the last three seasons.
3. Owen Tippett, Noah Cates, and Morgan Frost are Entering Their Primes.
Cam York is not the only young Flyer in position to improve. Owen Tippett enjoyed a breakout 27 goal campaign in his first full NHL season and flashed the ability to accomplish more. At just 24, the powerful former 10th overall draft pick is a strong candidate to break the 30-goal plateau this year.
Noah Cates exceeded expectations last season as a 23-year-old rookie learning a new position, becoming Tortorella’s most trusted center, and earning a few Selke Trophy votes in the process. With a year of NHL experience and the presence of Sean Couturier to help ease his load, Cates is a likely bet to increase his 13 goal output while continuing to establish himself as a top young defensive pivot.
Rounding out the triumvirate of 24-year-olds is Morgan Frost. Frost turned a slow start into a productive last three months and 46 total points. If Frost is to take the next step and become the reliable second-line caliber center many predicted, he is at the right age for it to happen.
4. Travis Sanheim and Joel Farabee are Bound to Rebound.
Following the 2021-22 season, former first-rounders Sanheim and Farabee were considered key cogs of the Flyers’ future. Sanheim had just finished his best performance as an NHLer, earning an 8-year, $50 million contract extension; and the then-22-year-old Farabee was expected to bounce back from a shoulder injury and be a breakout player in his fourth NHL season.
Things failed to go according to plan. Sanheim lost all confidence, suffered through a miserable 2022-23, and was nearly traded to St. Louis this summer as a result. Farabee unexpectedly needed disc-replacement surgery, lost an entire summer of conditioning, and never looked like himself despite managing to play the full 82-game schedule.
My take is that it would be nearly impossible for Sanheim and Farabee to be as ineffective or downright poor as they were for much of last season.
Maybe Sanheim will never live up to his $50M extension and maybe Farabee will never be the 25-30 goal top-six winger he once appeared destined to become, but they didn’t suddenly forget how to play.
Sanheim is only 27 years old and Farabee a mere 23. Sanheim still has a length/skating combination that is rare among NHL defensemen while Farabee is now a year removed from major neck surgery with a full offseason to train and add strength.
Both should be motivated to prove last season was an outlier and I expect both will “progress to their means”, so to speak.
5. Tortorella’s Teams Improve.
Lastly, I do not see the Flyers’ record regressing next year because as a general rule, John Tortorella’s teams improve early in his tenures. Torts’ squads in Tampa Bay went from points percentages of .326 to .421 to .567 to .646 in his first four seasons.
Discarding Torts’ brief 21 game stint to close the Rangers’ 2008-09 season (.619 points percentage), Torts’ New York teams improved from .530 to .567 to .665 in his first three full seasons.
In Columbus, the Blue Jackets jumped from .507 in Torts’ first year to .659 his second season. Tortorella is a builder. Although he is still laying his foundation in Philly, the Flyers are likely to follow the same trend as Torts’ prior teams and progress rather than decline.
JOE KANIA IS A CONTRIBUTOR FOR HW HOCKEY
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