December 1, 2022 | 2:15pm ET
By Anthony Di Marco, TheFourthPeriod.com

WILL ANOTHER TOUGH SEASON RESULT IN MORE CHANGE IN PHILLY?

Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher

MONTREAL, QC — American Thanksgiving has long been considered the unofficial checkpoint of the NHL regular-season, giving everyone a litmus test of where teams stand.

More often than not, most teams in playoff spots by this time of year often end up playing in Game 83 on their schedule come mid-April, while those behind the eight-ball struggle to make up ground.

As the calendar flips to December to close out 2022, the Philadelphia Flyers sport a record of 8-10-5, sit nine points back of the second and final Wild Card seed in the Eastern Conference and are on pace to miss the playoffs for the fourth time in five seasons.

The last few weeks have been more dramatic and negative – the team ended a 10-game winless streak Tuesday night against the New York Islanders with 3-1 victory – but the record, as a whole, was more or less expected at this juncture of the season. Had the team got to this point without the major overachievement early in the year and a few wins sprinkled during the 10-game winless skid, I’d reckon the temperature would be a lot cooler.

The team entered the year with two goals: figuring what they had with the countless younger players they have in their system – many of whom leftovers from the Ron Hextall era – and issue a culture change with a new “standard” led by new bench boss John Tortorella. Not to say that “wins” were secondary or meaningless, but there were/are clearly other things the organization wanted to execute before worrying about its record.

For the most part, the season has gone as expected, though I’m sure the 10-game winless skid was not something management was thrilled over. Players like right wing Wade Allison (before his injury), (new arrival) left wing Kieffer Bellows, forward Noah Cates, centre Morgan Frost, forward Tanner Laczynski, goaltender Felix Sandstrom, winger Owen Tippett and, most recently, defenseman Egor Zamula have all, at one point or another, been put in positions of prominence over the first 23 games to see what they can offer to the club in both the short and long term.

Have they all worked out? Certainly not. As of now, I would deem only three of those players a “slam dunk” to be here in a year’s time: Cates, Tippett and Zamula.

Allison had a good chance, but his inability to stay healthy has become a concern. Frost has shown flashes and improved his game “process” wise, but has yet to live up to – or, frankly, come even remotely close to – the offensive pedigree he had coming out of the OHL, though he has shown flashes of promise. Bellows, Laczynski and Sandstrom have not done enough to prove themselves as everyday NHL talents, to this point.

As for the team culture and new “standard,” things have certainly improved from an outside perspective, even if the wins haven’t been there. Even as the losses have piled up, the team has, on most nights, stayed competitive until the end and have rarely been blown out of games – a far cry from what went on the last two regular seasons.

Core players like Kevin Hayes, Travis Konecny and Ivan Provorov have all enjoyed nice bounce back seasons after a dismal last 18 months. All three have responded well to Tortorella on the ice.

Given the unprecedented amount of injuries the team has faced this year - the club as gone extended periods without the likes of Allison, Cam Atkinson, Sean Couturier, Ryan Ellis, Travis Konecny, Scott Laughton and James van Riemsdyk - the fact that they have managed to put up respectable efforts in most games is commendable. For a team lacking high end talent to begin with, the effort has been commendable, something that can be heavily credited to Tortorella.

But despite some of the positives, it has ultimately led to the same thing: a third straight dismal season under President of Hockey Operations and General Manager Chuck Fletcher.

Given what has gone on in Philadelphia over the last 24 months, the losing has begun to wear thin on the locals. The team’s third consecutive season featuring a 10-game (or more) winless streak has pushed things to a breaking point, and many are calling for blood and organizational accountability.

As someone who has been very vocal about the Flyers needing some form of a rebuild – make no mistake, even though they haven’t said it publicly, this is a rebuilding year – I can’t demonstrate hypocrisy and be upset as to where this team is at. I had no interest in seeing the club mortgage the future to bring in star forwards like Alex DeBrincat and/or Johnny Gaudreau last summer, as any such move would’ve been compounding organizational issues.

But even though the last five or six months have been handled well from a long-term perspective, there is no denying it feels like the clock in Fletcher’s office could be gradually approaching midnight.

It is fair to point out that Fletcher has not been dealt an entirely fair hand throughout his tenure at the helm of the Flyers’ Hockey Ops department. The Covid-19 pandemic hit just 15 months into his stint with the Flyers that resulted in a (mostly) flat salary cap for the last three regular seasons and minimal player movement throughout the league. Additionally, the unprecedented – and frankly absurd – amount of injuries to prominent players the team has dealt with over the last 13 months has derailed any hope of getting this thing back on the rails.

But even given all this, it does not change the overall picture: the on-ice product has been an unmitigated disaster for the last two calendar years.

Fletcher did ultimately make the right decision this summer by electing to tread water and avoid going after a tantalizing player acquisition, but it felt more like a last-minute pivot rather than a long-term plan. The decisions to extend Sean Couturier and Rasmus Ristolainen to eight- and five-year contracts, respectively, in the 10 months leading up to last off-season would support that notion, along with the infamous “aggressive retool” statement that was made during a press conference of Fletcher and Chairman and CEO of Comcast Spectacor Dave Scott last January.

The messaging and communication to the fanbase and media was, quite frankly, non-existent, which left many confused and befuddled when free agency played out the way it did this past July.

Then there was the coaching hire, which gained much more public attention than anticipated. Anthony SanFilippo of Crossing Broad reported Fletcher’s first choice was not Tortorella; I was told a day later that Tortorella was the undisputed top choice of some in Hockey Ops and Senior Advisors Bob Clarke and Paul Holmgren.

Was the truth somewhere in the middle? Could the hiring process of the coach have been an indication as to where things are heading for the Flyers’ front office?

Based on conversations I’ve had with people within the organization, I’ve gotten no indication that a decision has been made or a process has been started to replace Fletcher as the Flyers’ President of Hockey Ops and GM, as of today.

Does that mean Fletcher’s job is safe? I don’t believe so, as I have not been told once that he is “the guy” moving forward. But while the situation remains fluid, no decision to move on from Fletcher is imminent and any suggestion otherwise is premature to this point.

But if (or perhaps when) Fletcher is replaced, who could be his successor?

The low hanging fruit is Special Assistant to the GM Danny Briere, who has been speculated to be the heir to the GM throne for close to a year now.

Briere, who was a beloved player with the Flyers from 2007 to 2013, gained traction in the Executive world last year around this time when he was a finalist for the GM position with the Montreal Canadiens. After he (narrowly) missed out on the position, the Flyers acted fast to promote him from his role as President of the ECHL’s Maine Mariners and into a full-time role in the Flyers’ front office by the end of last winter.

As I wrote about in my feature on him last January, Briere has been working with the Flyers since his on-ice retirement in 2015. From scouting and player development, to his work in Maine, Briere has worked his way up the executive ranks with the Flyers.

Now, does this all mean that there is any truth to this speculation?

To this point, and to reiterate, I have not been told that Briere is the sure-fire replacement for Fletcher and that a plan has been imminently put into place to make that so. I have heard, however, conversations have been had internally about Briere taking over as GM at some point in the future.

If I were a betting man, Briere will be the next GM of the Philadelphia Flyers. As I mentioned before – and is extremely important to remember – I haven’t been told that to definitively be the case, but given everything we’ve seen over the last 10 months, my best guess is that’s where this is eventually heading. Briere was kept for a reason and given his history with Holmgren – both as a player and executive – I’d venture to guess he was a big proponent of hiring Tortorella, too.

The next few weeks and/or months will be a very interesting time for the Flyers’ front office. No matter who is at the helm of Hockey Ops, I do think we’ll see some form of public address over the next little bit to provide clarity on the direction of the team – even if there is no major front office shake up.

Although I believe things have started to trend in the right direction, it’s imperative the club properly outlines a path for its fans – it owes the Philly faithful that much after the last decade.