My initial goal was to have this article ready for July, but I decided I didn’t want to take the spotlight away from free agency.

I went into this season thinking we’d see strides made towards the goal of becoming a Stanley Cup contender, that this season would be the start of something special. It was not. Aside from the least impressive 10-game win streak in NHL history, it was the most frustrating season since I started watching in 1995 (yes, more so than ’06-07, ’12-13 and ’14-15) — and that’s because, despite what members of the local media might try to tell you, this team had enough talent to make the playoffs. The Flyers should have been able to make tangible improvement upon last season, but their most notable achievement was becoming the only team ever to have a 10-game win streak and miss the playoffs. Instead of taking a step forward in the rebuild, the Flyers took a step backwards and head into the 2017 offseason with more questions than answers.

In reading back through my season preview article, a few things jump out as misguided, but what struck me most is how my biggest blind spot was for Dave Hakstol. I was so pleasantly surprised with his first season, that I didn’t once mention the potential for him to fall flat on his face. In fact, I only mentioned him twice, period, and neither had anything to do with his ability to lead a professional hockey team! It seems preposterous now that I wasn’t more skeptical of a head coach entering his second NHL season after a career spent in the college ranks, but so it goes. You find out what a new coach is about in year two, when the element of surprise is gone, he has to adjust to a league that has adjusted to him, and his worst traits come to the surface.

What we learned about Dave Hakstol was troubling, to say the least, and catastrophic, to say the worst. Pigheaded, perplexing, inane, downright indefensible personnel decisions mixed with an ultraconservative approach to create the shittiest of cocktails. This team was only consistent in its inconsistency and played a brand of hockey that was tepid, unexciting, uninspiring, and lacked passion. The Flyers were just so fucking bland. Then again, teams reflect the personalty of their coach. This season was a real eye opener about the man behind the bench, and I’m not sure how you can leave it thinking Hakstol is destined for success in today’s NHL. It won’t be easy to swallow his pride like this after taking such a big risk, but if Ron Hextall is actually an objective evaluator, Hakstol should be on a short leash entering next season.

As the title of the article alludes, here are my takeaways from the Flyers’ disappointing 2017-18:

1. What better way to show stability and instill confidence that you know what you’re doing than to go with a goalie carousel from the very first game? Hakstol sporadically settled on a #1 either out of necessity or arbitrariness, instead of letting either Steve Mason or Michal Neuvirth truly take the reigns. The treatment of Mason was particularly galling. Yes, he struggled early in the season, but he should have built up enough equity over the course of the previous three seasons (even just last season) to warrant faith and some leeway — especially once he spearheaded this season’s 10-game win streak following Neuvirth’s injury.

What stood out most to me was how Hakstol handled the first three weeks of February, the most crucial stretch of the season. The whole team had struggled during a 5-6-1 January. They scored more than three goals in a game once, and Mason had his worst month (.883 SV% and 3.27 GAA in 10 games) since October. Neuvirth had his best month in January, putting up a .919 SV% and 2.56 GAA in six games. The Flyers entered February only two points behind Boston for the final Wild Card playoff spot, and Hakstol decided Neuvirth was his guy and had earned the right to be the #1 for the month. The team in front of Neuvirth continued its inconsistent play, but he was inconsistent in his own right as well. Not October-November terrible (.859 SV% and 3.50+ GAA), just regular .890 SV% terrible. He had a few sparkling games in there to start so Hakstol rode him, refusing to give Mason a start even in a critical back-to-back to begin the Western Canada road trip when they lost to Calgary and Edmonton. The Flyers went 3-6-1, including losses to Washington and Pittsburgh (Stadium Series) in games in which they outplayed their division rivals. It was three weeks of ultimate writing on the wall regarding what Hakstol thought of Mason and, contextually speaking, sealed the fate of his future with the Flyers. Neuvirth, on the other hand, literally the worst goalie in the NHL this season, got a contract extension (and a raise!) at month’s end. Only in bizarro Flyers world does this lunacy happen.

Now’s a good time for the gentle reminder that if not for Mason, the Flyers would be missing the playoffs for the fifth straight season. Yet between choosing to re-sign Neuvirth before the deadline and subtly leaking to the media their intention to move on from Mason, the Flyers doubled down on their stellar track record of establishing and sustaining healthy relationships with their goalies. It’s bush league, and I’m glad Mason stood up for himself on the way out by throwing shade at Hakstol during yesterday’s exit media interviews:

I was down on Mason when he came over from Columbus and didn’t think he’d live up to the contract he received from the Flyers based on a small sample size of games following the trade, but he rebuilt his career in Philadelphia and I wish him well wherever he ends up. He had injury issues, and obviously the relationship with management wasn’t always smooth, but the dude played his balls off and carried otherwise middling-at-best teams.

2. Chris VandeVelde and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare aren’t even replacement level NHL players, let alone highly useful ones. Despite the underlying metrics, going into the season I thought Bellemare had some sneaky skill (which he still shows once every 15-20 games) and could produce more offense with better linemates, but that belief was quashed with his increased role. Those underlying metrics only got worse.

For those who want to justify Bellemare’s place on the team because he’s a great locker room guy, everyone loves him, and his role isn’t to score, well:

The Flyers were, without question, worse with Bellemare and VandeVelde on the ice. In all situations. No, just because the coach made both his top penalty killers, that does not mean they’re good on the penalty kill — which, by the way, ranked bottom-third all season. It means the coach is biased, lacks competency and pigeonholed players he viewed as having specific roles into those specific roles. He was unaware of the self-fulfilling prophecy he wrought, and it predictably impacted the team negatively. Bellemare will make $1.45 million next season and in 2018-19, and you can be sure that not only does receiving the “A” mean he will be protected in the expansion draft, but that he’s also viewed as a key piece of the bottom-six moving forward. At least it looks like VandeVelde won’t be back, so woo-hoo on that as I was legitimately terrified both would be retained.

Addendum: There are plenty of other instances to choose from aside from Bellemare/VandeVelde bullshit with regard to inexcusable personnel deployment, but it’s impossible as a coach to do worse than the final shift of the March 11 game in Boston. The Flyers sat at 70 points, the Bruins at 76. With the game tied 1-1 and under a minute left, which defensive pairing does Hakstol put on the ice? Andrew MacDonald and Brandon Manning. Legitimately should be an on-the-spot fireable offense. This was how it ended (starts at 2:41), with 5.6 seconds left, just as the buffoon coach deserved.

Brandon Manning later said he was trying to block the harmless, unscreened, shot from the half-boards shot… with his stick in the air, apparently. Tough second half of the season for Manning (who was an early bright spot), and obviously his intent was not to deflect the puck into this own net, but if he was a smarter/better/DIFFERENT player, maybe he tries to block the shot by sacrificing his body instead of acting like an extra Bruins forward. How do you even have these two guys, 6th/7th caliber NHL defenseman at best, on the ice at that time? What the fuck is going through your head as a coach?

3. The steadfast devotion to Andrew MacDonald as a top-4 defenseman, and tethering him to Ivan Provorov. I’ve raged a lot on the AMac topic and don’t think I need to beat this dead horse any deader. It’s enough for me simply knowing that I was right in accusing the Flyers back in October of intentionally not fielding a lineup optimized for success and sabotaging their ability to succeed this season.

4. Claude Giroux’s decline is real. It was a poignant concern I touched on in the season preview article. A strong start (31 points in the first 38 games) for Giroux gave way to a prolonged slump after the calendar turned to 2017. Despite taking him off the penalty kill in order to lessen the “hard minutes” and wear and tear on his body, he looked like a worn-down shell of himself as the season progressed. While his advanced metrics remained the same, Giroux’s game truly suffered across the board. Bad luck was a contributor (96.7 PDO), just as it was for everyone, but he scored just four (4!) goals and recorded 27 points in the team’s final 44 games. He had just nine even strength goals all season (Jordan Weal had seven in a quarter of the games). Giroux finished with 58 points, his lowest total since 2009-10. I don’t want to hear about the offseason surgeries as an excuse, either. He looked healthy the first few months of the season and played in all 82 games. The grind of a long season was, I’m sure, exacerbated by the surgeries, but you can’t laud his early season performance and then use the surgeries as a crutch for his second-half struggles. The cold, sobering reality is that we’ve already seen the best of Claude Giroux; he is no longer the hockey wizard we fell in love with nor the player to whom the Flyers gave that enormous contract extension. I don’t envision him ever bouncing back to being a point-per-game player or even near-point-per-game player as he crosses into his 30s; his ceiling going forward is that of a 60-point player (15-20 goals, 40-45 assists). He’s not a 1C, can’t be relied on to do his line’s heavy lifting, and will require more sheltered minutes. What we have to hope is that his coach, whoever it is, can manage the situation with regards to personnel pairing (I would like to see Oskar Lindblom and Travis Konecny or Brayden Schenn on G’s wing next season) and deployment, and that the contract remains simply “bad” into its last couple seasons instead of becoming a “fucking disaster of an albatross” as soon as next season.

5. Uneven treatment of young players under the auspicious of discipline, while never holding other consequential veterans responsible. Travis Konecny caught the brunt of it throughout the season, and while aggravating, he wasn’t treated much differently from most rookies. Though would it have killed Hakstol to let him play with more talented players and gain confidence that way, especially once the playoffs were out of reach, instead of saddling him on the fourth line with Bellemare and VandeVelde? Aside from Konecny, Shayne Gostisbehere was the chief victim of the coach’s prejudiced ire, but over the last few months he looked like the Ghost of last season. Why? Because he stopped listening to those responsible for trying to neuter the preternatural instincts and flare that make him so unique and dynamic.

Gostisbehere slogged through a sophomore slump that wasn’t helped by his coach (who sought to stifle his creativity in favor of “safe” plays with the puck), but his struggles were exaggerated, especially on defense. It was a shallow, easy narrative for the local media to run with, and boy did they love doing that rather than examine what other factors might be at play. Teams took time and space away from Ghost on the man advantage, and when his shots weren’t being blocked, they were going wide. He only scored two power play goals in 76 games after registering eight power play goals in 64 games in 2015-16. It was a frustrating campaign for Ghost, no doubt, and it’s hard not to view the above comments as another notable player taking a clear shot at the coach. We know Mason won’t be back next season because he’s a free agent, but how will Ghost’s words go over with the coaching staff and organization? Not well, I imagine. Will this season be viewed and judged through the prism of being a learning experience for a young player going through growing pains at the professional level, or will he be viewed as a subordinate and get shopped around this summer?

6. There’s a distinct, harrowing lack of emphasis on skill players and utilizing skill to create offense. How many genuinely pretty goals did the Flyers score this season? I struggle to recall any that immediately stick out, and I feel like the total number can be counted on two hands. Their entire strategy was perimeter-based, to get pucks back to the point for long shots in hopes that they could be deflected or create rebounds. The Flyers rarely made opponents cover the middle of the ice in the offensive zone or fear the threat of high-danger scoring chances in the slot and down low. For proof that this plague of favoring tactics for the unskilled (in a league where speed and skill are paramount) is an organizational failing, look no further than the Jordan Weal saga. He was impressive in the preseason and looked like he belonged, yet Travis Konecny was given a roster spot instead. God forbid Weal, who clearly displayed NHL-level offensive talent at the time, should’ve taken VandeVelde, Bellemare, or Lyubimov’s roster spot. So we had to wait until 60 games into the season to see Weal, who needed to be on the roster for at least 66 games to maintain RFA rights. Despite size, he’s a skill player with high hockey IQ who’s a good skater, responsible defensively, and unafraid to go to the tough areas to score. Weal has to be part of the Flyers’ plan for at least the next few seasons and re-signed before July 1. He’d likely be a sought-after player on an open market lacking youthful options but has stated that he wants to stay, so let’s all be friends and do a two-year deal for $4M — call it a mini Raffl-like contract, but for a better player.

7. Sean Couturier drives play at even strength at the same rate as the best 2C in the league, which is not a quality the Flyers enjoy from enough of their forwards. He just hasn’t shown the finishing ability to convert strong possession metrics into 20+ goals and 30+ assists. I still believe he’s capable of 50+ points, however they come, as his point-per-game average of 0.57 over the last two seasons translates to 46 points over the course of a full 82-game season. It’s a matter of staying healthy and having consistent linemates (just look at how dominant he was with Voracek and Konecny to start the season). It’s best to shed our propensity for labels here and simply appreciate Couturier as a valuable middle-six center and support player.

8. Brayden Schenn may have put up nearly identical counting stats to last season’s “breakout,” but he was clearly not that kind of impact player and struggled at even strength and on defense (as he has his entire career). Of his 55 points (25 goals, 30 assists), 28 (17 goals, 11 assists) came on the power play. Schenn averaged 14:03 in ice time at even strength in 79 games and had just 27 points. You know who else only had 27 points at even strength this season? Claude Giroux.

Ok, so what about the positives (aside from Weal)? Well, Ivan Provorov overcame a rocky first month to gain his coach’s full confidence and ended up leading the team in ice time. He hit the stats I projected (5-10 goals, 20+ assists) and looks like a bona fide franchise defenseman. Hopefully he can make THE LEAP and we’ll see more sustained flashes of top-level skill and stardom next season. Travis Konecny had his rookie hiccups, especially defensively, and spent plenty of time in Hakstol’s dog house. However, we also saw the kind of offensive ability and dynamic skill he’s capable of bringing to the table. TK is another player I expect to see improve in 2017-18; he’s a forward who has to do so in order for the Flyers to escape doldrum hell.

We got a brief glimpse of Samuel Morin and Robert Hagg in the last week of the season, and there is room opening up on defense with the departures of Michael Del Zotto and Nick Schultz. At least two rookies (throw Travis Sanheim, who really came into his own with the Phantoms, and Philippe Myers into this pot) should win roster spots going into 2017-18.

There must be changes made up front, however. This core’s high-water mark in six seasons came in year one — a fluky first-round playoff win over the Penguins in 2012. While Giroux and Jakub Voracek are the big names, Schenn and Wayne Simmonds likely have the most value because of their production relative to their contracts — and I’m fairly confident everyone would rather trade Schenn than Simmonds.

Keeping in mind that Hextall attempted to upgrade the middle-six with the addition to Valtteri Filppula at the trade deadline (which in turn coincided with Couturier playing his best hockey of the season), the team needs much better depth players in the bottom of the lineup. I’d like to see the fourth line be constructed with an eye towards how the game is played nowadays. It’s such an achievable luxury to be able to roll four lines that can produce offensively, rather than be bogged down with the old-world cliche of what a bottom six should look like and how it should function. Dale Weise, for example, who was a huge free-agent bust despite coming to life in the final month of the season once being paired with Couturier, would be a perfect fourth-line winger for this squad if the coach saw value in a fourth line that could be a danger offensively at even strength. In addition to trading for Filppula, the Flyers obviously want to upgrade the bottom of the lineup, too, as evidenced by making an investment in Mike Vecchione. As things stand, there aren’t a lot of forward spots open going into 2017-18, but it’d be heartening from a philosophical shift standpoint to see a fourth line with legitimate play-drivers on it (Vecchione centering Weise and Bellemare, or, better yet, Vecchione centering Weise and Raffl/Read).

This offseason will be Ron Hextall’s first true test with regard to moving the needle from “retooling/rebuilding” to “ready for contention” at the pro-club level. I was not particularly impressed with his performance from July onward, and he’s also now faced with possibly having to save his own hand-picked coach from himself when it comes to personnel decisions. Hexy, whom we’ve been so quick to hail as a general manager genius and savior, has his work cut out for him.