OK, first of all– let’s talk about Marcus Hayes being welcomed back to the vaunted Newhouse School of Communications, which has somehow convinced the world that learning how to talk on TV and write about sports requires you spend a premium to live in upstate New York for four years and embrace a snake in human form, Jim Boeheim. I wonder if the moderator will introduce Hayes as a sportswriter, or a tenured dolt with poop for a head who actively damages his dying publication with needlessly angry missives that massage his own ego? Whatever. Marcus is speaking in Syracuse tomorrow about what it’s like to work in a town like Philly, conveniently the day after his latest ostensible troll piece:
But.
I agree with him.
Full sentences:
At this stage of the Flyers’ rebuild they have to at least consider trading their captain. They don’t have to shop him, and they don’t have to kick him out of that door he opened, but they do have to listen if their phones ring.
…
Look, no one wants this to happen. Giroux has wonderful hands and great feet. He’s got eyes in the back of his head, and on both sides, too. When he’s 80 percent healthy he is a joy to watch; at 100 percent, he’s a genius.
Why waste genius?
Next season the Flyers will have five or six players with three years’ experience or less. Why watch Giroux’s skills erode while the kids learn how to play? He’s a magician on skates, but he isn’t doing anything but card tricks until the cavalry arrives, if it ever does. And, frankly, he’s never carried the team anywhere on his own. They haven’t won a playoff series since he became captain, which was five seasons and three coaches ago.
The organization has a ready-made replacement as captain in Wayne Simmonds, an ascending All-Star who will cost them less than $10 million, total, for the next twoseasons. Wouldn’t it be nice to have cap room ready when the Wayne Train pulls its boxcars up to the vault?
Few things:
The bottom line is: You can remove Giroux and Simmonds entirely from this discussion and just point out that the Flyers have two really good players – not great ones – that they count on to be their leaders. And until they get two full scoring lines, and figure out a sustainable goaltending situation, they aren’t going to contend for anything.