I had two thoughts when the St. Louis Blues won the Stanley Cup last night:

  1. Hey, you know what, good for Craig Berube and Brayden Schenn
  2. It sure would be nice if the Flyers were close to winning the cup

Actually, I lied, there was a third thought. I did take pleasure in watching the Bruins go down 4-1 on home ice in game seven, because another Boston title would have made me (and hopefully you) barf, just a little bit of a vurp, since those spoiled brats have won something like 15 trophies in the last 15 years, or whatever it is.

It is, however, a bit disconcerting when you think about all of the former Flyers who have won the cup after leaving the team, be it trade or free agency. Joe DeCamara put together this list and shared it on Twitter:

Add Flyers draft pick Pat Maroon and Michael Del Zotto to the list. Dan Carcillo even won a pair of Stanley Cups with the Blackhawks.

And yes, you can probably go through every NHL team and compile a list of players that went on to win the cup elsewhere, which Flyers fans were sure to remind Joe of, after the jump:

Nobody gets more offended than Flyers fans, for whatever reason. It’s just really weird and predictable.

Anyway, the Blues didn’t come up with some amazing strategy to finally win this thing. They were dead last in the NHL earlier this season, they fired Mike Yeo, promoted Berube, and then struck gold when they gave the keys to rookie goaltender Jordan Binnington. The roster featured a number of veteran players who had been around the block before, guys like 33 year old Tyler Bozak, 35 year old Jay Bouwmeester, and 31 year old David Perron. Then you had your core of mid to late-20s dudes in Vladimir Tarasenko, Ryan O’Reilly, Jaden Schwartz, and Schenn. It wasn’t like they rode some 23-year-old superstar draft pick to the playoffs. Over the years they tried different coaches and different goaltenders, then finally caught fire this postseason. It really was not dissimilar to the 2010 Flyers in the way they started clicking at the end of the regular season and took that momentum into the playoffs as a lower seed. If Michael Leighton was somebody else, maybe the Flyers lift the Cup instead of losing 4-2 on home ice.

I guess the point is that I look at the Blues and don’t feel like the Flyers are as far away as everybody else. I used to think that the Flyers should bring in Sam Hinkie and blow it up, but now I’m not so sure. Carter Hart looks like he’s going to be your guy for some time. There is young talent on the ice (Provorov, Konecny). You have your mid 20s guys (Coots). You have some experienced veterans (Giroux and Voracek) and a crop of three coaches who all have years of NHL work on their resumes. It’s not like St. Louis found some hidden blueprint for success that the Flyers have yet to discover, they simply turned it around midseason, promoted a retread coach, and followed a rookie goaltender to the promised land.

Isn’t that always what happens anyway? Some goalkeeper gets hot and you ride him through the playoffs.

Put me down as one of the people who is actually looking forward to seeing what Alain Vigneault can do with this squad next year. Shrug. I don’t know why, but last night actually made me optimistic about the Flyers, because if St. Louis can lift the Cup, surely our guys can do it.