Flyers Season Ticket Holders Interview Chuck Fletcher and Danny Briere in Town Hall Setting
On Monday evening, the Philadelphia Flyers held a town hall Meeting with season ticket holders at the Wells Fargo Center.
Fans were split up into groups and taken station to station to meet with different departments of the Flyers and Wells Fargo Center’s operations. They were given an opportunity to ask the leaders of each department questions.
The event was closed to the media. However, multiple season ticket holders sent audio recordings of the question-and-answer sessions to Crossing Broad.
We found that some of the questions were repetitive, from group to group, so we decided the best way to provide these to you was to share one group’s Q/A portion for each session with the different executives, almost as if you were part of one of the groups there Monday night as well.
(Don’t worry, we aren’t leaving anything out that would be considered newsworthy. You’re getting the best group questions for each department).
Crossing Broad would like to thank all of the season ticket holders who took the time to both record these sessions and share them with us so that we could share them with the season ticket holders who could not attend Monday’s town hall as well as the fans of the franchise who are not season ticket holders and did not have access.
As you will see, there is some minor news coming out of this first group, which is Hockey Operations.
General Manager Chuck Fletcher told fans that defenseman Ryan Ellis will likely have surgery and miss the remainder of the season (but will be healthy in time for training camp) and that Kevin Hayes is probably returning to the lineup Saturday afternoon against Chicago.
Neither is a major surprise. We knew where Ellis was tracking for the better part of two months now and Hayes has been back on the ice, so we knew a return was coming, just the exact game wasn’t certain, however neither were official (and still aren’t), but sound about as close to certain as can be expected art this point.
Below is simply a transcription of the group Q/A session with Hockey Ops. We will save analysis for later so this doesn’t fall into my usual too long/didn’t read category where I share my thoughts.
We will also provide transcriptions of other Q/A sessions with other departments, at a later time.
CF below is Chuck Fletcher, DB is Special Assistant to the General Manager Danny Briere, and IA is Director of Hockey Analytics Ian Anderson.
All questions were asked by season ticket holders directly to the Flyers Hockey Operations Department. Crossing Broad did not provide any questions for STH to ask anyone.
I’ve been a season ticket holder since they moved from the Spectrum over to here (Wells Fargo Center) when it was a privilege to be a season ticket holder. It is not fun to come here to the arena or to watch the team on the ice. Sell me on renewing my tickets.
CF: Listen, I hear your frustration. It’s been a really tough last 12 months to put it mildly going back to the start of last year. I’ve been here four years. Two years ago we had a pretty good year: 2019-20. We were the best team in the league, basically, at the freeze and got to the second round. It wasn’t a perfect year, but we had a pretty good team, a competitive team. Last year we started well and then we stunk. This year we’ve had a really tough year. What I can tell you is two things. I guess, on a macro level, first of all, the man I work for, Dave Scott, he’s given us everything in terms of resources, the ability to spend to the cap, we have a great development staff, we brought Danny (Briere) in, we brought new analytics people in, we brought new medical, a new athletic trainer, new strength and conditioning. So, we are trying to do our best to bring in the best resources in, have the best staff, and we’ll spend to the cap. In terms of our team, we have good pieces, but clearly we need more talent. This year Claude Giroux is an unrestricted free agent. It remains to be seen what happens there. He leads our team in scoring, so clearly we have to look for some more top-end talent, but we have some good pieces and we have some kids coming, we have some good people looking for more talent and we’re going to do whatever we have to do to get better.
Can we talk about the injury front and why players are cleared, coming back, getting hurt (again). Look at the Derick Brassard situation. What’s going on with the training staff?
CF: That’s been incredibly frustrating. Looking at Derick, the problem he has is not something that requires surgery, so, it’s something where you’ve got to strengthen and the last two times he’s come back he’s felt very comfortable coming back, he’s skated hard. For whatever reason, two times ago, he played a game, he didn’t feel right, he took another four weeks off. The other night he played again and today he felt good. We tried different therapists and different rehab protocols. In terms of the other players, in some cases it’s been a real challenge. Ryan Ellis has been a real challenge. It looks like he may need surgery. We’ve tried to do whatever we can so he can avoid surgery and he can come back and play, but it’s getting to a point now where it looks like he’ll have to have surgery, but whether he had surgery three months ago or next week he’ll be fine for next year. His goal was to avoid surgery as long as possible, try to rehab and try to come back and play, because he wants to play. He’s frustrated. He’s played four games for his new team and he wanted to come in and have a big impact. The good news there is we haven’t compromised (next) year, we’ve just been trying to save this year. Kevin Hayes, I don’t know why the first surgery didn’t hold. Sometimes these things happen and we’ve been chasing ever since. It looks like has a chance to come back this weekend. When you’re in the middle of it, it’s hard to do as deep an autopsy as you need to do. We’re certainly going to look at it at the end of the season. We’re going to have a chance to talk to tall the doctors, the medical people, the players. But, this year it’s been a real issue and it’s something we’re going to have to find a way to be much better at.
This is sort of a two-part question. The first is prefaced by understanding that we are not going to go back in time and try to recapture the Broad Street Bullies. It’s a different era and a totally different league. But it seems to me that we may have gone too far in the other direction where we don’t have enough size in the lineup. I’m wondering what your thoughts are on that and striking a better balance… In connection with that, what are the chances of resigning (Rasmus) Ristolainen?
CF: It’s a great point, by the way. A lot of our scouts and management strongly agree that we are probably not as big and competitive as we need to be. It’s a fair point. It’s something we are definitely looking at. It’s one of the reasons we traded for Ristolainen and we brought back Nate Thompson, who has unfortunately been hurt all year. We brought in Patrick Brown, who is not necessarily a fighter but is a very competitive kid who finishes every check. We do have some kids coming who we do think have some size, whether it’s Wade Allison, Tanner Laczynski, young Isaac Ratcliffe has come up and, yes, very small sample size, but he’s played pretty competitively. We have a big defenseman, Ronnie Attard, who is 6-foot-3, and a competitive and tough kid, but there’s no question you need to strike that balance. You want your skill players, if they’re not big, to be competitive, but you want to make sure you have some size around them. I think that’s a fair point. In terms of Ristolainen, obviously I paid a big price to trade for him with the expectation and hope that he’d be a part of this group going forward, and that’s something we’re working on.
Can you give us some information on some of the non-professional prospects that we have? The kids who are currently playing in college or juniors who will be coming up in the next year or two.
CF: I’ll let Danny talk – Danny has spent time in player development the last couple years and he’s done a lot of work with some of these kids, so I’ll let him speak to this.
DB: I think that’s a very exciting area for the future. Someone asked (earlier) to sell them (on renewing season tickets), well that’s an area where I think we have some good kids coming up. We’ve seen a little bit of Morgan Frost. Don’t forget that for Morgan this is only his second year (as a) pro. He didn’t play last year. He missed a full year off the ice. So, he’s going in the right direction. Tyson Foerster is, I think, a special prospect. He can really shoot the puck. When we talk about finding a shooter who has size – I’m hoping he develops. He really wants it. He wants to be at the rink. He’s a rink rat. That’s a really good thing. He wants to get better. Bobby Brink, who is leading the nation in scoring in college hockey, that’s certainly a name to watch out for. Tanner Laczynski, Wade Allison, those are guys we might see right away next year, Isaac Ratcliffe is already up here. Ronnie Attard, Cam York, (Egor) Zamula on defense are all guys you are probably going to see where a full-time Flyers uniform. I can keep going on and on. That’s the area that I think is very exciting. Also, don’t forget, and we told this to the two previous (season ticket holder) groups, when you have a season like this year, there are different opportunities that come up that you really didn’t expect. One of those, although we really didn’t expect it, is we’re going to have a pretty high draft pick and we have to make sure that we don’t miss out on this pick this year. It could be a special talent to make a difference for us for many years to come.
I’m broken. This season broke me. I’m not going to pat myself on the back and tell you how great a fan I am, but I’m the type of fan who would take a freakin’ canoe to the freakin’ game if I had to. I haven’t been to a game in over a month now. There was a time, once upon a time, and it’s crazy when I think about it, when I pulled into the lot at 3:36 AM for the first preseason game after you went to the Final in 2010 because I was so excited and I couldn’t sleep. They asked me what I was doing here, and I said I can’t sleep and that I was too excited for the game. They let me stay. I fell asleep in the car. It’s crazy when I think about it. But that’s the type of fan I used to be. You need to put more money, big money, besides all the hires that you talked about, when are you going to put it into research and development?
(After listening to this question a handful of times, there is zero doubt in my mind about where this guy is from. Zero. He’s Delco. 100 percent. I’ll say Ridley Township. Maybe Glenolden.)
CF: We just increased the staff of our analytics and research and development department from three to six. We’ve doubled the size of player development. We’ve hired amateur scouts. We’re looking to hire someone in Europe to do player development and pro scouting, a position we never had. Ian (Anderson) probably knows these stats better than I do but I believe we are top three in the league in analytics, top three in the league in player development, we have a massive scouting staff. That’s the one great thing about Dave Scott and Comcast. I’ve been on some other teams, and they pale in comparison to the resources we have here. Now, we have to take advantage of that and make the good decisions, but that’s one of the reasons I’m very excited, and it’s not lip service, we have really good people. To sit in a room with Dean Lombardi, Paul Holmgren, Danny Briere, our pro scouts, (assistant general managers) Brent Flahr and Barry Hanrahan, and Ian Anderson – there’s some smart people here. We got lots of people. This year we’re going to be able to unfortunately pick really high, but maybe fortunately for our franchise long term. We’re going to have some opportunities here to do some good things. We have been proactively working on what you just asked for – on putting resources in. Over the last year we’ve added a lot of people and hopefully some of the benefits of that will start to show.
In terms of goaltending. Is Carter Hart our guy still? Are there any prospects? Can you give us your overview of that position?
CF: Yeah, Carter is our guy. He’s 23. He’s actually been one of the bright lights in a horrific season. With just a couple exceptions, Carter’s been between pretty good to good. Last game I thought he was outstanding. He made a couple big saves, particularly late (in the game). He’s 23. I think last year was a tough year for him. I think he grew from that. He worked hard in the summer to address a few things. He’s working with (goaltending coach) Kim Dillabaugh on a few things in terms of his depth and his angles. Goals that were beating him last year aren’t beating him nearly as much this year. So, I’ve seen growth. There’s a lot of adversity right now. It’s tough to be a goaltender for the Philadelphia Flyers right now. We’ve given up lots of chances. Our last 10 games have been way better in terms of our defensive effort, but Carter, we’ve asked a lot of him and he’s hung in there. Long-term, this will be good for him. Behind him we have two 25-year-old goalies – Felix Sandstrom, who’s been up here and won a game – no, I’m sorry – lost in overtime. A big Russian goalie named (Ivan) Fedotov, who played for the Olympic team. Hopefully he’ll come over next year and those two kids will compete, honestly, for the backup spot. Samuel Ersson is a young man who may have as much upside as anybody. He’s been hurt for much of the year, unfortunately. (Kirill) Ustimenko is a young man who is playing in Lehigh right now and we took a Belarussian (Alexei Kolosov) last year in the third round who is already a No. 1 goalie in the KHL at 19. I think it’s our strongest position in terms of quality and quantity. There should be some answers there for guys to push for that backup spot. So hopefully we can have some young kids being the backup in the future. Kids on the upswing. But, we expect Carter to become a really good goalie in this league and continue to bounce back like he has this year.
It seems in the last 15 years almost all goalies have adapted to the butterfly style and you see a lot of pucks that are shot over a goalie’s shoulders and right by his head. Is there some thought given to the way goaltenders approach the game because the players seem to know how to adapt?
CF: I think (players) would adapt if you played a more stand-up style or some sort of hybrid style then you’d be more prone to getting beat down low. But, I’ll let Ian speak to this a little bit because one of the analysts we just hired is a former goaltender (Lead Data Scientist Cole Anderson) who studies a lot of this and has already been meeting with Kim Dillabaugh, our goalie coach, and looking at these trends and where pucks are coming from. The big thing you are always trying to find is, how far do you challenge? The depth of the goaltender. The angle. It also comes down to trust with your defensemen. If you are going to play the shot aggressively, you got to have help on the back door, or it’s a tap-in, so there’s a little bit of coaching and structure there, but it’s a great point, because this is what we are studying now – as the shooters become better, how do we find the ideal technique and positioning and depth. I guess the good thing is we have a really smart guy who is going to study this and work with our goalie coach to maximize it. And Carter is really receptive. He’s a kid who is looking to get better. Whatever we can find, we’ll be cutting edge for sure with the data we have.
IA: The one thing I would say is that a few years back there was some equipment changes which made the goalie’s equipment a little bit smaller which was an attempt to increase scoring league-wide, that’s some of what you are seeing. Every team is like us trying to find little, small edges – like a skills coach on the ice with the shooters, player development, the kids coming up into the league have now worked with skills coaches since they were very young so the level of skill of the shooters, not just the goaltenders, is exponentially increasing the last few years. Some of what you are seeing is goaltending technique and stuff but a lot of it is also the skill level of the players themselves. The shooters. I think it’s just that cat and mouse game of trying to stay one step ahead of it, and that’s what we’re trying to do on my team, the analytics team, how can we better utilize data in conjunction with the coaching staff, not just with Carter, but the ones coming, that we’re trying to develop on the way up. That’s a big part of our work, not just now, but for the next couple years we’ll be doing a lot of that.
I know it’s kind of tough to predict the future, especially for prospects and stuff like that, but how is our current geopolitical situation affecting how we are looking at prospects the next couple years? You mentioned (Fedotov) and (Kosolov), it may be that we can’t get them over. Are we trying to get them over quicker? And is that affecting draft preparation in the next couple years?
CF: That’s a really good question and very current with what’s happened the last week. There is a lot of concern. What happens with Russian players and Belarusian players? We see all of these international federations cancelling events in Russia and teams not playing games against Russian teams and Russian national teams are getting excluded. With respect to bringing them over, Fedotov is 25, his contract has expired (in Russia) and he has expressed an interest in coming over. Assuming political forces don’t intervene, I would assume he would have the right to come to the United States, get a work visa and play. But, it’s a great point. These are things we can’t control. Unfortunately (Kosolov) has two more years left on his contract, so we can’t bring him over. That’s good for his development because he is a No. 1 goalie in the KHL, which is a good developmental league. Maybe by two years, we’re in a better place. I don’t want to get into politics here, but for any Russian athlete it’s tough. It’s a messy situation.