The Flyers’ 2021-2022 season has mercifully come to a close. What a turd burger of a campaign it was. The coach was fired, the injuries were ridiculous, the team was atrocious, Claude Giroux was traded, and oh yeah, a dog shit on center ice at the Wells Fargo Center.

Capping it all off, we got this doozy of a quote from Ivan Provorov:

I had to go back and listen to this in audio form to get a feel for how Provy was speaking. Needed to hear the inflection in his voice, and it was pretty dry actually. Snarky and dry. It wasn’t overly combative, and he did go on to say in a follow-up answer that he didn’t think the media was unfair to him this year, though he reiterated that his opinion is irrelevant, because he was gonna be labeled a certain way no matter what.

In a vacuum, this quote is somewhat benign. There is truth to what he’s saying, that media members who never played hockey are gonna judge the guy anyway. Maybe they’re qualified or maybe they’re not, but it always seems to be a dead end road when athletes invoke something from the “you never played” school of thought, which Provy is referencing via the sardonic comment about “super experienced” scribes.

The other school of thought we’re pulling from is the “more than one thing can be true” school, and Ivan Provorov pretty much stunk this year. It’s true that he lost his top pair partner in Ryan Ellis, and in previous years he had what – one season with a guy like Matt Niskanen? I understand why Provy is frustrated, but when the going got tough he didn’t rise to the occasion, he more or less wilted, and now that’s manifesting in snarky and pointless media interactions. If you don’t like the media or the criticism, so be it, but winners grow thicker skin and show accountability while losers radiate loser energy.

It’s up to Provy to decide if he wants to be the next Ben Simmons and Carson Wentz, or whether he wants to put a crap season in the rearview mirror and take the next positive step forward, be it here or somewhere else. I will say that it’s kind of corny for people to rip him too much for this quote, since the same folks doing the ripping often complain about hockey players not showing enough personality and giving us canned crap quotes instead. Jake Voracek got a lot of respect for speaking his mind, regardless of whether people agreed with him or not. Provorov can likewise say whatever he wants as long as he backs it up on the ice. You just have to be careful not to present yourself as a big baby.