The Flyers sent this out to season ticket holders on Monday:

Seems rather innocuous on the surface, but the wording in there talks about building a “foundation for the future.” They haven’t previously called this a “rebuild” or “rebuilding year” or anything like that, so the introduction of the R word here is a shift in messaging. There’s also the admission that they aren’t “there yet,” which I think we all know.

There’s some practicality here in assuaging the concerns of fans who think this team is somewhere in purgatory. The “aggressive retool” has you somewhere close to the 2007-2012 Sixers, where you’re not great but not terrible either, and essentially just treading water. Obviously a portion of fans want to blow the whole thing up and dedicate to the rebuild, especially since they’re playing themselves out of the Connor Bedard sweepstakes.

Anthony will dive more into all of this later on the site.