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Official Season Prediction After Flyers Release Opening Night Roster
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Quick baseball break for a hockey post. Jett Luchanko made the opening night roster, and at 18 years old and just under two months, will be the youngest Flyer to ever take the ice when they open in Vancouver on Friday night:
🔶 It’s a New Era of Orange. 🔶
Our 2024-25 Opening Night Roster is set. #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/EGe9PwlR7K
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) October 7, 2024
Official Flyers prediction: Somewhere between 86-89 points and right on the playoff bubble. It’s going to look a lot like last season, grinding for that final berth right down to the wire.
Why? Well it’s essentially the same team as last year, minus Carter Hart but plus Matvei Michkov at the very top. Luchanko is a total wild card at his age, for however many games he plays, and you’re asking yourself if teenage rookies are enough to offset the loss of the guy we thought was going to be the franchise goaltender for years to come. I don’t think people are talking enough about that. The reason the Flyers were so competitive early on last year, and ahead of the rebuild schedule, is because in 25 starts, Hart posted a .906 save percentage and 2.80 goals against average at the same time Sam Ersson was posting a .919 and 2.30. It was the best 1/2 goaltender run we’ve seen here in a long time. When Hart was charged with sexual assault as part of the Hockey Canada investigation, Ersson had to take on the #1 role and a heavier workload and his numbers dipped through the spring. Ivan Fedotov, Ersson’s backup this season, will hopefully have settled in because he only played three games last year and was tossed into a tough situation.
Otherwise, what improves from last year to this? A healthy Coots contributes more. A healthy and settled Jamie Drysdale? Same thing. You hope the kids, Bobby Brink and Tyson Foerster, and can take the next step as well. Throw Cam York into the mix since he’s still only 23. But in the absence of free agent acquisitions, you’re looking towards your own developmental pipeline for the improvement. Reminder that this team lacked high-end offensive talent last year and the only high-end offensive talent added comes in the form of a 19-year-old Russian who doesn’t speak English and will carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. They didn’t go out and make a free agent splash because they could not. They’re still paying Kevin Hayes, Cam Atkinson, and Tony DeAngelo $7.5 million to play for other teams, Cal Petersen has one more expensive year on the books, and there’s the Ryan Johansen grievance and the lingering issue of Ryan Ellis that you probably forgot about at this point.
This was never a one-year Flyers rebuild. Danny Briere had a lot to clean up. Still does. But that doesn’t mean you go into the season with a Negadelphia attitude; you go in knowing there’s plenty of work remaining to be done. We should all look forward to Michkov Mania, and the continued development of the young kids while getting closer to a clean cap and the ability to pursue free agents for the 2025-2026 season. Maybe we enjoy something like the 2016-2017 Sixers season, where expectations did not exist but the team ripped off some fun wins and gave us a glimpse of the future. Rookie Joel Embiid, with Ben Simmons on the horizon. I think that’s the best-case scenario for this Flyers season. They were ahead of schedule last year and no one should be disappointed if the on-ice results look similar this year. There are plenty of positives to focus on and they’re moving in the right direction.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com