After weeks if not months of courtship, the Philadelphia Flyers and John Tortorella made things official this week with a four-year contract. Tortorella will leave a television gig with ESPN to helm the NHL’s winningest expansion team. The notoriously feisty coach is undoubtedly the most inspiring Flyers hire since Peter Laviolette took the reins. In the interim, future Stanley Cup …

As the first round of the NHL Playoffs is being resolved, Flyers fans watching as neutrals could be forgiven for not recognizing the sport being played. After all, the back-and-forth action on display in series like Carolina vs. Boston or Dallas vs. Calgary is far beyond anything they saw from their home team this season. The Flyers of 2021-2022 were …

The Flyers are in a sad state and indeed have been for some time.  While the 2021-2022 season has represented a unique nadir for the historically successful franchise, it has been a decade since a consistent, balanced roster took the ice at the Wells Fargo Center.  Alain Vigneault’s successful debut season was an outlier rather than a trendsetter, and Dave …

When the Claude Giroux sweepstakes ended in a deal with the Florida Panthers, the Flyers wrapped up an era that spanned nearly a decade. “G,” despite logging 1000 games with the Orange and Black and at times being one of the league’s most effective forwards, saw his tenure as captain defined by stop-start playoff runs and ending in an organizational …

After 15 years and 1,000 games, the Flyers and their fans have said their tearful goodbyes to Claude Giroux. The longest-tenured captain in Flyers history, an entire generation of Flyers fans (myself included) grew up with Claude Giroux as the face of the Flyers. Now, as he chases his ever-elusive first Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers, the Flyers have …

Last summer, the Flyers focused on gathering blueline reinforcements for the worst defense of the 2020-2021 season.  They did just that, bringing in Rasmus Ristolainen, Ryan Ellis, and Keith Yandle. The moves have not panned out overall; Ellis played only a handful of games before being shut down, and Yandle is amongst the league’s worst in +/- rating. Ristolainen, on …

The Flyers won their second game on the bounce on Wednesday night, defeating the Golden Knights 2-1 behind a brilliant performance by Carter Hart, who stopped 47 of the 48 shots he faced. The modest win streak is the team’s first since February 1, which is indicative of how badly the Orange and Black have struggled in 2021-2022. The team’s …

The Philadelphia Flyers are bad at hockey.  That is not breaking news. The team has had two 10+ game losing streaks already, and, by the looks of it, fancies a third.  Still, it is a bit surreal how comfortable the city has become with the reality that the Flyers stink.  Neither Julius Erving nor Allen Iverson managed to make basketball …

As the Flyers continue to flounder, the story of the season shifts to the imminent departure of Claude Giroux. Giroux, the team’s captain and second all-time leading scorer, is out of contract and will almost certainly be traded to a contending team in need of depth in the top six forward spots and on the powerplay. As his time in …

The Flyers are one of the most successful franchises in the history of the NHL. They have the most victories of any team outside of the Original Six, trailing only the Canadiens and upstart Golden Knights in all-time points percentage. As such, rebuilds on Broad Street (for the Flyers, at least) are all but unheard of. A rebuild is almost …