The Philadelphia Flyers Refuse To Learn From Their Mistakes, Will Be Trapped In Perpetual Mediocrity For Eternity
Graig Abel. Getty Images.It pains me to write this blog. It really does. Because I love Jonesy. I think he's the best. Just an unbelievable dude to have around the team. Great personality, and he truly cares about the Flyers organization and the city of Philadelphia as a whole. It's crazy because he only played 63 games as a Flyer, but he's been as invested in this city post-retirement than anybody. From 94.1 to doing color on the Flyers broadcast, Jonesy has been the #1 voice for hockey in Philadelphia for 20 years now. I cannot stress enough how much I love this man.
But….
The Flyers have been doing this shit forever. They bring in former players to run the team, and for whatever reason it just never works. Bob Clarke, Paul Holmgren, Ron Hextall, countless other Flyers legends who have held positions on the executive team throughout the years. I don't know what and I don't know why, but for some reason it has just never worked. I think the main reason is because there's too much emotion involved in these decision by former players on what it means to be "the Flyers". These guys are constantly chasing what they think the team should be, and never give enough thought into where the league is actually going. How else can you explain the fact that this team was addicted to drafting slow, two-way centers for so long instead of pivoting towards high-end skill guys who can fucking fly up and down the ice? The Flyers didn't make that adjustment until like last year, and now they are so far behind the curve.
You want a team that can legitimately have a chance to win the Stanley Cup? You need to treat it like a business. You need to understand that heading into the 2022-23 season, the team was absolute fucking dog shit and you could have leaned into that to tank the season away. You had to swallow your Flyer Pride and suck ass all season long to get a top 3 pick in this stacked draft. But instead, the Flyers care about "compete level" too much and botched the whole fucking season by being too terrible to even sniff the playoffs, but not terrible enough to even get a top 5 pick. The definition of mediocrity. The same exact spot this organization has been trapped in for decades. And as much as I love Keith Jones and as much as I love Daniel Briere, I just have a hard time believing that doing the same thing over and over again will produce any different result.
Buckle in, folks. We've got another 50 years of being not the best but also not the worst ahead of us.
P.S. -- Unless Lindros takes over one day. And then it's time to plan the Cup parade.