Flyers’ OT win in finale gives way to offseason full of unknowns, inevitable change originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
A major transitional season came to a close Thursday night for the Flyers.
The club ended the 2022-23 campaign with a 5-4 OT victory over the Blackhawks at United Center in Chicago.
Ivan Provorov scored the game-winner. The Flyers went 3-12 in overtime this season. Two of those three victories came in Games 81 and 82.
Travis Konecny (two), Owen Tippett and Noah Cates also scored goals for the Flyers, who won on the road for the first time since Feb. 20. The team finished 13-20-8 away from home.
The Flyers, now very much rebuilding, have missed the playoffs in three consecutive years for the first time since 1989-90 to 1993-94, when they went five straight seasons without a postseason berth.
The club went 31-38-13 in Year 1 of the John Tortorella era. General manager Chuck Fletcher was fired in March a week after the trade deadline and Dave Scott, the head of ownership, announced his retirement later that month.
For the fifth time over the final nine games, Tortorella did not coach and instead watched Thursday night’s finale from another vantage point. Assistant coach Darryl Williams got his shot to run the bench.
With the overtime victory Tuesday night, the Flyers had already cemented their spot in the 2023 NHL draft lottery odds at No. 7. They’ll have a 6.5 percent chance at the top overall pick.
The Flyers went 1-1-0 against the Blackhawks (26-49-7) in their two-game regular-season series.
Jonathan Toews, a three-time Stanley Cup champion with Chicago, played his final game as a Blackhawk and scored a goal.
The captain nearly made it a storybook ending but his breakaway attempt in overtime was denied by Felix Sandstrom.
• There was incremental improvement from the Flyers’ disastrous 57-loss 2021-22 season. They won six more games and finished with 14 more points. They did so without Sean Couturier (back), Cam Atkinson (neck) and Ryan Ellis (pelvic area). And they saw some positive developments from younger players.
But, obviously, that is nothing to write home about for an organization with a significantly higher standard and a fan base that has been awfully patient.
The Flyers wanted to stabilize this season. How much more stable are they heading into the offseason?
The roster will certainly see more of a Tortorella imprint this summer.
“I’m looking at some of the encouraging things and that comes to our young players and where some of them have grown and some of them haven’t. Some of the veteran guys haven’t. So that’ll be discussed,” Tortorella said in March. “But for me, the next step with this organization is you don’t start adding players until you subtract players. I think there needs to be some subtraction here. Those will be in discussions at the end of the year.”
There will be changes. The questions are how loud will the changes be to the roster and what will the hockey ops department look like?
“We’re going to look at every possible option out there to improve the team,” interim GM Danny Briere said in March. “I don’t think this is a quick fix. That’s my belief and that’s why I’m not afraid to use the word rebuild, as long as you all understand those little asterisks — that it’s not a fire sale. It doesn’t mean fire sale for me.”
• Despite missing 22 games with two separate injuries (right hand; upper body), Konecny reached the 30-goal mark for the first time in his NHL career.
He recored No. 30 just 26 seconds into Thursday night’s game and then added No. 31 under six minutes later.
A four-point night gave Konecny 61 points (31 goals, 30 assists) in 60 games for the season.
The 26-year-old winger became the first Flyers player to score 30 or more goals in a season since Couturier had 33 in 2018-19.
Tippett had a two-point night, including his 27th goal, while Morgan Frost collected two assists.
Kevin Hayes, the Flyers’ All-Star this season, fell a point shy of matching his career-high 55 set in 2018-19. With Hayes in his prime, turning 31 years old next month and on a rebuilding team, there’s legitimate uncertainty about his future staying in Philly this summer.
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• The accomplished and well-liked Justin Braun played what definitely felt like the final game of his 13-year NHL career.
“Yeah, I think this might be it,” Braun said during first intermission in an interview with NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Keith Jones.
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In a nice touch by the Flyers, they had Braun’s father Paul Braun on the bench during the first period.
The 36-year-old defenseman was a seventh-round draft pick of the Sharks in 2007. He ended up playing 842 regular-season games and 119 playoff games in his NHL career.
• Sandstrom made 34 saves on 38 shots to pick up his third career NHL win.
Chicago netminder Alex Stalock stopped 31 of the Flyers’ 36 shots.
• Tony DeAngelo was a healthy scratch for the final five games of the season. We touched on the precarious situation last Sunday.
“I’m not going to discuss it with you guys. He’s out,” Tortorella said Tuesday. “I’ve talked to him, he knows where he stands with me.”
Just another question heading into an offseason full of them.
• The organization stares down a summer littered with unknowns and to-do items.
First things first, the Flyers need to hire a president of hockey operations. They also need to determine if Briere is their guy for the full-time GM role. He sure seems to be the clear-cut favorite.
The NHL entry draft is June 28-29 and free agency opens July 1 at noon ET.
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