The Flyers Should End The Mikhail Vorobyev Experiment

It’s time for the Philadelphia Flyers to find another option at their Bottom-6 center position.

A once very promising prospect in the Philadelphia Flyers farm system, it’s fair to say centerman Mikhail Vorobyev hasn’t quite panned out the way the organization and fanbase wanted him to. The 2015 fourth-round selection had an excellent introduction to the team last season, earning the third-line center spot after performing well during the 2018 Training Camp. Vorobyev started out of the gates hot, too, notching two points in his first two games, but hasn’t been able to find the same success in the 33 games since, and his stats will back that up.

Looking at Vorobyev’s numbers this season, the Russian forward has just three points (1 Goal, 2 Assists) in 20 games with Philadelphia thus far, which is a pace of 0.15 points per game. If we put that rate into a full, 82 game campaign, Vorobyev would be on track for just 12 points this year. That’s a pretty low scoring total, even for a guy averaging just over ten minutes of Time on Ice a night. For reference, Chris VandeVelde produced points at a higher rate than Vorobyev has at this moment in three of his four seasons in the City of Brotherly Love with just a few more shifts to his name. Chris. Vande. Velde. Again, not great, gang.

I think what frustrates me and Flyers fans as a whole the most is that Vorobyev clearly has the talent to be a reliable Bottom-Six’er in the NHL but simply doesn’t give the effort needed without the puck on his stick to reach that potential. This was something the previous Flyers regime wanted Vorobyev to work on when they first sent him back to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in 2018-19. We’re now over a year since that move with a different group of faces working in the front office and nothing’s really changed.

Taking the lack of scoring production and energy level into account, I believe it’s time to give somebody else a chance to take the third-or-fourth line center slot and loan Vorobyev back to the AHL. Whether he’d get another shot with the Flyers from then on remains to be seen but I’d like to see if somebody else can fill that role more effectively than Vorobyev has.

If it were up to me, I would move Scott Laughton back to 3C, give Michael Raffl the 4C, and call up David Kase to slot in on one of the lower two lines. I’m just a simple hockey blogger, though, and they are plenty of other options I’d be fine with if General Manager Chuck Fletcher does decide to end the Vorobyev experiment.