The Flyers Should Move Heaven and Earth for Jakob Chychrun

Konecny has been a big time Flyer when it comes to personality these past few years. However, the 2015 24th overall pick has been dropping stock since his incredible 2019-20 season that saw him as the next Flyers true blue scorer. His 19-20 season has seemed to be an outlier, with him failing to match the 61 point in 66 game pace in both of the succeeding seasons, not being particularly close in either.

Konecny had an unsustainable shooting percentage of 17% in that 19-20 season, and while his 21-22 shooting percentage of 6.8% could likely be less than his ceiling, he has showed no signs of being able to match his pre-bubble play in the 19-20 season.

The past few seasons have been interesting for Travis Sanheim. Being a seemingly massive part of a horrendous 20-21 campaign, advanced stats saw that Sanheim actually played well above his “eye-test” metrics. And that his poor play resulted more from horrendous goaltending than his poor defensive play.

While Sanheim’s previous season drew much ire from the fanbase, statistically, he had the least support from his goaltenders when it came to expected saves than any other goaltender in the league. This season, he has quietly been the team’s best defensemen, competing with Justin Braun believe it or not, despite the fact that his offensive game has been far less consistent.

That leaves the first round pick. Straight up, people overvalue first rounders when it comes to hockey. Picks obviously shouldn’t be traded for peanuts, but once picks find themselves dropping lower into the first round, they become infinitely more risky than in sports like American Football.

While it may vary by draft, on average, once a pick drops out of the first half of the draft, the odds that they play more than 100 games in the NHL drops beyond 50%. The reason I say this is to make the point that picks made outside of the top 10 often trend more towards being a gamble than they do towards being guaranteed top end talent.