Claude Giroux will retire as a Philadelphia Flyer

Since 2008, Claude Giroux has lived in Philadelphia. He started off his time with the Philadelphia Phantoms and earned his way onto the Flyers roster. Giroux has always been an exciting player to watch.

Being captain of the Philadelphia Flyers is a prestigious and wonderful honor to have in the NHL. Sharing the C with the players before him such as Bobby Clarke, Eric Lindros and more great names that I could add. Out of all those names, Claude Giroux has the longest stint with that C on his chest.

Giroux was given the C by Peter Laviolette, but also his teammates. Since Lavy was fired, every coach since has kept the C on the chest of number 28 and there is no doubt why. Everybody who has come through Philly and has been in the locker room with Giroux has had nothing but respect for the guy. A true competitor who hates to lose, but also loves to see his teammates do well is rare. He embodies what it means to be a captain.

I believe he also embodies what it means to be a Flyer. The last two or three seasons, Giroux has been developing his 200 foot game. He has always been good in the defensive end, but he has really honed that part of his game. This season, Giroux has really been able to mesh his offensive and defensive game together to be deadly. It seems like he found the fountain of youth and is ready to go on a tear for the rest of the season.

Moving back to center has also been pretty big for him. Playing alongside Lindblom and Atkinson has really elevated his game as well. Since Mike Yeo took over, Giroux has four goals and two assists in seven games. The Flyers also have points in five of those games. In fact, in that last matchup against the Devils, Giroux was a +5. In 29 games, he has 11 goals and 14 assists this season.

Overall in his career in Philadelphia, Giroux has scored 284 goals and assisted on 599 as well for a total of 883 points. He is 27 points away from 900, one assist away from 600 and 16 goals from 300. These will be all moments he will want to have in the orange and black sweaters.

These last few games under Mike Yeo have shown us a much different Giroux. Well, okay, a much different team as well. But every time he celebrates with his teammates, he has a huge smile on his face. The locker room was changed to help add more veteran leadership into the locker room and everyone still follows Giroux. They added three guys this past offseason who all wore a letter on their jersey but they have a ton of respect for Giroux as well.

The fan base has always given Giroux a hard time, which hasn’t been a fair shake for him. He’s been compared to Clarke, Lindros and even captains outside of the franchise like Crosby and Ovechkin. A lot of fans believe Giroux simply being the captain should lead this team to a Stanley Cup. This team has pretty much started a long retool, though, when Ron Hextall was named GM. Dave Hakstol was nowhere near a competitive coach who could help this team go far in the playoffs either.

Every great playmaker has always been paired up with a true goal scorer. Brayden Schenn was the closest thing to that for Giroux. Mainly he had Wayne Simmonds, Jakub Voracek, Michael Raffl, or Scott Hartnell to play with. Sean Couturier has been good in his career, but he is not a true goal scorer and Travis Konecny has been very hot and cold. For the first time in his career, Giroux has Cam Atkinson to play alongside and those two together have been a force.

We can scrap last year to COVID and injuries, but this season is salvageable. Chuck Fletcher and the front office have shown they want to make the moves to contend for a cup and I believe Giroux will be here to be the first one to raise it. Adding Ryan Ellis was a big move, but only if he can stay healthy. He is a big missing piece as the number one defenseman considering Provorov hasn’t been playing his best hockey but I don’t blame the kid considering he’s playing over 26 minutes a night. That will eventually start to creep into your game.

The point I am making is that Giroux can see what this front office is trying to build and he wants to be apart of it. There is a lot of belief in that locker room and I still believe. In fact, I believe this could be it. This team is one of the more complete teams that the Flyers have had in a long time.  To have rumors of Giroux going to Boston, Ottawa or Montreal is insane.

Not to mention his NMC, but also how he is building a family in the city he grew up. Leaving and uprooting his family would be hard. Giroux has the chance to do what few players get to do and that is stay with one team for his entire career and a lot of players would love to have that stability and security to know that they will be back. Giroux, being 33, will most likely get a two-three year contract extension. I also see him taking a hometown discount to allow cap space wiggle room so maybe 4.5-5.5 AAV. The only way he moves on is if he thinks he still worth more money.