Lindblom’s Release From Flyers in a Different Light
The Flyers bought out the contract of Oskar Lindblom on July 12th in an effort to facilitate the signing of Tony Deangelo and other free agents as the team attempts to fillout its roster. Lindblom represented the brightest point in general manager Chuck Fletcher’s tenure in Philly, when Lindblom returned to the lineup, in the playoffs, after battling, and defeating, Ewings sarcoma, a rare form of cancer. It was a great moment and a happy ending to a truly harrowing story.
But much like most things Fletcher touches, it has gone to pot and left the Flyers’ nation feeling sad and disappointed. Lindblom’s happy ending will continue, in San Jose as a Shark. I wish him great success and health. Flyers’ fans are left wondering what is going on with the leadership of this team, and many are calling for Fletcher’s termination.
I have been calling for Fletcher’s departure since the Wayne Simmonds trade. So I am a charter member of the Fire Chuck Fletcher/Dave Scott Club. When I ask that another point of view to be considered, this is not an organizational PR spin, but honest analysis. It also speaks to whatever disagreements I have with Fletcher and Scott about how to run a club, we can still appreciate the humanity in each other, a lesson that we need more than ever these days. I think Fletcher absolutely did the right thing in releasing Lindblom.
If we look at the best the Flyers were under the Fletcher regime, it was the Covid summer playoff, where the team seemed to be clicking. The team beat Montreal in the playoffs and fell to the Islanders in seven games, the same series where Lindblom returned. If you remember that season the Flyers were dogged by the advanced metrics crowd for winning despite losing the corsi battle. I had done a season long, game by game, study of corsi, and found a negative correlation between winning corsi and winning the game, which indicated this was a strategy being done on purpose.
The Flyers had developed a counterpunching style where the team seemed disinterested in applying offensive pressure early in games or with leading or tied. Rather than press the issue, the team would sit back and wait for a mistake and then pounce. Players like Aube-Kubel and Frost who did try to force the issue offensively, but at inappropriate times, would find themselves in the press box.
While the syle was effective, it, at times in some circles, did give the impression that the team was lazy. Perhaps they were, but the team’s play and team defense over the last couple of seasons return has cemented that notion. This sentiment is not just within the fan base but in parts of the organizaion as well. The feeling is the Flyers are a low effort team on most nights. Enter John Tortorella.
Whatever personal feelings linger about Torts, his teams work hard, they play a tough, aggressive and energetic game. He will not tolerate lack of effort, he will insist that players find and give that extra one percent. When the coach gets it, he will demand the next extra one percent and he will continue to do so until there is nothing left.
This is what makes him a great coach, but is an extremely demanding process for the players. This is the opposite of the work smarter (if at all) ethos that now permeates the team. It has been speculated that Tortorella is not just here to turn things around, but as a rekoning, or even as a punishment.
The Flyers have brought in the toughest drill sargent in the land to run the toughest boot cap ever seen in an effort to motivate and energize the team. It will be a grueling journey that will separate those who can cut it from those who can’t. A process to seperate the weak from the strong. Ryan Ellis may not survive, and it could end his career, if it is not over already. Kevin Hayes will learn to love to block shots, or love to ride the pine.
Youngsters like Frost and York will get heaping platefuls of tough love, and then get seconds and thirds. It will be sink or swim, careers will be crushed or catapulted. And then there was Oskar Lindblom, a cancer survivor.
Knowing what he has set in motion, knowing that this will be grueling, knowing that this will be a reckoning and knowing that Lindblom’s cancer is in remission, is it possible that Chuck Fletcher did the math and decided he was not going to subject Lindblom to hell on ice? Did the GM see the stakes were just too high? Did Fletcher recognize that staying with the team may have turned into a matter of life or death for Oskar Lindblom?
Watching Lindblom play, he is not one of the Flyers I would consider “lazy”. Knowing what I do about LIndblom, I can’t imagine him accepting being asked, or required, to do less than his teammates in a tough practice because of his medical history. Even if his teammates supported the practice, maybe because his teammates supported him.
Tortorella, for his part, seems to have mellowed and may have accepted special treatment for Lindblom, perhaps assigning him manditory maitenance days on particularly hard days, but at the same time much of Torts’ genius is reactionary. Would he sit Lindblom out of a “lesson teaching” practice after a poor team effort the previous night? Would having a wounded solider, especially a person as wonderful as Lindblom, undermine the full Tortorella effect. Would it make Coach John soft?
I beleive that Lindblom was released to save him from Tortorella, which may be legitimately saving his life. Playing in the NHL is a physical job that stresses the body. Playing under Tortorella heightens that strain dramatically, both physically and mentally. I believe Chuck Fletcher knows this and knows that Ewing‘s Sarcoma has a 30% relapse rate under normal conditions.
I believe that Fletcher knew that Oskar Lindblom would not listen to his body, not wanting to let down his team and ask no quarter from the league’s toughest coach. Fletcher also knew that Tortorella would try his best to protect Lindblom, but still it was far from a guarantee of a good environment for his continued recovery. Further it would not allow the coach to do what he does best, drive players beyond what they should be capabale of doing. In the end the leadership made a caring, decisive and humane decision. It is the right one, as much as it hurts them and the club.
It is hard for me to be complimentary of Dave Scott and Chuck Fletcher. They are wholly responsible for the circumstances of the team, and the events that ultimately led to their need to release Oskar Lindblom. But to their credit, they have put human life over business, over hockey, over winning.
This was a bold and decisive move, unlike the bandaids and half measures that have been all to common under their leadership. While this hurts the team from a hockey perspective, I believe that these are decent and caring people, who looked beyond their job and took a stand to protect someone’s life, knowing that they would be slaughtered for it.
While we all cheered when Oskar rang the bell, and we were all Oskar Strong, Fletcher and company made a decision, which will likely be to his professional detriment all to protect Oskar’s future health. There will be consequences for the leadership team, they knew this, and they still did the right thing.
Doing the right thing is seldom easy and even unpopular in this age. Fletcher has shown me he rates as exceptional in the most important metric, that of being a good person. He is someone who cares for his people and will protect them from harm, even at his own expense. For this, dinner is on me Chuck, anytime, anywhere you want it. Kudos to you for doing the right thing for Oskar Lindblom, and kudos to the fans who understand that.