Flyers Blueprint For a Rebuild

Once the team has hocked every asset it can, the team should use all its new found cap space to become the island of misfit contracts. Call it expert trade facilitation. The Flyers will need to be shrewd, either taking short term liabilities, or risks on useful players with slightly longer terms that will expire at strategic points in the future. The price for this service would be paid in top 100 draft picks,

In the offseason, the Flyers should look for value free agent signings, reclamation projects or veterans willing to sign one year deals. Carolina took DeAngelo one a one year deal, and turned him into a 2nd, 3rd and 4h round pick. That is a perfect example of a value signing, high upside, little down side. While DeAngelo may have been an extreme case, there is value that can be unlocked in each free agent cycle.

A complete tear down would leave the team short on talent for several years, but that is not much different than this season. Seasons would be sacrificed for establishing a solid foundation and for forward looking assets, rather than running on a treadmill and getting nowhere. I would expect the process to show meaningful on ice improvement by year five, as the second and third round prospects start to fill in the lineup. By year seven, the team should be playing from a position of strength, with a well-managed salary cap with most of the roster on first or second contracts. In addition a pipeline of prospects that should be challenging the incumbents. Seven years seems a lot to ask, and it is, but it is better than another four years of what we have just experienced.