A Swiftie’s guide to the 2023-24 Philadelphia Flyers season

#7. Staal takes ice time from young Flyers defensemen

"“Don’t know what to call this situation,” – Taylor Swift, “Foolish One (Taylor’s Version)” (2023)"

Swifties, this is what I like to call hockey’s version of a ‘situationship’.

The Flyers bizarrely went out of their way to sign Marc Staal to a one-year contract on July 3 when they already had Sanheim, Nick Seeler, and Cam York in the fold. They were also expecting Yegor Zamula back from his season-ending surgery, and the preseason emergence of Emil Andrae makes Staal’s signing look doubly foolish in hindsight.

Maybe Philadelphia assumed that the chances were maybe that Staal had other plans, having just been deployed in a top-four role for a Florida Panthers team that appeared in the Stanley Cup Finals, but instead the veteran defenseman reunites with his former New York Rangers head coach John Tortorella.

Tortorella himself even admitted (or finally acknowledged) that this year was ‘the next step’ in the rebuild, but is there really a reason to carry seven (eight with Andrae) defensemen on an NHL roster?

If Staal can still play, coaching maybe isn’t in the cards in his hand yet, but it would be hard to blame Flyers fans for thinking the team hasn’t learned their lesson by increasing the likelihood of botching prospect development.