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New York Times
3 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Philadelphia Flyers fan survey: What do you think of Briere, Tocchet, Michkov and more?
It's been a newsworthy few months for the Philadelphia Flyers. John Tortorella was replaced by Rick Tocchet. Trevor Zegras was acquired from Anaheim. Porter Martone is now arguably the top prospect in the organization, while another goalie and depth center were acquired in free agency. We're also about to enter the third year of the Daniel Briere and Keith Jones era — and with summer here, it's a good time, in our opinion, to gauge fan sentiment in the form of a brief survey. Results and analysis will be presented in a future piece. Anyone having trouble viewing the survey also can use this link. (Photo of Matvei Michkov: Scott Taetsch / Getty Images) Loading…
New York Times
11-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Dan Vladar should improve Flyers' goaltending — and could make Sam Ersson better, too
The simplest way to frame the Philadelphia Flyers' goaltending misery probably goes something like this: For the past year and a half, the club has had just one NHL-caliber option, and that option, Sam Ersson, is still a young player experiencing some growing pains and who hasn't shown on a consistent enough basis yet that he's ready for a No. 1's workload. Advertisement But it's also worth remembering how it looked before Carter Hart's abrupt departure on Jan. 23, 2024. At that time, Ersson was thriving with a 12-6-3 record, .909 save percentage and 2.36 goals-against average in what was still technically his rookie season. He had settled in as a more than capable backup; in fact, he was essentially platooning with Hart at that point because of how well he was playing. He was earning more playing time. The Flyers had a legitimate and effective tandem. Their .900 team save percentage was 14th in the NHL, and they were alone in second place in the Metropolitan Division a little past the halfway point of the regular season. But everyone knows what happened next: Ersson couldn't handle the increased playing time after Hart departed, the Flyers had no other viable alternatives to give him any sort of meaningful respite, and the club foundered. Then-coach John Tortorella's frequent assertion that if Hart had remained on the team, it would have made it into the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs is supported by the evidence. Ersson will still be on the roster at the start of the 2025-26 season. The Flyers have faith in the 25-year-old — probably even more so now after his standout performance at the World Championships for Team Sweden — but they also recognized at the end of last season that they had better get him some help if they're going to improve. That help is Dan Vladar. The 27-year-old signed a two-year, $6.7 million contract with the Flyers on July 1 and spoke with the local media for the first time on Friday on a video conference call. He echoed general manager Daniel Briere's comments immediately after the signing, that the opportunity for him to grow his career with the Flyers was the main motivator. 'Since the first time I heard about the organization that they had some interest in me, I really wanted to come,' Vladar said. 'I'm happy it worked out and I can't wait to be going there.' Dan Vladar is heading to the City of Brotherly Love! 🟠 #NHLFreeAgency — NHL (@NHL) July 1, 2025 He continued: 'That's another reason why I wasn't satisfied with my role in Calgary: I want to keep moving forward. I just felt like Philly is the best spot for me going forward. I'm one hundred percent confident I have a lot more in me.' The biggest question mark with Vladar is whether he'll be able to play more than he has to this point in his career. He has never started more than 29 games in a single season — last season, when he went 12-11-6 with a 2.80 goals-against average and .898 save percentage with Calgary as the No. 2 to Dustin Wolf, who ended up in second place in Calder Trophy voting. Advertisement And while he was still firmly the No. 2 goalie in the second half of the Flames' season, after the 4 Nations break, Vladar found a groove. He closed out with a 5-1-1 record, .926 save percentage and 1.99 goals-against average in his final eight appearances. After a hip injury that required surgery ended his 2023-24 season prematurely in March of that year, he felt he was in a good place physically at the end of this past season. 'As the year went on and it got longer, I just started to feel a little bit better with my strength,' he said. The door will be open for Vladar to play 40-plus games this coming season if he can handle it, something he surely realized when he inked his new deal. Briere mentioned that he's informed all of the team's goalies — including the now No. 3, Ivan Fedotov — that playing time will be earned. There won't be any de facto No. 1 when training camp begins in September (although Briere did strongly suggest that it will be Ersson and Vladar as the tandem on opening night). 'My message to them is (that) it doesn't matter where you slot in right now. Come in and be ready,' Briere said on July 1. 'When it's your turn, you've got to perform. I hope we can create an environment that every single night they're battling for their spot. We're going to need at least three goalies. Maybe more. We know that, and Vladar helps put us in a better position.' While Vladar is clearly an upgrade over the Flyers' two backups last season, Fedotov and Aleksei Kolosov, his presence is designed to give a boost to Ersson, too. After all, it wasn't all that long ago that Ersson seemed to be on a solid path before the chaos of the Hart situation. 'Sam is also a goalie that needs to be fresh,' Briere said. 'He's at his best when he's fresh. Worked really well when he was a tandem with Carter Hart. (If) we can get him that (way) again, that would be great.' Advertisement Ersson has always seemed like a level-headed guy, and his ability to self-assess his own game was something that Tortorella frequently mentioned as one of the goalie's best attributes. Both he and Vladar would seem to view the goalie position from a similar perspective: they want to play as much as possible, of course, but they know they're going to have to lean on their counterpart from time to time, too. '(In) a long year, both (goalies are) going to have their ups and downs. I think you're trying to maximize both,' Ersson said at the end of last season. 'When the goalie is hot, you're trying to ride that goalie a little bit more, and I think sometimes in tough stretches … you're going to rely on each other to help each other out and win some games when the team needs it. If one guy is struggling a little bit, you need the other guy to step up a little bit more.' That didn't happen last season. When Ersson struggled, the Flyers were cooked, considering who was behind him. Vladar should help, particularly if he can build off of his 2024-25 late-season success. And, he seems to have the same mindset as Ersson in that Flyers' goaltending will be more of a partnership than anything else. 'I can't wait to be working with Sam,' he said. 'If he's going to feel like I can maybe step up and tell him something, I will do it for sure. The thing I want from him is the same thing: if he's going to see something to help me out, as well. That's how I think it should be working.' Vladar continued: 'Obviously, I'm going there to play as many games as I can, but I'm there for team success. Whoever is hotter at the time should be playing. That's my view.'
New York Times
07-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
After Cam York contract, are the Flyers done for the offseason?
After inking restricted free agent defenseman Cam York to a five-year, $25.75 million deal on Monday ($5.15 AAV), Philadelphia Flyers general manager Daniel Briere has nimbly taken care of what was the only obvious bit of pending business. As reported here previously, it was a drawn-out process with York. After his breakout 2023-24 season, there were talks toward the beginning of last season that broke down fairly quickly. When the club agreed to extensions with pending RFAs Tyson Foerster on May 29 and Noah Cates on June 11 — and York was left unsigned — it fueled speculation that York, who had an up-and-down 2024-25 for a few reasons, might be dangled as trade bait for a roster upgrade elsewhere. Advertisement Instead, the door still remains wide open for the 24-year-old to establish himself as key part of the future. There are no guarantees that will happen. The Flyers left themselves some flexibility here, as the deal doesn't include any trade protection (per a team source) despite them buying two seasons of what would have been unrestricted free agency for York. But there may not be a player on the Flyers' roster that is more looking forward to the coaching change to Rick Tocchet than York, who never really seemed to see eye-to-eye with John Tortorella and whose heated argument with the coach during a game in Toronto hastened Tortorella's firing two days later on March 27. As York said on getaway day after last season, once Brad Shaw took over on an interim basis, 'I able to play with a bit more freedom. Maybe not gripping the stick as tight. As a player, that's everything, in a way. It felt good to kind of get back to that, and have that mindset.' It stands to reason that a new five-year deal should help that mindset, too. If Briere is done for the summer, he's seemingly accomplished what he consistently said he set out to do — improve the team for the immediate future, while maintaining flexibility for the 2026 offseason. Yes, it's quite possible that the Flyers have already hit 'rock bottom' in their rebuild, as Briere said he was hopeful was the case in his comments immediately after Tortorella was let go. There are reasons for optimism they could start to turn a corner. The dreadful power play, 30th in the NHL last season and last for the previous two, will get some fresh eyes with Tocchet and assistant coach Yogi Svejkovsky. Tocchet, especially, has had success coaching power plays in the past. Unlike with Tortorella and former assistant coach Rocky Thompson, there should be more of a teaching element on the power play from the new staff. Advertisement The center depth is improved. No doubt that Christian Dvorak's one-year, $5.4 million deal is an overpay, but it was a necessary one considering how desperate the Flyers were for another pivot. To clarify: the Flyers didn't sign Dvorak with the idea of flipping him at the trade deadline. While that can always happen if the team ends up being terrible, Briere has made it clear in some of his comments that he owes it to the players who have been on the team for a few years now (think Travis Sanheim, Travis Konecny) to try and make a run at the playoffs. Both the Flyers and Dvorak agreed to this deal under the assumption that he will be around for the duration (and Dvorak, according to a source close to the player, is looking forward to playing for Tocchet again, too). There is more elite skill. That's in the form of Trevor Zegras, of course, whose YouTube highlight reel is as dazzling as anyone's in the league. Briere was universally praised for the deal, as he didn't have to surrender that much to acquire Zegras, who may simply need a change in scenery to resume a career that looked to be on the cusp of stardom. Even a return to Zegras' previous career high of 65 points would be a home run, especially if it comes with him skating in the middle of one of the top two lines, as is his and the team's preference. The league-worst goaltending has nowhere to go but up. Dan Vladar probably isn't going to be in the running for the Vezina Trophy anytime soon, with a career save percentage of .895, but he's an experienced goalie and, at age, 27, that he could still conceivably get better. If Vladar puts up just league-average numbers, allowing Sam Ersson to regain his form as a solid tandem guy before Carter Hart's departure midway through the 2023-24 season, that alone would be worth a double-digit improvement in points in the standings. Young players are arriving. A fifth-round pick in 2022, Alex Bump has emerged as a winger who, at this point, should probably considered likely to make the opening-night lineup. He may even be joined by this year's No. 6 overall draft pick Porter Martone and/or 2024 first-round pick Jett Luchanko, both of whom will come to camp in September with an eye on making the roster. And the Flyers expect their other young players already here to get better, too. Matvei Michkov, in particular, could be ready to break out after an outstanding rookie season. There remains the possibility for another notable move, particularly after Briere said he might be willing to go the offer-sheet route. That could be a way to upgrade the center position. Or, perhaps there could be trade talks involving Sabres defenseman Bowen Byram, who is still without a deal in Buffalo. Advertisement But that feels increasingly unlikely. The Flyers are now up against the salary cap for next season (they may even have to make a more or two before the season begins to get cap compliant), yet still have plenty of cap space to play with in less than a year, as they finally reach the end of a three-year process of carrying dead money in the name of resetting the team culture and acquiring future assets. Briere has been patient and methodical in his approach in getting here. There's not much reason to believe that's going to change between now and the start of camp in a little more than two months.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
In Hainsight: Coaching Has Changed
Hours before the Philadelphia Flyers were set to take on the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday night, the organization announced that coach John Tortorella had been relieved of his duties. The move shouldn't come as a shock to anyone. After the last Flyers' game, he was quoted as saying: I'm not really interested in learning how to coach in this type of season. - Canadiens: An Opportunity To Bounce Back Sam Montembeault Must Be Better No Room For Ivan Demidov If that's not walking straight on the plank to be pushed at sea, I don't know what is. His stay in Philadelphia lasted less than three complete seasons. In 237 games, he had a 97-107-33 record with the Flyers, his second-shortest stint in the NHL; he only stayed in Vancouver for a single season. Advertisement While Tortorella was a very effective coach in the past, his style doesn't really fit in today's NHL. The days of the tough coaches are long gone in the NHL. Martin St-Louis often tells the media that a significant part of his job is selling his teachings to the players. Once upon a time, hockey players were like robots and would do as the coach ordered them. Athletes want to understand why they must do or act a certain way. Juraj Slafkovsky didn't start playing a more physical game because he was told to do so. It was explained to him why the organization needed him to play that way to become the best player he could be. Don't get me wrong—the man once was a great coach. He's ninth in all-time wins among NHL coaches with 770 wins (12 short of Al Arbour in eighth place). He won the Stanley Cup with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2004 and captured the Jack Adams Trophy in 2017 with the Columbus Blue Jackets and in 2004 with the Bolts. The Canadiens coach has repeatedly said he has learned a lot from his former coach, but it's obvious to anyone watching him interact with his team that he didn't take all the leaves out of Tortorella's book The game has evolved, and the coaching has as well. St. Louis is a perfect example of it, and Tortorella is part of a near-extinct species. It will be interesting to see if another team is willing to take a gamble on the 66-year-old bench-boss. Canadiens stories, analysis, breaking news, and more! Tap the star to add us to your favorites on Google News, never to miss a story. Advertisement Follow Karine on X @KarineHains Bluesky @ and Threads @karinehains. Bookmark The Hockey News Canadiens' page for all the news and happenings around the Canadiens.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
BREAKING: John Tortorella Relieved Of Head Coach Duties
Philadelphia Flyers head coach John Tortorella has officially been relieved of his duties. OFFICIAL: The Flyers have relieved John Tortorella of his duties as head coach. Philadelphia Flyers Associate Coach, Brad Shaw, has been named interim head coach and will assume duties immediately. — Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) March 27, 2025 On Thursday morning, the Flyers announced that "the team has relieved John Tortorella of his duties as head coach. Philadelphia Flyers Associate Coach, Brad Shaw, has been named interim head coach and will assume duties immediately." 'Today I made the very difficult decision to move on from John as our head coach," said Flyers GM Danny Briere. 'John played a vital role in our rebuild. He set a standard of play and re-established what it means to be a Philadelphia Flyer. "John's passion on the bench was only equaled by his charitable work in our community. As we move into the next chapter of this rebuild, I felt this was the best for our team to move forward. I'd like to thank John for his tireless work and commitment to the Flyers." Tortorella assumed the role of head coach in 2022. During his tenure, he reached 1,500 NHL games coached—the first American-born coach to reach the milestone. The Flyers have nine games left in the season, including tonight's matchup against the Montreal Canadiens.
