Fletcher preaches patience in young players at deadline

Flyers fans, their once-promising season stuck in neutral, can be thankful that general manager Chuck Fletcher is keeping his ears open and his trade intentions clear.

The worst thing a hockey club can do in this coronavirus-impacted environment is to overreact, particularly with respect to slumping youngsters like goalie Carter Hart.

Tough as it’s been for Hart, whose 3.85 goals-against average ranked 66th among the league’s 68 goaltenders before games Wednesday, dealing the guy for pennies on the dollar is setting yourself up for long-term disaster. The same with some of the other young entities, which, according to trade rumors include Nolan Patrick and even Travis Konecny.

Think about it. How many 22-year-olds like Hart and his

young teammates are required to work and quarantine all seven days of the week? Once the U.S. and Canadian players are vaccinated, and a new degree of normalcy returns, it’s going to be fun again. But that’s not what you want to hear. It’s your team and you want results now.

Giving up on Hart would be the worst move since Paul Holmgren sent Sergei Bobrovsky to Columbus for second- and fourth-round picks. Bob won the Vezina Trophy the year after the deal and is still a big-time netminder with Florida. The Flyers are still recovering.

Fletcher may have an underperforming team and a coach in Alain Vigneault who doesn’t know how to keep aging

players fresh in back-toback games, but he’s not stupid. Just the same, it sounds like Fletcher has had too many conversations with fellow GMs who want him to throw in the towel.

“We’re certainly not looking at selling right now,” Fletcher said on a videoconference Wednesday. “I would say to you in my calls with managers around the league, first of all that I’ve received very few calls. It’s been very quiet in terms of receiving calls. I’ve made many. I’ve been much more aggressive I think, than a lot of people just looking at different options. But there doesn’t seem to be a lot of teams out there willing to take on dollars and term at this point in time. There seem to be more teams maybe looking to move some pieces then take on pieces for various reasons.”

Dollars-and-term players are guys like 31-year-old Jakub Voracek, who counts

$8.25 million against the salary cap until 2023-24. Voracek has 25 points in 26 games. He still can play, but his best years are in the rearview mirror. Who wants to take on that contract?

The Flyers have another guy like that in Kevin Hayes, the soon-to-be 29-year-old center whose turnovers have helped the team rank last in the league at 27 goals allowed on odd-man rushes. Hayes isn’t playing at a $7.142 million level, his cap number through 2023-24. He sure doesn’t need his no-trade clause.

In this arena, with these stakes, moving on from Hart, Patrick or Konecny would be a flat-out panic move. Worse even than Carson Wentz to the Colts for two second-day draft picks.

“Carter is a young guy who had some success last year,” Fletcher said. “This year he hasn’t played at the same level, there’s no question. He’s

struggled particularly this month. But you look back at a young Carey Price, at the age of 22, Connor Hellebuyck, Mark-Andre Fleury, all of those great goaltenders had some ups and downs early in their careers and had some tough seasons. It’s a hard position.

“I believe in Carter. I believe in his talent. And I believe he’ll be a very good goalie for this franchise for a long time. But clearly right now he’s not on top of his game.”

The Flyers got a curveball when defenseman Matt Niskanen retired in October. Fletcher didn’t fully see that one coming, and it depleted the back end of the defense. Fletcher pointed out that the stellar defensive effort last year resulted from five skaters playing their parts in the defense. This year, some of the guys just don’t have the energy.

What is incredible is that

despite falling to 30th in the league with a 3.52-goals against average and last on the circuit with an 88.1 save percentage, the Flyers have a winning record. And again, they’re in the playoff chase. Fletcher reckons the Flyers will play better when the back-to-backs and crammed schedule eases this week.

“I think we have a chance to reset a bit here,” Fletcher said. “We have good players. We need to play better.”

The reality is the Flyers just aren’t equipped to compete in a COVID season. Not with their old guys. Fletcher quickly said the blame starts with him but that everyone is accountable, from Vigneault to the players. But Fletcher isn’t going to try to fix it by forcing a trade and crossing his fingers that it works.

“Certainly, some of our young players haven’t played to the level that they did last year,” Fletcher said. “I think long-term a lot of these players

are going to be good players in this league and you know, there’s been a lot of challenges this year. Certainly we haven’t played as well as we’ve wanted. I think it’s a year where you’ve got to be a little bit careful, though, in overanalyzing the results. Clearly, they matter for making the playoffs and that’s our goal. But long-term there’s been different challenges this year that you don’t normally face and some players have handled it better than others. Some teams have handled it better than others. But I think you want to be a little bit careful in overanalyzing the results of the season.”

You’re not going to want to read this, but we couldn’t have put it better. More than ever, this a time for the Flyers to be patient.