Busy Flyers summer may or may not include a Claude question

The offseason can be the most exciting time of year for NHL teams, especially teams like the Flyers, because they’ve spent more than a decade now only pretending they were good enough to compete for a championship.

They weren’t good enough to think that way seriously in 2010, either, but hey, they had a great head coach in Peter Laviolette and due largely to player issues on and off the ice, had to change gears in mid-rebuild when they shipped both Mike Richards and Jeff Carter out of town 10 years ago.

It’s too easy to say that those moves put this franchise in reverse mode for years afterward. It’s also not inaccurate to say that, even though the return for those two in Jake Voracek, Sean Couturier and since departed Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds seemed more than appropriate compensation.

What was lost in those deals for the Flyers was timing. Carter and Richards, who had helped the Philadelphia Phantoms win a Calder Cup in 2005, had a lot of maturing to do, but before long they were reunited in Los Angeles and proceeded to win a pair of Stanley Cups (2012 and 2014) before Richards’ off-ice issues flared to the point of leading to his premature career demise.

Carter had a great tenure in L.A. and was traded to Pittsburgh last season. He has one year remaining on his contract

and at 36 is slated to be the aging Pens’ second or third line center to start the season.

Anyway, two trades 10 years ago is only so much ice under the bridge, except that maybe they left one young Flyer at the time still wondering, what if?

Claude Giroux’s ascension to star team captain was certainly expedited by the Richards and Carter trades. But the fact remains that since those respective trades with L.A. and Columbus, Giroux and the stars that arrived via those trades simply didn’t get the job done together.

Over the past 10 springs, from 2012 through 2021, they made the playoffs only five times, winning a total of two first-round series. Along the way, there were always a lot of promises about the next year, and there were a number of top free agents (though not as many as the decade before then), a bevy of trades, the usual amount of new head coaches and fired general managers ... and ultimately a change in control when Ed Snider passed away in 2016.

All through that time, the constant on the ice was the forward core of Giroux, Couturier and Voracek, with Couturier’s superb two-way skill and Giroux and Voracek’s production numbers and long-term contracts helping

cement that unshakable bond. Now, after yet another playoff miss, it’s time for a change.

The players know it. Soon to be third-year head coach Alain Vigneault certainly knows it.

Hey, even general manager Chuck Fletcher might have a clue. But they all also know that it isn’t likely to happen. For real change won’t likely come until that original group of core forwards, now pared to three, is broken up just like the CarterRichards administration was taken down.

Giroux has been every bit the warrior and loyal leader his bosses and teammates have portrayed him to be. Despite his relatively diminutive size, his 273 career goals and 858 career points rank him as one of the most productive players of his generation, and he’s long worked to bring his defensive game into line with his offensive gifts. He is a complete hockey player, and at 33 is still a valuable cog.

He just wasn’t Sidney Crosby or Alex Ovechkin.

At this stage, Giroux shouldn’t be the player everyone looks to pass the puck to, and he also shouldn’t have to be a top-line go-to scorer. Despite free agent signings of prior Flyer James van Riemsdyk and Kevin Hayes in recent summers, and despite defensive specialist Couturier’s increased production in a center’s role in recent years, the Flyers are still leaning too heavily on Giroux to produce. They have not filled enough holes on

the scoring lines though there is promise with the blossoming Joel Farabee, Wade Allison and Morgan Frost waiting in the wings.

Meanwhile, they’ll try to figure out what they have in Nolan Patrick and Travis Konecny.

Giroux would be fine as the veteran contributor, and will almost certainly be that again this season, scheduled to be his last under a contract that lists him at an $8.275 million cap hit. Now that hockey summer can truly begin, there may be some calls for Fletcher to sit down with Giroux and reps and talk about a contract extension.

Or could they actually propose a list of teams he’d waive his no-move contract clause for, in an effort to join a real Cup contender?

Despite the promise of Farabee and the prospects, and more than $13 million in current cap space, Fletcher has a lot on his rebuilding plate.

The Flyers are likely to lose a significant player like van Riemsdyk or Shayne Gostisbehere or Nic Aube-Kubel or even pending restricted free agent Patrick (good luck) in the Seattle Kraken’s expansion draft of July 21.

They have a goalie in Carter Hart who went from developing star to puzzle last season, and if he isn’t re-signed before July 28 he’ll be a restricted free agent, too. And if they want to make a significant free agent move of their own that day, they’re likely looking

at offensive defender Dougie Hamilton or maybe Colorado’s steady thirdline forward Brandon Saad.

Either one would help ... but Fletcher would have to overpay to have a prayer for either one.

What it means is Giroux is unlikely to get any closer to a Cup this season, which is slated to be his 14th as a Flyer. He has said he wants to retire as a Flyer and take his rightful place as a franchise Hall of Famer and Hockey Hall of Fame hopeful.

That despite only having one season of 30-plus goals and 100-plus points.

But it is Giroux’s relative lack of success on the playoff ice that will be remembered most by any Hall of Fame detractors. It’s one thing to never win a Stanley Cup. The majority of inductees into Toronto’s sainted hall never knew what that was like. It’s quite another to only make the playoffs a handful of times.

So be it. It’s past and the trades weren’t wrong so much as things just didn’t go so right afterward.

But with one season left on his contract, you might wonder if the needy Flyers might be interested in offering a jumping off point for Giroux, who no matter his HHOF credentials will be celebrated as a legend here.

What would be so wrong about that?