Inside Access: The Philadelphia Flyers' Summer of Change

A promising summer for the Flyers where trades and free agency is concerned. Chuck Fletcher has changed the roster and dynamics of the team. Both were necessary. 

The following transcript is courtesy of the Philadelphia Flyers media department.

Philadelphia Flyers President of Hockey Ops. & General Manager Chuck Fletcher

 

You signed Jones for two million. That’s the same amount Dallas signed Holtby for. What did you like about Jones over Holtby?

It was a really fast-moving market. There's a lot of teams looking for goaltenders. You look at as many situations as you can and find as many situations where the player has the same interest in you that you have in him. You make quick decisions. Martin Jones is a guy that has played really well in this league for a long time. The last couple seasons in San Jose haven't gone as well as he hoped, or the team had hoped. He has over 60 games of playoff experience. Again won 30 games in this league multiple times. He's only 31 years of age and perhaps as importantly as all of those points, he's very familiar with Kim Dillabaugh. He and Kim have a strong relationship. I think they both feel strongly that they can do the things they need to do to get Martin’s game going the way everybody would like to see it go.

 

Do you feel like you are done for the summer for the Flyers? Are there any other moves that you would like to make?

I'm not sure at this point. We're just going to take a deep breath. We’re going to engage a little bit more assertively in negotiations with Travis Sanheim’s camp and with Carter Hart’s camp. They're obviously two very important parts of our team. We'd like to lock those guys up, and then we'll see. I think it's important that there's some opportunity for young players to come in and compete for spots. The cap is always an ever-present challenge. We have a little bit of flexibility now to sign the players we need to sign and have a little bit of room left over. Maybe an opportunity presents itself that we can then pounce on.

 

What is the reason that you think Jones can turn it around this season? Is it mainly the relationship that he has with Dillabaugh?

I know he has a strong relationship with Kim. I think Kim knows his game and feels that he can work with him and help him get them back to where he was. This is a guy that's used to playing 60 games a year, so he's coming into a tandem situation now. I think there'll be opportunities here to get practice time and to work on things. Sometimes a chance to reset and recharge in a new environment is a good thing, too.

 

What went into the decision to bring Nate Thompson back this season?

Just some of the things we've felt we needed to address. He brings size and grit to our team. He is a good penalty killer. He's good on face-offs. He can play left wing or center and just provides us with more experience, more leadership, and more depth up front. It seems like every year if you don't add this type of player now, then you have to add it at the deadline. We just thought we'd get ahead of it and bring him in. We had a good experience with them before. We are excited to bring him back and Nate is excited to come back.

 

Adding guys like Yandle and Thompson and even Jones to an extent, these are players who’ve served in leadership roles in the past. Is this part of almost a culture change with your locker room?

The culture changes. I'm sure that that's part of it. Anytime you can add good quality people, good, experienced players who have been leaders on other teams, it's only going to enhance your leadership group. I think we needed a little bit more experience last year. I think we were a little young in certain areas and it really impacted our performance on the ice. First and foremost, I think these guys are players that can help us win games. They're good hockey players. We also do have a number of young players that are still developing their game and growing into bigger roles. When you surround them with good, experienced quality people, it will help in their development as well. I think just helps organization in general, not just the culture, but the talent, the development of our young players, the work ethic. These guys check a lot of boxes in a lot of areas.

 

Can you dive into Keith Yandle and how he fits into the D-corps?

I think he's perfectly complements our existing D corps. A left shot was something we felt we needed. Somebody to help with the powerplay. Keith is very good at moving the puck up the ice. He's got a lot of experience. Look, neither one of our special teams were great last year. We think we've added some things to help the PK. I think Keith in particular is somebody that can help quarterback the power play and bring another option for our coaches for the power play. I think we have several defensemen that can play on the power play. Keith has a pretty good skill set.

 

With you look at a goaltender struggling, and this applies to Carter last season too, when Jones had a bit of a downturn in San Jose, they had other quality goalies there too that seemed to struggle as well. How do you break down what is the team, what is the goalie and what is a combination between the two?

Well, it's a hard thing to do, but we saw it here last year too. Our goaltending numbers weren't very good. Our team defense wasn't very good. Really, it started up the ice. It was a full team effort, as I've mentioned several times. We didn't manage the puck well. We lost the third guy, lost our third forward all the time. We gave up too many odd-man rushes. We didn't defend well in-zone. We didn't kill well, and we didn't get enough saves. It was a combination. When you don't play well in front of your goaltenders, it makes life very hard on them. You can lose confidence. You start compensating and cheating in different ways. It’s hard to know. I can only speak to our situation. I can't speak to what happened in San Jose. I do know that if we defend better in front of our goaltenders, they in turn will play well and allow our players to be more confident too.

 

Does Keith Yandle’s presence almost augment Cam York’s development, allowing him to have a few more games in the AHL and not rush him?

Again, I think Cam’s play will dictate when he arrives in the NHL. What this move does is just give us more depth. You need a lot of defenseman to get through a season and this goes to our goaltending tandem, too. I think two seasons ago, we played 69 games, last year 56, and are going back to 82. It's a compressed schedule. It's a difficult schedule. We have a five game in seven nights stretch. We have 16 or 17 back-to-backs. All kinds of three-in-fours. We’re crossing the continent again. We're going to need a lot of bodies, and it's going to be an adjustment for the players going back to 82 games and with this type of compressed schedule. I think what we're trying to do as much as anything is add as many quality players as we can, knowing that you're going to need a lot more than 22 or 23 players to survive the season.

 

With Rasmus Ristolainen and Martin Jones, you guys are kind of betting that those guys are going to perform better in a different environment. Why are you so confident that this is the environment they’ll perform better because you guys kind of were the environment where guys didn't perform as well as they have in the past?

Two years ago, we were in a really good environment where players seem to improve and were better. We defended well. We believe in the players we have in our room and believe in our coaches. In particular with Martin Jones, again, I think the relationship with Kim Dillabaugh is crucial. I think coming into a situation where you have Carter Hart here as well. We have two quality goalies that can help each other, that can push each other. We have a very good tandem. We believe in our group. Time will tell, but we think these are quality bets to make.

 

How do you explain so many moves happening and making trades in the flat salary caps?

Yeah, we are seeing more and more trades where teams are attaching assets to players to move the money or taken back dead cap space. You need somebody that's pretty sharp with numbers and understanding the cap to make all this work. There seems like there's been a lot of activity today. I haven't fully wrapped my arms around everything because we've been pretty busy. There's no question there's a lot of teams that think they have a chance to win and a lot of teams are making bold moves to try to get better. That speaks to the parity of the league, and to everyone's belief that if you can add a piece or two, you can be right there. There's always optimism this time of the year. That's what makes it so much fun. It's a tough league.

 

In your mind, do you have an idea how you want these goaltenders to split the time?

I don't. That'll be up to Kim and Alain to get together and figure out what makes sense. Obviously, how the player’s performance and health will come into that. I don't know if it's possible to play 60 games, for a goaltender to play 60 games this year. I'm not sure if it's 16 or 17 back-to-backs. Our schedule changed a little bit at the end. It's five games in seven nights and three time zones I think we have at one stretch. Obviously one guy is playing three and one guys playing two there. It's just the nature of it. I'm sure when we get to the ‘22-23 season without an Olympic break, the schedule may have a few more breaks in it, maybe spread out a little bit better. This year is going to be a tough schedule. It'll be the first time in three years that we played 82 games.

 

With Kevin Hayes knowing Keith Jones so well and Justin Braun knowing Martin Jones, did you reach out to those players to get more information about those guys?

Obviously with Kevin Hayes and Keith Yandle, teams have been really trying to recruit him since he was bought out from Florida. There was a lot of interest in Keith. Certainly, Kevin was an important part of selling the virtues of coming to the Philadelphia Flyers. We're very pleased that Keith chose to come here over many other competitive offers and teams. The Martin Jones situation is a little bit different. He was only bought out yesterday. Again, there's a lot of teams looking for goalies, so it's one of those situations where you rely on your scouts. We obviously have very good information on Martin from Dean Lombardi and Kim Dillabaugh. We relied on that.

 

It is being reported that you signed Adam Clendening to a two-way. Can you confirm that? Are you expecting other potential veteran signings for the Phantoms, but also NHL depth?

Yeah, Brent's been busy. I think we've signed five or six today. I was hoping the release would come out. Yes, we have. We’ve signed Adam Clendening. I did sign this contract. We've agreed to terms with a few other players. Adam’s a guy with 90 games of NHL experience, can move the puck. He has some skill. He’s obviously a star at the American Hockey League level, but he can certainly play games in the NHL. With the skill set and the right shot, we thought that would be a real valuable type of guy to add to our organization.

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Inside Access: Chuck Fletcher & Brent Flahr Mid-July Presser

The following transcript is courtesy of the Philadelphia Flyers media department...

Philadelphia Flyers President & General Manager Chuck Fletcher and Vice President & Assistant General Manager Brent Flahr

 

How difficult was it? Or is it to put together this expansion protected list? What did you learn from the Vegas draft when you're with Minnesota? And how would have any effect at all on how you approach this draft with Seattle?

 

CF: First of all, I think we have our Expansion Draft list put together. If we make moves between now and then, we can adjust it obviously, but we have a pretty good idea of what we want to do and who we're going to protect and who will make available. For this Expansion Draft, we had more time than we did versus the Vegas draft. More time to make sure we had all the holes filled and we met all the criteria that we needed to meet. From that standpoint, it's been a little simpler. The pandemic and the flat cap have made it probably more difficult because obviously, there's cap pressures on teams. So Seattle will certainly have an opportunity there to talk to teams about helping them out with their cap issues in exchange for various assets. We'll see how that plays out. Seattle, I'm sure, will have good options. They've worked hard, but I think we had a little bit more time to plan for this one. We feel like we're in good shape.

 

Is there anything that you learned from the Vegas expansion draft that would affect you in your decisions this time?

 

CF: No, not necessarily. Every situation is different. Our team in Minnesota was a lot different than the team here in terms of the makeup and the composition of the players. I think your goal is always to do the best thing for the organization. And in our case here now, I think our decisions, we had pretty good unanimity of what we wanted to do when we had our pro scouts in town. I think it's a process that may be a little bit more experienced, but we had more time to prepare. Again, I think our list is pretty straightforward.

 

You mentioned about the protection and asset trades. Do you think it's likely that you might look to work out a side deal with them to steer them in a specific direction? Are you more leaning towards just submitting your list and letting them pick and choose with you leave available?

 

CF: I'm open to either. I've had several conversations with Ron going back a few months now. We'll probably take guidance from them if there's something that they think would make sense for them and would make sense for us. My expectation is we’ll submit the list and if whether there'll be conversations after we submit the list or not, time will tell. We're certainly comfortable to submitting the list and having them select a player. I've just indicated to them if they have ideas on something else they want to accomplish to let us know.

 

What is the chatter for you and other GMs? Unless you're talking to Ron Francis, there's not a lot going on kind of right now. He's anticipating waiting till the Expansion Draft for stuff to happen. Is that a fair read on what's going on right now?

 

CF: Probably every team is different. Certainly, the phones have been busy. I've been receiving calls. I've been making calls. We're all speaking with each other. Every team's in a little bit different spot. For some teams, they can acquire a player now, and it doesn't impact their lists that much. There’s other teams that would much rather wait until after the Expansion Draft to make a trade to upgrade their clubs. I think everybody's different. It seems like more teams would prefer to wait until after Seattle makes their decisions. But there is a lot of dialogue. Teams are, I think, trying to get a read of the room right now and see who's available, what other teams are trying to do and what options we all may have once we get closer to the draft and free agency. So a lot of chatter. From our standpoint, we certainly aren't going to be making a trade today or tomorrow, unless something unexpected breaks right now.

 

Have you informed the players that you are exposing in the expansion draft? Is that an awkward conversation or is that business as usual?

 

CF: I haven't officially have informed them. I've had conversations with a few of them. Several conversations with a couple of them about the likelihood of it, about what we're trying to do and why. As we get closer to Saturday, whether it's Friday or Saturday, I will reach out to some of the players for sure to give them a courtesy heads up. Things could still change, so I don't want to jump the gun too much. I think a few of them are aware of what our position is, and we've had good conversations.

 

How are you looking at these next few weeks? Is it more crunch time for being proactive for major moves or are you looking at it as you have a long time until rosters are submitted?

 

CF: This summer to me is similar to every summer, every offseason. The goal is to try to be as competitive as we can next year and yet, we want to make sure we keep a large quantity of future assets that can continue to help us get better as we move forward. We're looking at everything. It's an exciting time, in a sense that with the Seattle Expansion Draft, with the flat cap, you might see maybe a few more trades, a few more hockey trades throughout the week. The draft is always an exciting time. We're picking higher than where we want to pick yet having the 13th selection will give us an opportunity to get a pretty good player. There's going to be hopefully some exciting additions to our club over the next couple months. And probably a few moves around the league that you normally wouldn't see because of expansion and because of the flat cap. We're going to continue to try to make moves and make us better. We know we have a lot of work ahead of us. And we'll do the best we can.

 

When you look at the draft this year, you have two very highly rated goaltenders. Do you see that potentially playing into who you might be picking as best available player?

 

BF: It's going to be a really interesting draft, I think. It's probably been written about the top eight or nine guys. Teams will have them in different orders, but it's probably going to be the same names. What you're going to see is it goes all over the board. I think there's a number of players that probably media outlets and whatnot have not seen a lot of, but teams have done their homework on certain players. Some players haven't played at all this year, which is unique for us and for everybody. You're going to see some variances as the draft expands. It’ll be interesting to see how it works. We're going to be working up right through next week to finalize everything and tighten everything up, but it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

 

You have some players that have big contracts. Does that make it easier for you to not protect them in the expansion draft?

 

CF: I think right now with the flat cap, it's difficult to move players with high salaries in general. I don't know if it makes it easier for the list or not. Ultimately, Seattle's coming in with zero cap dollars, so certainly, they have the ability to add good players, regardless of contract if they choose. I think you're always trying to make decisions where you're protecting the players you feel you need to protect for the short and long term good of your franchise. I think, generally speaking, in this environment, it goes without saying that it's difficult to move money right now and cheaper contracts are probably more valuable in that sense.

 

Is your number one draft pick in play for a trade or do you plan on keeping it?

 

BF: Depends on who you ask.

 

CF: Yeah, Brent wants me to keep it. Look, it's a really good asset. If we use our first round pick to select a player, we're obviously going to be able to draft a high quality player that'll help us. Yet, because it's of high asset value, I think we have to explore what we can do with it. The likelihood is you normally end up keeping your first round picks, but this offseason, in particular, I think I'm more willing to look at moving it. If there's some way we can help our team, not just in the short term, but more over several years over the longer term and it cost me the first round pick, if I can get that type of asset, I'll certainly look at doing it.

 

Going back to March with regards to the blueline corps, you thought the makeup wasn’t right and you needed to address that. Does that still remain a top priority for you after talking to the coaches and staff in your offseason meetings?

 

CF: I think there's been a lot of focus on the blue line. To me, the number one priority is our goals-against. It was just ridiculous how many goals we gave up last year. That goes back to everything. It goes back to the coaches having a great training camp and using the practice time early in the season to reinforce our systems and our structure. It's our goaltenders playing better. It's our defenseman playing better. It's our forwards managing the puck better. We're going to need to look at upgrades to our roster. There's no question. We're also going to need the players that are returning to play better, in particular, without the puck and structurally. We’re going to need our coaches to get our players back in that structure and reinforce the system. It's not just one thing that led us to fall from seventh in the league defensively to the bottom of the pile. You have no chance, no chance to win in this league unless you're at least in the top half of the league defensively. We have a lot of work to do. Again, we have holes we need to fill and we have players that are currently on our roster that need to play much better. It's got to be a holistic approach. It's not just one player that's going to turn it around. It's everybody, starting with me that has to be much better this year and that has been conveyed to everybody in the organization.

 

You mentioned the pandemic very briefly. Does that factor into your decision? You had a lot of younger players who didn't play as well this season. Does that factor into your evaluation, the pandemic and all the challenges that brought this year?

 

CF: It's a bit. It's hard to say for sure what caused some of our young players not to play at the same level. The pandemic would be one logical reason. Maybe expectations for some of them coming off a strong year and just assuming you'd be able to come back and do the same thing. I do think it's certainly is a reason to give pause. Some of our young players, at least in my opinion, are better than how they performed last year. I think you need to be a little bit careful overreacting to one year, particularly in one year, as crazy as last year was. We know they have to be better and we have to be better. I think we just want to be a little bit careful here. We've worked hard as an organization for the last seven, eight years to patiently add and draft and develop a lot of young players. It's kind of been the focus of the franchise, going back to 2014 probably. You got to be a little bit careful that you don't change course and start moving by good young players that maybe struggled for a little bit last year. We have to find a way to make them better. We have to get better and we'll work very hard at that. We'll probably get into this later on in the summer, but we’ve spent an awful lot of time this summer looking at our staff, our structure. I think we've made some really meaningful changes and improvements to how we do things, not just from a coaching standpoint, but from a development standpoint, a scouting standpoint, and a data standpoint. We put a lot of time and effort this summer and fixing some things off the ice that we think will lead to better on ice results. We've looked at everything. Last year was unacceptable. It's been a busy offseason behind the scenes and I'm really happy with some of the moves we made. Now we have to find a way to get better on the ice and that'll be the focus from here on out.

 

Have you zeroed in on candidates for your assistant position on the big club and the two assistants down on Lehigh Valley?

 

CF: Yeah, we've made a lot of personnel moves that we'll announce in short order. We've spent two months doing this stuff, so we will have a lot of changes to announce here in the new in the near future. We've worked pretty hard to that. I think we're in pretty good position going forward.

 

Is there a certain type of elite player that you consider moving that 13^th pick? Is there a certain type of elite play or a certain position that you're focused on, if a player of one position comes up that you consider or moving for our other areas of need that you would consider, and it has to be in a certain elite type of player?

 

CF: Well, I think the second part of it would be the more important part. You know, if you're going to move the 13th overall pick, either by itself or as part of the package, you better be getting a really good player that can help you for a few years. I'm not sure that it has to be position specific. Certainly you want to make sure you're getting a good player that can help you in the short and long term.

 

With regards to Cam York, what difference did you notice after his second year of college? In general, what does that second year of college do to benefit the prospect?

 

BF: First of all, every player is different, especially coming up after you draft them, both physical maturity and mental maturity. Obviously staying in college for an extra year is beneficial in a lot of cases. Some players are ready after their freshman year but playing another year of college never hurts. I think in Cam's case in particular, allowed him to grow physically. He got invaluable experience coming in playing some games in American League, getting his feet wet in the NHL at the end of the year to see where he needs to get to physically to see how playing in the NHL every day works. Cam is obviously a very intelligent player. His skill set is very good. Knowing now for him to what he needs to do this offseason to get ready for this year really helped him and he’s prepared for his offseason here.

 

How would you categorize this draft overall? In the past, you have gone for the next best player available. Is that still the strategy this year?

 

BF: Well, first of all this draft, I think it's been well publicized. I don't think there's any generational players in it. However, there are some quality players at the top end and there is some depth to the draft. There are some different tiers like every year. Our group has done a pretty good job identifying those, but I do think there's some depth through the second and third round this year that our guys are excited about and even beyond. We'll continue to work through that this next week and be ready for next Friday. And then as far as the strengths of the draft, I think there's some quality defenseman at the top of the draft. There's some quality centerman. There's wingers. It's publicized that there's a couple goalies that'll likely get into the first round here. Should be an interesting and we'll see how it plays out.

 

With the presence of Carter in the organization, does it make it less likely to pick a goalie in the first round?

 

BF: We have Carter. Obviously, he's a young goaltender and we have a couple goalies outside the NHL that we feel have a chance as good prospects. It's the next best player on our board and we’ll certainly consider it and take them. At the same time, we have a number of different players and positions that we'll look at as well. But no, we're not opposed. If it's clearly the next best player on our draft board, we'll take them. And to the question earlier, as far as position, we don't really draft by position, especially in the first round. We go by our list, the best player available. Realistically, as you've seen in the NHL, a lot of these players don't play next year. Sometimes our needs right now are changed by two years down the road. That's just a reality we're in.

 

With a trade like the Duncan Keith trade yesterday, is there almost a trickle down effect? Is there almost an innate pressure to get the ball-rolling after the first big move of the offseason?

 

CF: I think that move is probably a little bit different. I think the player had reasons for wanting to go and there were certain teams he would go to. Two teams were able to make a trade. I don't know if it's as much that. I think it's just the timing of everything. Between the Expansion Draft, the Entry Draft following that a few days later and then start a free agency, we have all the big events that may involve player movement really happening within literally a 10- or 12-day period. Once you get past the first day of free agency, the amount of players that are available and the amount of cap space that's available probably be much more limited. I think either there's pressure in the sense that if you have moves you want to make, this is when you got to try to make them. Having said all that, this type of environment where there's not a lot of liquidity in the system, it's a flat cap system, moves are a little trickier, in part because the Expansion Draft. There's not a lot of teams that are just able to take on a lot of money. There's a lot more communication about dollar for dollar type of moves, or can you take some money back or can you do this. It makes it a little bit more complicated. In saying that, over the next two weeks, my guess is the majority of player movement that happens this summer will take place.

 

One thing you talked about in your postseason press conference was the importance of workouts, training in the offseason, the struggles that some guys had with the challenge of the pandemic last offseason. What are you guys doing to ensure that doesn't happen again? Are guys going to be coming back to Philly earlier to make sure that they don't run into the same issues again?

 

CF: In terms of the first part of the question, we have our strength coaches. They worked with the players before they left in terms of the summer program they'll follow. Most of our players have trainers that they train with during the offseason. It seems to be a fact of life now for most pro athletes. This summer obviously, gyms are open and trainers are able to train the players in person where last offseason was maybe a little bit more problematic in some locations. The players have a good idea of what's expected of them. Our strength coaches stay in touch with them. Our team nutritionist has reached out to them. We stay in contact with them regularly through the summer. And as the summer moves on, our coaches will follow up with them. There's a lot of follow up and these guys are professionals. They know what they need to do. They will work hard. I think it'll be easier for every athlete, not just our players to have access to ice rinks, gyms and everything that maybe in the previous offseason was more limited. There's a pretty good plan in place for that. In terms of guys coming back early, that's really up to them. I know some of the players. Shayne Gostisbehere is obviously here. Provorov has been here for a while and then he just went back home. We'll have some players that will come in as the summer moves on and and train here, but that's really up to them. My expectation is by Labor Day, we'll have a lot of people here in terms of our veteran players. Typically, it's pretty quiet around here in July for the veteran players.

 

Is there any progress made in your negotiations with the RFAs, specifically Carter Hart, Nolan Patrick and Travis Sanheim? Also, have you talked about re-signing UFAs, such as Sam Morin, Brian Elliott, and Alex Lyon?

 

CF: I don't know that I really want to get into updates on signings. I usually try to keep that stuff pretty quiet. I will say that with the RFAs, it hasn't been a front burner issue. There's plenty of time to get to those. We have to make the qualifying offers by the Monday after the draft. We'll make those sometime between now and then. Typically, the ball gets rolling from there. I've had some preliminary talks with a few of the guys you've mentioned, but at this point, we have time and we'll get to those in due course.

 

I don’t know if you saw the damage that the Stanley Cup took yesterday. Did you ever worry about damaging the Stanley Cup when you won it in ’09 with the Penguins or back with your dad in ’89?

 

CF: I know the tradition of everybody getting the Cup for a day wasn't enforced back in ‘89. I remember we did have the Cup. My dad brought it to a couple local hospitals. We had a friend that was in a hospital at the time, so I remember bringing the Cup there. Certainly, there weren't a lot of shenanigans with the Cup back then. I've heard various stories over the years, but I don't have any recollections of doing that. Certainly looked like they had a lot of fun yesterday.

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