Henry's World

After a disappointing second round exit of the playoffs to the Ottawa Senators, our Flyers look to reload and prepare for the Year 6 campaign. -End of Season Awards- Stanley Cup: Ottawa Senators(defeated Colorado Avalanche, 4-3) Presidents' Trophy: Colorado Avalanche Maurice Richard: Evgeni Malkin, Pittsburgh Penguins Ted Lindsay: Jonathan Drouin, Tampa Bay Lightning Frank J. Selke: Jonathan Toews, Chicago Blackhawks Bill Masterson: Fedor Tyutin, Columbus Blue Jackets William M. Jennings: Jake Allen, St. Louis Blues Vezina: Jack Campbell, Philadelphia Flyers Conn Smythe: Robin Lehner, Ottawa Senators Calder: Sergej Kvasha, Los Angeles Kings Lady Byng: Jonathan Drouin, Tampa Bay Lightning James Norris: Erik Karlsson, Ottawa Senators Hart: Jonathan Drouin, Tampa Bay Lighning Art Ross: Jonathan Drouin, Tampa Bay Lightning The fact that we lost to the Stanley Cup champions in back to back years definitely proves that we are a talented team, and it was even stranger...

PREVIEW The Ottawa Senators finished the regular season with a 45-34-3 record, good for 93 points and the third seed in the Atlantic Division. In the first round, they took down the second seed Montreal Canadiens in six games. The Senators are led by veteran sniper Bobby Ryan, who notched four goals and four assists in Round 1. Their defensive corps is talented and deep, featuring team captain Erik Karlsson and young star Kord Pankewicz. In net, Robin Lehner had an excellent first round, allowing only thirteen goals to the dangerous Canadiens offense. This team may lack the superstar talent of a team like the Lightning, but they are not to be overlooked. Forwards Hoffman(81)-Turris(87)-Ryan(89) MacArthur(81)-Zibanejad(87)-Stone(80) Chiasson(81)-Helm(85)-Condra(81) Greening(81)-Smith(82)-Higgins(80) Defensemen Pankewicz(87)-Karlsson(90) Wiercioch(85)-Ceci(84) Cowen(83)-Stuart(81) Goalies Lehner(87) Edmonds(82) SERIES Fourth liner Chris Higgins opened the scoring f...

As I discussed in the blog update I posted a few days ago, I was considering bringing back this series, and now I have. As we enter the fifth year of this GM Mode with the Flyers, we make our second trip to the playoffs, facing off with the Tampa Bay Lightning in Round 1. Can we earn redemption after falling in the Stanley Cup Finals last year? Let's find out! Here's a look at what our lines will look like heading into the first round. I've decided to use Best Lines, meaning that they won't look the same as they did last time. Forwards Rattie(84)-Giroux(90)-Voracek(90) Burakovsky(85)-Horvat(85)-Forsberg(85) Duclair(83)-Couturier(85)-Perlini(83) Lemieux(80)-White(80)-Reaves(80) Defensemen Ekman-Larsson(86)-Jones(86) Hagg(85)-Gostisbehere(85) Pettersson(83)-Meloche(83) Goalies Campbell(89) Schmidmeyer(82) PREVIEW We met Tampa Bay in last year's Eastern Conference Finals, winning in a gritty seven game battle. They finished this season with a 48...

It has been a very long time since I posted in this series, but I've wanted to finish this up for a long time. For those of you who don't remember or weren't around when this series was running, this is my Phildelphia Flyers GM Mode, back on NHL 15 on the last gen. This is Year 5 of the series, with Year 4 ending in a Stanley Cup Finals defeat to the Colorado Avalanche. When I last posted in November 2015(link here ), we had just reached the trade deadline, with a record of 34-21-5, good enough for fourth place in the Metropolitan Division. We had struggled during the season thanks to an injury to captain Claude Giroux, who recently returned. Looking at the lines and the stats, the two pieces I wanted at the deadline were a solid third line right winger, and a backup goaltender, as youngster Carl Schmidmeyer hadn't worked out. I couldn't find the goalie, but did find the winger, acquiring Ty Rattie from the St Louis Blues from 7th d-man Samuel Morin and some asso...

Taking breaks in-between seasons longer than any active TV show, it's the Philly Flyers GM Mode! Finally, the Philly Flyers GM Mode returns to my blog. It's been about four months, but I've returned to this series ready to continue forward. When we left off, we'd just lost the Stanley Cup Finals to the Colorado Avs, and I was pretty upset. Let's start off the return of the series with the annual Prospect Watch. Prospect Watch(top 15 prospects not currently on the NHL team): 1. Logan Brown, center, 20 years old, 75 overall, 4 1/2 yellow star potential 2. Cale Fleury, defenseman, 19 years old, 65 overall, 4 1/2 yellow star potential 3. Logan Flodell, goalie, 21 years old, 78 overall, 4 1/2 yellow star potential 4. Ivan Provorov, defenseman, 21 years old, 73 overall, 4 1/2 red star potential 5. Samuel Morin, defenseman, 23 years old, 79 overall, 4 yellow star potential 6. Evan Weinger, right winger, 21 years old, 77 overall, 4 yellow star potential 7. Alexis...

After a great playoff run that saw us miss out on lifting the Stanley Cup by two games, what will the future hold for the Flyers? The first step to seeing that future is the offseason, which will be covered in today's post. Enjoy! Here are the end of season awards. Stanley Cup: Colorado Avalanche Presidents' Trophy: Toronto Maple Leafs Maurice Richard: Tyler Seguin, Dallas Stars Ted Lindsay: Nathan MacKinnon, Colorado Avalanche Frank J. Selke: Jonathan Toews, Chicago Blackhawks Bill Masterson: Fedor Tyutin, Columbus Blue Jackets William M. Jennings: Robin Lehner, Ottawa Senators Vezina: Robin Lehner, Ottawa Senators Conn Smythe: Nathan MacKinnon, Colorado Avalanche Calder: Nikita Scherbak, Montreal Canadians Lady Byng: Patrick Kane, Chicago Blackhawks James Norris: Erik Karlsson, Ottawa Senators Hart: Nathan MacKinnon, Colorado Avalanche Art Ross: Tyler Seguin, Dallas Stars We did not take home a single award for the season, which definitely got me a little p...

As we entered the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 2011, all the hard work that had been put in during the season was about to pay off. Could we lift the Cup? Stay tuned! PREVIEW (Note: Jack Campbell was injured after the end of Game 7 versus Tampa Bay, but was set to return in time for Game 3. Andrei Vaslievsky would be in net in his absence). The Colorado Avalanche finished the regular season with a record of 38-36-8, good for 84 points, and the last seed to enter the Western Conference Playoffs. Once they got into the playoffs, however, they went off, sweeping the Ducks, beating the Sharks in five games and outing the Blackhawks in six. Colorado is another forward-heavy team, led by Matt Duchene and Nathan MacKinnon, who finished second in the NHL in points in the regular season. Their defense is not incredibly strong, but they do have elite goalie Semyon Varlamov in goal. Here are their lines. Forwards Landeskog(88)-MacKinnon(95)-O'Reilly(86) McGinn(83)-Duch...

An incredible run in the playoffs has seen us make the Eastern Conference Finals, where the dangerous Tampa Bay Lightning await. I'm going to be honest, I did not expect this series to even be close. The Lightning are an amazing team on the game and in real life, and it was going to take an amazing performance to dethrone the kings of the east. Could we pull it out? PREVIEW Tampa Bay came into the playoffs with one of the last seeds in the East, but have been on a tear thus far, beating the Senators in six games and blowing past Buffalo in five. They narrowly lost out to the Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Finals last year, and are two years removed from lifting the Stanley Cup. Their regular season record was 45-27-10, good for 100 points, just two points worse than us. The Lightning are led by the incomparable Steven Stamkos, who partners with Jonathan Drouin on the first line for one of the best pairings in the NHL. The entire team is stacked with talent, and features th...

We begin the second round of the playoffs taking on Sid the Kid and the Pittsburgh Penguins. See how we fare against on of the best players in recent memory. PREVIEW The Penguins finished the regular season with a record of 46-30-6, good for 98 points. They beat the Capitals in six games in the first round, with some major help from Sid the Kid. Crosby recorded 11 points in the first round, all but 2 of them assists. They also have offensive support from Evgeni Malkin and Patric Hornqvist. The Penguins, like the Canadians, have a very strong defensive core led by Kris Letang and Derrick Pouliot. In goal the Penguins have veteran Marc-Andre Fleury. In terms of injuries, Pittsburgh will miss 85 overall defenseman Simon Despres, but he should return by Games 4 or 5. Here are their lines. Forwards Spaling(83)-Crosby(97)-Downie(82) Bennett(85)-Malkin(92)-Hornqvist(86) Kerdiles(81)-Stoll(80)-Rust(80) LaPierre(78)-Vermette(80)-Comeau(81) Defensemen Maatta(85)-Letang(88) Pouliot(9...

We begin our first run in the playoffs against one of the teams I hate the most in the NHL, the Montreal Canadians. Since this our first time in the playoffs, I'll explain who this will be structured. For each post, we'll complete a round of the playoffs, and the posts will come out every day until we are eliminated. In each post, I'll have a preview of the two teams, mention the players to watch for, and show you the lines. I'll have a brief recap of each game, then some analysis at the end of what I thought of the series. Since I did not show you our lines in the last post, we will begin with that. Forwards Burakovsky(85)-Giroux(91)-Voracek(91) Duclair(83)-Horvat(85)-Forsberg(86) Laich(82)-Couturier(85)-Phillips(80) Lemieux(80)-White(80)-Reaves(80) Defensemen Ekman-Larsson(87)-Dumba(85) Gotisbehere(83)-Hagg(85) Pettersson(83)-Michalek(77) Goalies Campbell(88) Vasilevsky(86) PREVIEW Montreal finished the season with a record of 44-28-10, good for 98 p...

After a trade deadline that saw Bo Horvat and Matt Dumba join the Philly Flyers, we finish the regular season in today's post. Will we be playoff bound? Stay tuned! After acquiring Dumba and Horvat, I did have some concern that the team might struggle with the new players. That concern was quickly put to bed as we finished an excellent fourth season with a record of 48-28-6, good for 102 points, the fifth-best record in the league and the best record in the Metropolitan Division. For the first time in the series, we have made the playoffs and we did so in style with the division win, not bad for a team that spent the past two years in the cellar. We improved our points total from the previous year by 24 points. We scored 225 goals, actually six less than last year, but only conceded 207, 45 goals less than Year 3. I was very pleased with our drastic defensive improvement, and I know our goals tally will go up, as most of our forwards are either young up and comers or older player...

Welcome back to the Flyers GM mode. In this post, we move to the trade deadline with our Philly Flyers, and for the first time in this GM mode, we are true contenders. Find out what happens! The two needs that I identified on our team was the 2nd line center, which had been filled by Sean Couturier since the beginning of the GM mode, and the top defensive pairing. Oliver Ekman-Larsson had filled one spot on the top line, but we needed to find his partner. Both Robert Hagg and Sami Vatanen had struggled filling that spot, and I knew I had to trade one of them. I decided to move Vatanen, as he was three years older and already on a pretty big contract. The first trade I made was trading Alex Killorn, who had become a bit of a flop, to the Vancouver Canucks, along with 2016 3rd round pick Riley Bruce, plus a future fourth round pick, in exchange for center Bo Horvat. Horvat is 22 years old with 4 yellow star potential, and has better passing and overall offensive abilities than Coutur...

Welcome back to the Flyers GM mode, hopefully you guys are hyped for season 4. In this post, we will include the second edition of our prospect watch, and begin season 4. Enjoy! Prospect Watch(top 15 prospects currently not in the NHL) 1. Logan Brown, center, 19 years old, 66 overall, 4 1/2 yellow star potential 2. Cale Fleury, defenseman, 18 years old, 50 overall, 4 1/2 yellow star potential 3. Carl Schmidmeyer, goalie, 22 years old, 77 overall, 4 1/2 yellow star potential 4. Logan Flodell, goalie, 20 years old, 72 overall, 4 1/2 yellow star potential 5. Ivan Provorov, defenseman, 20 years old, 72 overall, 4 1/2 red star potential 6. Nicolas Meloche, defenseman, 20 years old, 77 overall, 4 green star potential 7. Evan Smith, goalie, 20 years old, 70 overall, 4 yellow star potential 8. Alexis Pepin, left winger, 21 years old, 76 overall, 4 yellow star potential 9. Evan Weinger, right winger, 20 years old, 75 overall, 4 yellow star potential 10. Samuel Morin, defenseman, 22 ...

In the last post, we finished Year 3 and the rebuild looks to be almost complete. We continue on with the offseason in this post, enjoy! To start off with, I discovered that our AHL team made the playoffs but lost in the first round, so that was about that. In the NHL playoffs, the West came down to the Sharks and the Blackhawks, which saw the Sharks finally making it to the Stanley Cup Finals in a tense seven game series. In the East, Carolina beat Ottawa to advance to the Finals, after Ottawa outlasted the defending champions in the previous round. In the Finals, in the matchup between two teams yet to lift the Cup, it was Carolina who ended the Sharks' dream in a six-game series. Here are the end of season awards. Stanley Cup: Carolina Hurricanes Presidents' Trophy: Chicago Blackhawks Maurice Richard: Alexander Ovechkin, Washington Capitals Ted Lindsay: Jeff Skinner, Carolina Hurricanes Frank J. Selke: Sidney Crosby, Pittsburg Penguins Bill Masterson: Robert Hagg, P...

Previously on..............the Flyers GM mode. A new alliance was formed between the Flyers and the Sabres, but Mikael Backlund was playing both sides. The majority alliance between James Wisniewski and the Blue Jackets management broke down, and when the dust settled, the Jets held all the cards. 21 and a half seasons remain, and the fans are growing restless in Philly. It's the Year 3 finale, who will win the Stanley Cup and who will be run out of run out of town? Find out today, on the latest installment of GM mode. It's been a bit of a break, but the Flyers GM mode returns for the end of Year 3. When I last left you, we finished a quiet trade deadline that saw Mikael Backlund leave for Buffalo. We headed towards the end of the season knowing that we were already well outside of the playoff race, but we wanted to have a decent finish to the year to help our young players progress. Our final record was 36-40-6, good for 78 points, six more than last year. We scored 231 go...

Welcome back! It's been a bit of a break, but I'm back to post more NHL 15 Philly Flyers Be a GM mode. When I last left you, we started Year 3 of our GM mode, with some new faces including future superstar Andre Burakovsky. Today is the trade deadline, will moves be made? With the trade deadline looming, most teams were thinking about big moves and shiny new players. We, on the other hand, had no such ideals. The only player I was actively looking to trade was Mikael Backlund, who had fallen out of favor here in Philly after his acquisition the previous year. We found a trade immediately with the Buffalo Sabres, who have emerged as one of the better teams in the Eastern Conference, led by young superstar Mikhail Grigorenko. Buffalo sent us their second round pick for this year, plus veteran David Moss to balance the books, and we sent the Sabres Backlund and our third round pick from the past draft Aaron Boyd. Now, on the surface, trading Boyd seems a little idiotic, but he h...

Welcome to Year 3 of the Philly Flyers Be A GM series! In this post, I've included a prospect watch to let you know who the future Philly Flyers are, and we also start the regular season of Year 3. Enjoy! Here are the top 15 prospects currently not in the NHL, listed in order of potential, best to worst: 1. Logan Brown, center, 18 years old, 55 overall, 4 1/2 yellow star potential 2. Ivan Provorov, defenseman, 19 years old, 68 overall, 4 1/2 red star potential 3. Nicolas Meloche, defenseman, 19 years old, 69 overall, 4 green star potential 4. Adam Mascherin, center, 18 years old, 54 overall, 4 yellow star potential 5. Alexis Pepin, left winger, 20 years old, 73 overall, 4 yellow star potential 6. Evan Weigner, right winger, 19 years old, 66 overall, 4 yellow star potential 7. Dustin Perillat, defenseman, 19 years old, 66 overall, 4 yellow star potential 8. Samuel Morin, defenseman, 21 years old, 73 overall, 4 yellow star potential 9. Brendan Lemieux, left winger, 20 yea...

After a disappointing Year 2, what will the offseason have in store for the Philadelphia Flyers? Let's find out! First off, despite dominating most of the year, our AHL team lost 4 in a row and 8 of the last 10 to miss out on the playoffs, so not a good year all around for the franchise. The future arrived in Tampa Bay as the Lighting blitzed through the eastern conference playoffs, dropping only one game along the way. In the west, it came down to the Wild and last year's runners-up, the Anaheim Ducks. The Wild swept the Ducks, and took the Lighting all the way to seven before just falling short. The award winners were crowned just afterwards, here's the list. Stanley Cup: Tampa Bay Lighting Presidents' Trophy: Detroit Red Wings Maurice Richard: Alecander Ovechkin, Washington Capitals Art Ross: Alexander Ovechkin, Washington Capitals Ted Lindsay: Sidney Crosby, Pittsburg Penguins Frank J. Selke: Pavel Datsyuk, Detroit Red Wings Bill Masterton: Andrej Sekera, ...

When I last left you, when had finished a trade deadline that saw Wayne Simmons, Cody Franson and Luke Schenn leave for greener pastures. We finish the regular season in this post, enjoy! So, I forgot to add the updated lines in the last post, so here they are. Forwards Boedker(86)-Giroux(90)-Voracek(90) Duclair(80)-Couturier(84)-Forsberg(86) Raffl(82)-Backlund(83)-Fehr(81) Rinaldo(78)-Tyrell(78)-Gordon(77) Defensemen Del Zotto(85)-Vatanen(85) MacDonald(85)-Hagg(80) Wotherspoon(79)-Michalek(82) Goalies Campbell(83) Backstrom(81) We weren't expecting to finish well during the last month or two of the season, and that expectation was spot on. We ended the season with a record of 32-42-8, good for 72 points, down from 81 points last year. We were more focused on the rebuild this year, so the end result was not entirely surprising. We scored 222 goals, twenty more than last year, and allowed 236 goals, 30 more than last year. The ration between the two is pretty clos...

Welcome to the crossroads, where the correct move can save you years of frustration to put you well on your path to lifting hockey's most glorious of prizes, Lord Stanley's Cup. Our team has not performed over the last two years, and I think it's time to shake things up. I analyzed the entire roster and thought about where they would fit into the overall look of the Philadelphia Flyers. The main underperformer was Cody Franson, who we brought in on a very expensive contract in the offseason and had not nearly performed well enough. He was one too many offensive defensemen on our team and looked like he needed to go after only one season. For the forwards, it looked like Wayne Simmons was the odd man out. I wanted to give Anthony Duclair more ice time so he can improve for the future, and Simmons had the worst plus/minus on the first two lines, showing that he wasn't really working out. One big trade later, both players were gone to Calgary in one of the biggest trad...