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 years old, 78 overall, 4 red star potential
10. Spencer Watson, right winger, 20 years old, 78 overall, 4 red star potential
11. Olivier Galipeau, defenseman, 19 years old, 63 overall, 4 red star potential
12. Nick Merkley, center, 19 years old, 69 overall, 4 red star potential
13. Travis Sanheim, defenseman, 20 years old, 71 overall, 3 1/2 yellow star potential
14. Jacob Busch, right winger, 20 years old, 71 overall, 3 1/2 yellow star potential
15. Marcus Pettersson, defenseman, 20 years old, 78 overall, 3 1/2 yellow star potential
Other than Logan Brown, our number 1 overall draft pick, none of these players are going to be stars in the league, most likely. However, quite a few of them will probably be solid contributors to an NHL team in the future. Remember that most of these players will never make it onto the Flyers roster, as most will either stall in the AHL or be traded to other teams. I will try to include a prospect watch every year so you can see what our future looks like and how the players are developing.
Just a couple weeks into the season, we got some very bad news, as Jack Campbell went down and wouldn't return until January, over two months away. I hit the trade market and discovered Michael Hutchinson in Winnipeg, where the Jets had amassed a plethora of goaltending, with 86 overall vet Craig Anderson; 29 year old, 85 overall Ondrj Pavelec; 21 year old, 82 overall Evan Comrie, who had 4 green star potential; and 23 year old, 82 overall Connor Hellebuyck who had 4 red star potential. Hutchinson, who was 26 years old with an 82 overall and a potential of 3 1/2 green stars, was clearly expendable. I sent Winnipeg Eric Fehr, who was no longer necessary with all the young potential in the AHL. I called up Spencer Watson, who was featured at number 10 on the prospect watch.
The team struggled without Campbell, and Hutchinson didn't really provide any help. When Campbell returned in late December, I placed Hutchinson on waivers where he was picked up by one of our rivals, the Boston Bruins. In January, with our cap so low, we actually started to run into minimum cap problems, meaning that players we called up, we couldn't send down due to us going under the minimum cap. I traded with the Florida Panthers for Kimmo Timonen, a former Flyer with a big contract, giving up two depth picks for a player that was going to sit on the bench and not play.
A few days after trading for Timonen, Jack Campbell went down again, this time for about a month. This time, I signed Chad Johnson, a former Bruin, and decided to keep him in the NHL roster, even after Campbell returned.
Going into the trade deadline, our record was 27-33-4, good for 58 points, tied for second-last in the Eastern Conference. The record may not appear that good from the outside, but when you consider that our starting goalie was out for almost three months, it appears much better. Individually, Jakub Voracek and Claude Giroux placed second and third in the NHL in points, with Giroux leading the league in assists, so some fantastic work from our two stars. Here's a look at the team leaders:
Goals: Jakub Voracek, 32
Assists: Claude Giroux, 48
Plus/Minus: Jakub Voracek, +7
PIMS: Zac Rinaldo, 135
Wins: Andrey Makarov, 14
I don't anticipate a busy deadline, with the only player I'm looking to trade being Mikael Backlund, who's struggled taking third line minutes and isn't a part of any future plans. Next post will be the trade deadline, so stay tuned for that. See you all later!
-Henry
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 years old, 78 overall, 4 red star potential
10. Spencer Watson, right winger, 20 years old, 78 overall, 4 red star potential
11. Olivier Galipeau, defenseman, 19 years old, 63 overall, 4 red star potential
12. Nick Merkley, center, 19 years old, 69 overall, 4 red star potential
13. Travis Sanheim, defenseman, 20 years old, 71 overall, 3 1/2 yellow star potential
14. Jacob Busch, right winger, 20 years old, 71 overall, 3 1/2 yellow star potential
15. Marcus Pettersson, defenseman, 20 years old, 78 overall, 3 1/2 yellow star potential
Other than Logan Brown, our number 1 overall draft pick, none of these players are going to be stars in the league, most likely. However, quite a few of them will probably be solid contributors to an NHL team in the future. Remember that most of these players will never make it onto the Flyers roster, as most will either stall in the AHL or be traded to other teams. I will try to include a prospect watch every year so you can see what our future looks like and how the players are developing.
Just a couple weeks into the season, we got some very bad news, as Jack Campbell went down and wouldn't return until January, over two months away. I hit the trade market and discovered Michael Hutchinson in Winnipeg, where the Jets had amassed a plethora of goaltending, with 86 overall vet Craig Anderson; 29 year old, 85 overall Ondrj Pavelec; 21 year old, 82 overall Evan Comrie, who had 4 green star potential; and 23 year old, 82 overall Connor Hellebuyck who had 4 red star potential. Hutchinson, who was 26 years old with an 82 overall and a potential of 3 1/2 green stars, was clearly expendable. I sent Winnipeg Eric Fehr, who was no longer necessary with all the young potential in the AHL. I called up Spencer Watson, who was featured at number 10 on the prospect watch.
The team struggled without Campbell, and Hutchinson didn't really provide any help. When Campbell returned in late December, I placed Hutchinson on waivers where he was picked up by one of our rivals, the Boston Bruins. In January, with our cap so low, we actually started to run into minimum cap problems, meaning that players we called up, we couldn't send down due to us going under the minimum cap. I traded with the Florida Panthers for Kimmo Timonen, a former Flyer with a big contract, giving up two depth picks for a player that was going to sit on the bench and not play.
A few days after trading for Timonen, Jack Campbell went down again, this time for about a month. This time, I signed Chad Johnson, a former Bruin, and decided to keep him in the NHL roster, even after Campbell returned.
Going into the trade deadline, our record was 27-33-4, good for 58 points, tied for second-last in the Eastern Conference. The record may not appear that good from the outside, but when you consider that our starting goalie was out for almost three months, it appears much better. Individually, Jakub Voracek and Claude Giroux placed second and third in the NHL in points, with Giroux leading the league in assists, so some fantastic work from our two stars. Here's a look at the team leaders:
Goals: Jakub Voracek, 32
Assists: Claude Giroux, 48
Plus/Minus: Jakub Voracek, +7
PIMS: Zac Rinaldo, 135
Wins: Andrey Makarov, 14
I don't anticipate a busy deadline, with the only player I'm looking to trade being Mikael Backlund, who's struggled taking third line minutes and isn't a part of any future plans. Next post will be the trade deadline, so stay tuned for that. See you all later!
-Henry
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