ADDING MARKOV UNLIKELY BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE
Tony Marinaro of TSN 690 radio
tweeted on Tuesday night that unrestricted free agent longtime Montreal Canadiens defenseman Andrei Markov "is talking contract with one team right now - the Philadelphia Flyers." The 38-year-old defenseman, who represents himself in negotiations rather than working through an agent, has been stalled in talks with Montreal. Previously, TSN's Pierre LeBrun posted that the player was seeking a two-year deal.
Flyers general manager Ron Hextall said on Sunday that the team was done in free agency (apart from re-signing the team's own restricted free agents) after signing goaltending Brian Elliott and making some signings geared more for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms' roster than the parent club. He stated that he did not want to "box out" young players whom he feels are now NHL-ready from having the opportunity to earn spots on the team.
Hextall was asked specifically about ex-Flyers right winger Jaromir Jagr on Sunday. He said that the Flyers had no interest in bringing in the 45-year-old legend, because that is not the direction the team is going right now. At least at first glance, the same description would seem to apply to the 38-year-old Markov.
Hextall also stated both on Friday and Sunday that he would continue to monitor the free agency market once the initial wave of signings took place to see if there was still a player or two who could help the team at a reasonable cost. Veteran French-Canadian hockey journalist Ren Lavioe reported that Markov was seeking a $12 million deal ($6 million cap hit over two seasons) from Montreal as unrestricted free agency loomed.
While none of these descriptors would suggest there's a fit between Markov's desires and the objectives clearly laid out by Hextall, the idea becomes more plausible if one looks beneath the surface optics. Start with this: even at age 38, there has yet to be a noticeable decline in Markov's game. In fact, he'd objectively be a top-two defenseman on the team for next season along with countryman Ivan Provorov. It's not that Provorov needs a mentor or another Russian as he is both exceptionally mature and fully fluent in English. Rather, it would be the optimal pairing strictly from a hockey standpoint as both players think the game at a high level and could play nicely off one another.
That leads into point 2: adding Markov would not necessarily box out the rookies vying for roster spots. Objectively speaking, Markov would be an upgrade over incumbent veterans Andrew MacDonald and Brandon Manning (and, for that matter, would also be an upgrade on Michael Del Zotto, who departed via free agency on July 1, UFA Mark Streit, who was traded at the 2017 trade deadline, and unsigned UFA potential retirement candidate Nick Schultz).
The Flyers also have an excess of veteran forwards at present. Theoretically, the Flyers could create the cap space that would be needed to accommodate Markov without destroying their current bit of wiggle room under the cap ceiling.
For example (and this is only an example), suppose the Flyers traded the soon-to-be 31-year-old MacDonald while retaining about $2 million of his $5 million cap hit and also moved Matt Read ($3.625 million cap hit, unrestricted free agent after the 2017-18 season). That would be $6.625 million of cap space opened up; enough to absorb a $6 million cap hit on Markov without affecting the cap management objectives for next season.
Do I expect Markov to land with the Flyers? No, I don't expect it. It wouldn't shock me, either.
The rest of the Metropolitan Division has improved. While the Flyers are progressing nicely with their long-term plan of building through youth, they have arguably lost ground in the simultaneous year-to-year objective of being at least in the hunt for a wildcard spot as they await the NHL impact emergence of more players from the prospect pool.
Adding Markov as a stabilizing veteran for two years would not hurt the plan to build through youth. In fact, it could be argued that it would be beneficial. I am not an Andrew MacDonald or Brandon Manning hater. Both are competent players (although, yes, MacDonald is an overpaid one) and good soldiers. Nevertheless, it will be silly to suggest that the defense corps cannot and should not be improved upon because their roles are already set in stone for next season. If there is a chance for the team to get better and still work out the cap dollars, the possibility needs to be explored. Markov is a better player than either MacDonald or Manning.
Those who mockingly say that Hextall and/or head coach Dave Hakstol "love" MacDonald and Manning so much that they couldn't bear to reduce their roles have selective memories. They forget that MacDonald was cut from the NHL roster late in training camp a couple years ago and spent most of the 2015-16 season in the American Hockey League. Even last season, both MacDonald (a couple times) and Manning (numerous times) were healthy scratches from the lineup when Hakstol saw fit to do so. Neither player is a sacred cow to the Flyers, nor should they be.
I believe that Hextall is savvy enough to at least have exploratory talks with Markov and, if fruitful, to consider ways to realistically adjust the 2017-18 roster and cap plan accordingly while keeping to the same long-term strategy. The quality of the player in question, even at age 38, is high enough to at least explore scenarios to add him if he's interested in playing in Philadelphia.
It still does not seem probable that Markov becomes a Flyer when all is said done. The point here is that the notion also shouldn't be automatically dismissed. It's worth discussion.
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ON FROST, TOLVANEN AND SCOUTING CONSENSUS
In the long-term, if the Flyers' draft-night selection of Morgan Frost pays off and they also draft well with the 2018 (or 2019) first-round pick obtained from the St. Louis Blues in the Brayden Schenn trade, the deal will be boon to Philadelphia. For the short-term, though, the only immediate player coming back to the Flyers is Jori Lehterä.
Recently, I wrote an article for the Flyers' official website
discussing in-depth what the Flyers can realistically expect from Lehterä next season. In a nutshell, his primary value figures to be a "process player" to help the team match up better at five-on-five. He can add in some playmaking ability as well, but replacing Schenn's 25-goal capabilities will have to come from other veterans plus young players picking up the slack.
On the Flyers' site, I also wrote an
introductory profile on prospect Frost. It was interesting that Hextall noted that Flyers scouts unanimously were high on Frost's upside as a speedy and savvy playmaker.
In the first place, as Hextall also stated, there wouldn't be a lot of prospects drafted at all if unanimity was required when ranking players internally. The realistic goal is usually one of consensus rather than absolute agreement across the board.
Specific to Frost, the unanimous endorsements by the Flyers scouts are doubly interesting because, from the publicly available outside sources, there was little consensus. It all depends on the source. Grant McCagg (former Montreal Canadiens scout, now editor of Recrutes) had Frost 21st overall, and ranked him among the top six playmakers in the draft class. Bob McKenzie projected Frost in the early 2nd-round range (38th), which is actually a negligible ranking difference from 21st. Once you move out of the top 20 into the next 20 or so, it's splitting hairs. Central Scouting had him 31st among North American skaters, Others had Frost much lower, with International Scouting Services' 72nd overall ranking being the extreme outlier.
Truth be told, even when there is outside consensus on a player, the assessment isn't always proven right. Thus, if the Flyers' scouts felt as strongly about Frost as they apparently did, it was absolutely the right call on draft day to step up and select him with the 27th overall pick after the Schenn trade was made.
Outside opinion did not -- and should not -- enter into the decision. In this instance, though, some of the outside assessment was right in line with the range where Frost was drafted and some was not. In either case, the pick was by no means a "reach." Those who said the Flyers could have easily still drafted Frost in the second round have no clue as to whether it would have played out that way or not.
Some have expressed concern that Frost did not average quite a point-per-game in his draft year. Over his final 21 regular season games, however, Frost posted 23 points (seven goals, 16 assists). Keep in mind, too, that Frost was playing for a deep Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds team that had balanced scoring: seven players with 49 or more points, topping out at 80, and six with 20 or more goals. As a 17-year-old, he worked his way into the top six of the lineup with power play responsibilities.
These are all things that are indicative of a player trending in the right direction in his development over the course of a season. As long as there is a belief that the improvement will continue, this a more important context for drafting a player than his raw stats.
Time will tell if the Flyers' scouts accurately pegged Frost. Some Flyers fans expressed disappointment that the organization did not use the pick instead on Finnish forward Eeli Tolvanen. Keeping in mind again that consensus isn't always proven right, it should be noted that Tolvanen started the season as a consensus top-10 prospect for the 2017 Draft and then saw his stock fall. He was ultimately selected by Nashville with the 30th overall pick.
Even Tolvanen's critics admit that he was clearly one of the best pure shooters in the draft class this year. So why did he tumble, apart from being slowed by an injury during the World Junior Championships? Basically, it appeared to come down to two factors.
As with Frost, Tolvanen is an undersized player who relies on his puck skills and offensive instincts. Unlike Frost, who won the 30-meter speed burst competitions both with and without the puck during the CHL Top Prospects showcase this past season, Tolvanen did frequently not show breakaway speed. Being undersized without superior skating is a red flag combination to many scouts. However, this could also have been a product of playing through injury.
Secondly, there was disagreement over how hard Tolvanen is willing to compete when he doesn't have the puck on his stick. Critics said he routinely cheated out of the defensive out and competitiveness would only surface when he sniffed out a potential scoring opportunity. Others said they were pleased by his attention to detail and commitment without the puck on his stick. Since those are polar opposite assessments, this is where repeated viewings and collective observations come into play when doing internal ranking.
There were also gripes over Tolvanen's willingness to survey the ice to see if there is a teammate open in scoring range rather than looking to shoot whenever possible. The less polite term is "puck hog" (which, coincidentally, McKeen's said was also a term that was used in the past for Frost because of his perceived propensity to dangle with the puck as long as possible when carrying the puck up the ice). There was a fairly high degree of consensus, at least among the pundits, that Tolvanen needs to make better use of his linemates even as a shoot-first type of forward.
Were the criticisms of Tolvanen as a one-trick pony accurate? Was he legitimately surpassed as an all-around prospect in a draft that wasn't considered especially deep? Is it just another instance of the phenomenon of a hyped player being nitpicked and dropped in the ratings in favor of less-hyped players bolstered by a bit of "recency bias"? It will be up to Tolvanen, as well as Frost, to prove doubters wrong and to justify the faith of the teams that ultimately drafted them.
In terms of answering the question "why Frost and not Tolvanen," the answer is that the Flyers scouts were higher on his overall potential when they got together to come up with their final rankings. The combination of speed, creativity and the ability to create chances either for linemates or himself won out over the combo of a more explosive shot with comparable instincts.
It also probably helped Frost's case that he is a natural center with the potential to switch to wing if need be, whereas Tolvanen is strictly a winger. Like it or not, many organization prefer high-end natural centers as early-stage prospects and subscribe to the belief that most skilled centers could adapt to a wing but, with a few exceptions (such as Claude Giroux switching from right wing to center at the NHL level), wingers are less versatile in how they can be deployed. If two prospects are ranked close in a best-available-player scenario, the natural center will get a small advantage because he's been playing the more overall demanding position.
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TOYOTA FLYERS CHARITY CLASSIC: BERNIE IS READY
Bernie Parent's wife, Gini, posted a video on Facebook of the hockey legend working out in preparation for the upcoming Charity Classic on July 16. He will be walking the 5K course as he co-captains the "Italian-French Connection" team in conjunction with his wife. Chronologically, Bernie is 72 years old but he is forever young in spirit and will.
As with the other six Flyers Alumni-captained Charity Classic teams, Bernie's team is open to the public to join. While participants need not participate in the same event as the captain in order to join his team, some fans who've signed up have opted for a team in which the captain is doing the same event.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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