Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher spoke to the media today by video conference call. Among other topics, he discussed the team's underachievement this season especially on defense and in goal, whether he expects to be a buyer or seller at the NHL trade deadline, whether he feels he over-valued some of the talent on the roster, the accountability of himself and the coaching staff as well as the players, as well as some prospect-related evaluations and the injury rehab status of Morgan Frost after shoulder surgery.
A transcript follows below, courtesy of the Flyers:
Do you feel like you are going to be buyers or sellers in the coming weeks? Do you have to be closer to the deadline to determine that?
We’re certainly not looking at selling right now. I would say to you, in my calls with managers around the league, first of all, I have received very few calls. It’s been really quiet in terms of receiving calls. I’ve made many. I’ve been much more aggressive, I think, than a lot of people just looking at different options. There doesn’t seem to be many teams out there willing to take on dollars or term at this point in time. There seem to be more teams that are looking to move some pieces and take on pieces just for various reasons. We’ll take a look. Anything we do, we want to make sure it make sense. If we can fill a box for the long-term right now, we can potentially explore that. Certainly, if we can upgrade our team, we’ll do that. How much blame for this season should be placed on the coaches? Do you look at the coaches for the blame of the regression in certain areas of play?
Wel, it starts with me. I’m responsible for the overall direction of the team from hiring the coaches to bringing in the players. At this point in time, everyone’s accountable. We’re all accountable for where we are at in the standings. Having said that, we’re still in the middle of a playoff battle here. We’re pushing to get back in. Certainly we lack consistency this year. That’s been frustrating. Our goals against has been frustrating. I also look on the positive side. Two of our best games have been in the last week. I think as a group, we know the recipe for success. We just have to find it a little more consistently.
What’s your degree of concern organizationally that you might have overestimated the talent of the young players?
With young players, there’s going to be ups and downs. I think we recognize that. Certainly some of our young players haven’t played to the same level that they played last year. I think long term, a lot of these players are going to be good players in this league for a long time. There’s been a lot of challenges this year. Certainly, we haven’t played as well as we wanted. I think it’s a year that you have to be a little bit careful though in over-analyzing the results. Clearly they matter for making the playoffs and that’s our goal. Long-term, there’s been different challenges this year that you normally don’t face. Some players have handled it better than others. Some teams have handled it better than others. I think you want to be careful over-analyzing the results of the season.
Do you feel that you have to do something to improve the defense? Or is this team good enough to make the playoffs?
We are always looking to improve. I think, long-term, there’s certainly some holes that we need to fill to get to where we want to get to. For this year, I think we have a good hockey team. We’ve had a really tough month. I think at the end of February, we were 11-4-3 after consecutive shutout wins in Buffalo. I think our play had been a bit uneven but we’d had great results. This month has not been good. We’re 4-8-1. We’ve just gone through a challenging stretch of 13 games in 21 days and the results haven’t been good. I do think we can rebound from this. I think we’ll get a chance to catch our breath a little bit here. We don’t have as many back-to-backs in the next little stretch here. We’ll actually get a chance to have a practice or two and have a chance to reset a bit here. We have good players. We need to play better. Again, in the last week, we’ve had two of our best efforts. The way we played in those games showed me that we can be a good competitive team. That’s what we’re going to focus on – how do we get to that level on a more consistent basis?
Considering everyone in the league is experiencing the same thing, why should we not over-analyze what is happening with the team right now?
As I said, I think certain teams have handled it better. Certain players have handled things better than others. I think there is a massive mental and emotional challenge this year. In life, probably even among all of us, some people have handled it better than others. Some people have faced different challenges. There are certainly some players that are not at the level they need to be at and are not in a good place in some different ways. There’s probably a little bit more to their play than what everyone realizes. I think we’ve just got to be a little bit careful over-analyzing some of these young players that have shown to be good players in the past. My expectation is that they’ll find that path again.
How does this year fit into the pattern of the past seasons going all the way back to 2013?
I haven’t been here that long. Last year was my first full season and this is my second. Obviously this year hasn’t been anywhere near like last year in large part because we are 30th in league in goals against and 31st in save percentage. We’re giving up way too many goals. Last year, we defended well as a five-man unit and we had strong goaltending. This year, we’re not defending well as a five-man unit and our goaltending has not been at the same level. That’s what I see really from last year to this year. Our goal now is to get back and defend better. Just going back to the game on Monday night, I thought we did a great job. I thought our forwards managed the puck way better. I thought we had a very good F3. I thought we didn’t give up many odd-man rushes. I think we gave up one the whole game and that allowed our D to have better gaps. We had some saves. The formula, I wouldn’t say it’s simple, if it’s simple, you would do it every night. It’s just getting that consistency of playing the right way up the ice and allowing our D to defend better and hold the line better and allowing our goalies not to face so many odd-man rushes. We’ve given up 27 goals off the rush this year. That’s the most in the league by far. One of the hallmarks of our team last year is we defended well and we did not give up those types of chances. It starts up the ice. We put a lot of pressure on our D and goaltenders by the way we play up the ice. It’s something that we feel we can fix. We’re going to have to do it quickly, but we feel we can fix that.
How much of the regression in goal prevention from last year is due to the absence of Matt Niskanen and/or the regression of other rostered players?
Matt was a great player for us and clearly, we didn’t fill the void. That type of player is difficult to find. As good as Matt was for us last year, it’s a pretty massive variance in the goals against. It’s a team level effort right now. Again, we’ve had nights where we’ve defended really well. That’s what we have to get back to.
What is your opinion of the Tim Peel situation? Have you heard from your players of situations like that or referees having difficult attitudes?
I really haven’t looked into the matter much. I’ve been so focused on last night and making some calls today. I’m not really sure I’m fully aware of everything that went on there. I’m probably best not to comment.
Can you assess Oskar Lindblom’s and Nolan Patrick’s season so far? Also, do you see Sam Morin being up with the Flyers at some point?
I think both Oskar and Nolan are getting better. Oskar went through a very difficult process with chemo and battling cancer. I think he’s getting better and better. He’s getting his timing back. I think with another full summer, I think he will be even better next year. He’s starting to win more battles. He’s starting to get to the right spots on the ice. He’s making a few more plays. We’ve seen a lot of progress with Oskar. Same with Nolan. It hasn’t been reflected in the stats necessarily, but I really liked his game recently. I thought he played really well on Monday night. I thought he created some chances. Last night, I thought he was on pucks. He was skating and he was working. I think both of them are getting better.
As for Sam, I do expect that we’ll see him again. He’s playing some defense now in Lehigh Valley. He’s played forward. He’s just trying to get his timing back. For different reasons, but similar to the first two players that you mentioned, he’s missed a lot of time. It just takes time to get back to the pace of play.
How can fans be confident that those two games can be the best games they can get?
The Islanders are a pretty good team. I think you just look at the scoring chances that we gave up in both, even in the third period of that game last Thursday, we really didn’t give up much. They scored on their first shot halfway through the period and got a scrambly [goal] at the end after they tied it. We weren’t giving up a lot of grade-A chances. We really didn’t give up much against the Islanders on Monday. Its more than just process. Process is part of it, but it’s just the raw number of chances that you are giving up. It’s the raw number of off-man rushes that you are giving up. It’s giving yourself the chance to play the game the right way and having the puck a little bit. We did that well in both games.
Do you have a rehab update oh Morgan Frost? And what is your assessment of a few Phantoms players that have battled injuries, such as Allison and Laczynski? These were players who, before the season, you said could have a chance to push for NHL spots soon.
With Morgan, I just talked to Jimmy McCrossin today. I think he’s about 8 weeks post-surgery. He’s doing really well. I think we’re hoping he can get back on the ice in the next couple weeks from a conditioning standpoint. I think best-case scenario is that he may have a chance to come back by the end of the season. Even if that doesn’t happen, he’s going to be fully healthy by the end of the season, by the end of May. That will give him a full summer to rehab and train like he normally would. He would be through the rehab process and he’ll be able to work on his strength, speed and quickness and get ready for camp next year. He’s doing very well, probably a little bit ahead of schedule. As for the others, the Lehigh Valley team is fun to watch. They play hard. They play well. I think they’ve won five games in overtime. There’s a lot of talent down there. It’s been a little frustrating in the sense that a lot of those kids have dealt with injuries, COVID, or both, in a few cases. I don’t think some of them have the game reps that we hoped they would have at this time to maybe factor into a call-up role right now. They are gaining experience. They are gaining games. They’re getting some of that now. Maybe in the next week or two, some of those kids will get a chance to play up here.
How do you evaluate Carter Hart's play? What does he have to do to get his confidence back?
Well, I’m not sure for the second part of that. Confidence is a funny thing. It’s a results business. Sometimes you are not getting the results, it’s hard to feel you are on top of your game. Carter is a young guy. He had some success last year. This year, he hasn’t played at the same level. There’s no question that he’s struggled, particularly this month. I think our goals against and our goaltending for the first two months was pretty good and they’ve won us some games. This month, both goaltenders have struggled in my opinion. You look back at a young Carey Price at the age of 22, Connor Hellebuyck, Marc-Andre Fleury, just going through some names. All of those great goaltenders had some ups and downs early in their career and had some tough seasons. It’s a hard position. I believe in Carter. I believe in his talent and I believe he will be a very good goalie for this franchise for a very long time. Clearly right now, he’s not on top of his game.
You mentioned before there were some players that have handled quarantine better than others. Is Carter one of those players that have been impacted by the way of the world?
I think all those young single guys who live alone have had to deal with different issues like all of us have during this, but I don’t know that I want to get into naming names or singling out just from a privacy standpoint. Clearly I think the married guys have had it a little bit easier than the single guys that, like a lot of people in society, are stuck… you get stuck a little bit, there’s no question.
Is there any regret on your part for not addressing the top four on defense better?
We aggressively looked at a lot of options this offseason. Certainly our cap situation was not helpful for adding significant dollars without moving significant dollars. But we looked at a lot of different things, and this is what we ended up with. I think I said to somebody earlier, I don’t think I ever spent more time on the phone than I did this offseason. For various reasons, things didn’t break our way, the way we had hoped. It’s a flat-cap era, and most teams are not looking to take on any money or any term right now. To add a player with dollars, you have to subtract the same amount. Those types of trades are a little more difficult to make.
How do you evaluate the play Erik Gustafsson, his fit with the team and the workability of having Gus and Ghost in the same lineup?
I think, with Erik, he had a bit of a tough start. I think his first game was pretty good, and then he had a couple he didn’t play as well. I think lately he’s played pretty well. He’s as advertised. He’s good on the power play, he’s one of our best defensemen at exiting the D-zone. I think there’s games when we play both Shayne and Erik, they’ve both played well, and there’s been games where they both haven’t played well. We’ve had a lot of inconsistent performances from a lot of our players. I don’t know if that answers your question, but I think Erik has played probably as advertised. I think the makeup of our group probably is not right, I think that’s a fair comment. I think we do need to address that going forward to get the right mix. Certainly some of our young players need to continue to take steps. I think our back end, like the rest of our team, needs to get better. But overall our [struggling] team defense has been a collective effort, and we just haven’t been good enough in any aspect of the game yet.
On Carter fixing mechanical issues in his game, does the constraints of the fact that you don’t have as much time to practice put a limit to how much he can fix this season?
I know Kim Dillabaugh and Carter are working hard every day. If you look at Monday we chose to dress Alex Lyon as the backup to Moose [Brian Elliott] and we spent extra time with Carter that day to give him a little more work and get him ready for last night. I thought Carter played pretty well last night. He battled, he made some big saves to keep that game close enough where we could try to make a comeback. I do think you can make some adjustments in-season. Clearly the lack of practice time when you’re struggling is not a benefit. I think specialty teams, goaltending, your defensive zone coverage, there’s a lot of areas that if you’re not on top of your game, obviously the lack of practice time doesn’t help. But every team is dealing with that. I do think Carter’s working hard with Dilly every day. Personally I’ve seen some improvements and I do think he can get it back during this season.
You mentioned that, leaguewide, potential trade partners aren't interested in taking on salary. So that leaves prospects and draft pick assets. Has there been any difference this season in terms of teams being either more interested or less interested intaking on draft picks at least for 2021; just because of what a disjointed year it’s been for a lot of the other leagues you scout?
I’ve talked to a couple teams that prefer to take the picks in '22 for that very reason, to add more certainty. In some cases some teams have let some of their scouts go and don’t feel they have the coverage they normally would. I’ve spoken to other teams that see opportunity in '21 because they feel there could be more randomness, and having more picks, you might be able to get some pretty good players in the mid to late rounds because of the lack of viewing. I’m not sure there’s a consensus on that, but I’ve seen it both ways.