Thanks for that. Because no one said that.
- PT21

you welcome

Choked. Yes there were injuries.
- Scoob

Is the argument I’m reading really “we had Lindros once and didn’t win so we shouldn’t want super star players”

Some of you guys are absolutely mental.

Is the argument I’m reading really “we had Lindros once and didn’t win so we shouldn’t want super star players”

Some of you guys are absolutely mental.
- hereticpride

lol - I'm making no such argument. Just stating that I think they choked in the '97 Finals.

MJ... PT21 was waived earlier today and was picked up by another board, HF. This is what we call "addition by subtraction" here at Flyers Buzz.
- Letterkenney

He'll go unclaimed and then will still be on the roster. Despite his league minimum cap hit.

lol - I'm making no such argument. Just stating that I think they choked in the '97 Finals.
- Scoob

Yeah, I should’ve responded to the post you were replying to. My bad.

He'll go unclaimed and then will still be on the roster. Despite his league minimum cap hit.
- MJL

ok, that was funny lol

And you keep acting like the Flyers have no left leg. Forget where they were actually take, G and Coots are near the very top of their respective draft classes right now in terms of talent/production/WAR right? Does that not count in your assessment?
- Tomahawk

You are making that leg out to be something different than what I said.

Definition of left leg:

At least 1 player ranked in top 5 of the following positions at the beginning of the possible cup year:

Top line winger
Top line center
#1 D

How many times do we need to go over this? Look at the teams that actually won the cups this past 15 years. Where did Chicago draft? Where did Pens draft? Where was Doughty drafted? How about Hedman? How about Pietro? Where was Staal drafted?
- PT21

How many seasons combined did those teams with those players not win the Cup?

And again, you're ignoring all the teams like Florida, Ottawa, Buffalo, Edmonton, Atlanta etc that have continuously drafted in the top-5 and haven't won anything. Do their failures represent overwhelming evidence that tanking doesn't work?

Or is there possibly more at play here than simply who has top-5 talent and who doesn't?
- Tomahawk

I've actually been trying to explain this to PT21 for about a calendar year. It simply doesn't register. Can't understand that it's actually not the top 5 player who is the key.

How many seasons combined did those teams with those players not win the Cup?
- MJL

Not as many as the Flyers.

Choked. Yes there were injuries.
- Scoob

From top to bottom the Flyers weren't as good as those Red Wings teams that won 2 Cup Finals in 8 games. They just weren't.

Keith Jones is on record as having said that if either Dallas or Colorado had been the team to advance from the west that year, either one would have smoked the Flyers as well.

You are making that leg out to be something different than what I said.

Definition of left leg:

At least 1 player ranked in top 5 of the following positions at the beginning of the possible cup year:

Top line winger
Top line center
#1 D
- PT21

That's the issue. You have tunnel vision on your definition of what the left leg is and ignore what else can make up the left leg. In other words, you're premise is at the top of the mountain, despite it being incorrect.

From top to bottom the Flyers weren't as good as those Red Wings teams that won 2 Cup Finals in 8 games. They just weren't.

Keith Jones is on record as having said that if either Dallas or Colorado had been the team to advance from the west that year, either one would have smoked the Flyers as well.
- Doc_Sarcasm

The 1996-1997 team:

Lose in 6 or 7 games - bummer but fine
Get swept - that's a choke

The Red Wings were not that magnitude better than the Flyers.

Not as many as the Flyers.
- hereticpride

1. Teams that win never win nowadays never do without superstars. That means they are necessary. (Never did I say, ever, that they are sufficient, or the only factor, so the examples of Edmonton and so on are irrelevant).

2. Teams nowadays don't let such players get into FA/trade usually. What is then your most likely venue of getting such a guy? The draft.

3. Where in the draft is there a substantially higher probability of getting such a player? Top pick.

4. If all this were true, do you usually end up seeing a superstar player drafted high on a cup winning team? Yes, indeed you do.

I have to ask? Which part of this is so abstruse?

The 1996-1997 team:

Lose in 6 or 7 games - bummer but fine
Get swept - that's a choke

The Red Wings were not that magnitude better than the Flyers.
- Scoob

not looking for an argument here, but they didnt NEED to be that magnitude better. should the flyers have had a better series? sure, but they werent going to win that series, not with their lack of secondary scoring and their inability to match detroit's bottom six. LaPointe, McCarty, and Draper were thorns in the Flyers' side the entire series IIRC.

1. Teams that win never win nowadays never do without superstars. That means they are necessary. (Never did I say, ever, that they are sufficient, or the only factor, so the examples of Edmonton and so on are irrelevant).

2. Teams nowadays don't let such players get into FA/trade usually. What is then your most likely venue of getting such a guy? The draft.

3. Where in the draft is there a substantially higher probability of getting such a player? Top pick.

4. If all this were true, do you usually end up seeing a superstar player drafted high on a cup winning team? Yes, indeed you do.

I have to ask? Which part of this is so abstruse?
- PT21

Pietro and ROR are now superstars ?

The 1996-1997 team:

Lose in 6 or 7 games - bummer but fine
Get swept - that's a choke

The Red Wings were not that magnitude better than the Flyers.
- Scoob

Don't think talent was really the deciding factor in that series. Wings were just smarter and more experienced and they had fewer exploitable weaknesses. And Bowman vs Murray has to be one of the biggest coaching mismatches in recent memory.

not looking for an argument here, but they didnt NEED to be that magnitude better. should the flyers have had a better series? sure, but they werent going to win that series, not with their lack of secondary scoring and their inability to match detroit's bottom six. LaPointe, McCarty, and Draper were thorns in the Flyers' side the entire series IIRC.
- Doc_Sarcasm

Yeah, that McCarty goal was more traumatizing than the Kane one for me.

He'll go unclaimed and then will still be on the roster. Despite his league minimum cap hit.
- MJL

We should petition GM Meltzer for a review on that. Can we re-waive him? Perhaps just make him a permanent scratch until the offseason when we can trade him for young kid that really likes hockey and wants to chat about it.

The same thing happens to teams that do the proper rebuild according to you. They never get there. See Buffalo, Edmonton, etc. This is what you don't understand. There are no guarantees. You can't ruthlessly cut ties in a salary cap age. You're trying to lecture fans while not understanding it yourself.
At least now we can dispense with the ad nauseum argument that the Flyers can't contend because they don't have any elite players after Provorov was voted a top 10 NHL defenseman by a group of NHL players, coaches and GM's.
- MJL

There are teams with Elite players that have gone nowhere because they have not managed their cap well and did not build properly around these players; Edmonton and Buffalo come to mind. But there are other teams that do have elite players and have built the team around them successfully, the Lightning, Toronto, Vegas, Colorado, etc. To say a team does not need to have at least some elite talent to win a cup is just not true, just look at the last 10 cup winners:

Lightning: Stamkos, Kucherov, Point, Hedman, Vasilevskiy
St. Louis: O'Rielly, Tarasenko,Pietrangelo, Binnington
Capitals: Ovechkin, Backstrom, Kuznetsov, Carlson
Penguins: Crosby, Malkin, Latang
Chicago: Towes, Kane, Hossa, Keith
LA: Kopitar, Doughty, Quick
Boston: Marchand, Bergeron, Chara, Pastrnak

Who on the Flyers is in this class right now? No one. Sure Giroux was at one point, but not now, and would argue make Jake was briefly but certainly not now. This is a problem for the Flyers. I agree they can't trade out of it, but I also believe they did not draft as well as they could have, and now they lack a key element they need to make it to the next level. Out of the players above all, except Chara who was acquired via trade, came from drafting and developing!

I've actually been trying to explain this to PT21 for about a calendar year. It simply doesn't register. Can't understand that it's actually not the top 5 player who is the key.
- MJL

PT has been factsinated so, despite your best an valiant efforts, nothing sinks in.

Pietro and ROR are now superstars ?
- ClaudeFather

I defined "superstar", which is a subjective term as a reasonably consensus top 5-7 player at the start of the season.

People always bring up the Blues to me. Admittedly, that is the team where my thesis is the weakest, in that they have the least # of top players.

But I have to ask: even if I grant you that, that is 1 team out of 16 since the lock out. Do you really want to base your refutation on something that has a 6% success rate? What about the other 94%?

There are teams with Elite players that have gone nowhere because they have not managed their cap well and did not build properly around these players; Edmonton and Buffalo come to mind. But there are other teams that do have elite players and have built the team around them successfully, the Lightning, Toronto, Vegas, Colorado, etc. To say a team does not need to have at least some elite talent to win a cup is just not true, just look at the last 10 cup winners:

Lightning: Stamkos, Kucherov, Point, Hedman, Vasilevskiy
St. Louis: O'Rielly, Tarasenko,Pietrangelo, Binnington
Capitals: Ovechkin, Backstrom, Kuznetsov, Carlson
Penguins: Crosby, Malkin, Latang
Chicago: Towes, Kane, Hossa, Keith
LA: Kopitar, Doughty, Quick
Boston: Marchand, Bergeron, Chara, Pastrnak

Who on the Flyers is in this class right now? No one. Sure Giroux was at one point, but not now, and would argue make Jake was briefly but certainly not now. This is a problem for the Flyers. I agree they can't trade out of it, but I also believe they did not draft as well as they could have, and now they lack a key element they need to make it to the next level. Out of the players above all, except Chara who was acquired via trade, came from drafting and developing!
- jd250

I have to ask you: is it so hard to understand the argument that while having superstars on teams is not sufficient for success, it is necessary or almost always so?

And that saying they are necessary does not mean that other factors, such as teamwork and good coaching, are also not necessary?

There are teams with Elite players that have gone nowhere because they have not managed their cap well and did not build properly around these players; Edmonton and Buffalo come to mind. But there are other teams that do have elite players and have built the team around them successfully, the Lightning, Toronto, Vegas, Colorado, etc. To say a team does not need to have at least some elite talent to win a cup is just not true, just look at the last 10 cup winners:

Lightning: Stamkos, Kucherov, Point, Hedman, Vasilevskiy
St. Louis: O'Rielly, Tarasenko,Pietrangelo, Binnington
Capitals: Ovechkin, Backstrom, Kuznetsov, Carlson
Penguins: Crosby, Malkin, Latang
Chicago: Towes, Kane, Hossa, Keith
LA: Kopitar, Doughty, Quick
Boston: Marchand, Bergeron, Chara, Pastrnak

Who on the Flyers is in this class right now? No one. Sure Giroux was at one point, but not now, and would argue make Jake was briefly but certainly not now. This is a problem for the Flyers. I agree they can't trade out of it, but I also believe they did not draft as well as they could have, and now they lack a key element they need to make it to the next level. I don't believe of the players above, except Chara was acquired via trade, they all came from drafting and developing!
- jd250

it is easy to say they didn't draft well enough, looking back is always easy. Most just overlook circumstance. The Flyers had a top pick they placed 2nd in the lottery, they got Patrick. Circumstance they didn't get the 1st pick and the draft didn't seem to have a superstar. The flyers also got the second when they lost the 1st pick to the Hawks, they got JVR instead of Kane. On the flip side the Pens tank and get Crosby and Malkin, circumstance favored them. The Blues, they had some nice pieces, a pure sniper but no superstars. Getting ROR and Binnington playing lights out got them a cup. Good moves and circumstance helped, not a superstar

The good pieces the Flyers drafted are not even in their prime yet, none of them, maybe circumstance will turn their way. Maybe 1 player will hit his prime and go past his ceiling ALA G. Two to three prospects will hit their prime and hit their ceiling, 2-3 will hit their prime and just be good. The Flyers will ride a hot Carter Hart and pull off a ROR type signing. Seems that scenario would match up with a few teams you mention above. I personally think the Flyers need their players to play to their ability but will need a move or two to have a shot at the cup.

Lightning: Stamkos (#1), Kucherov, Point, Hedman (#2), Vasilevskiy
St. Louis: O'Rielly, Tarasenko,Pietrangelo (#4), Binnington
Capitals: Ovechkin (#1), Backstrom, Kuznetsov, Carlson
Penguins: Crosby(#1), Malkin (#2), Latang
Chicago: Towes (#3), Kane(#1), Hossa, Keith
LA: Kopitar , Doughty (#2), Quick
Boston: Marchand, Bergeron, Chara, Pastrnak (the exception, but Chara undoubtedly a top 3 D that time)


- jd250

I highlighted the correlation between the names you mentioned and the top pick position.