Flyers failed to meet low expectations this season. What went wrong, and what’s next?

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It could end up benefiting them in the long run. The Philadelphia Flyers’ poor 2024-25 season, which concluded on Thursday with a 5-4 regulation loss in Buffalo, leaving them with a 33-39-10 record, gives them the fourth-best odds to win the NHL draft lottery next month. Even if the ping-pong balls don’t bounce their way, a very good prospect will be there for the taking.

There’s a chance, if the Flyers end up as a perennial playoff team at some point down the line, that this season will ultimately be viewed as just part of the painful process of rebuilding. After all, general manager Daniel Briere was still in subtraction mode, systematically removing pieces from a roster that wasn’t in the top half of the league in terms of talent even when the season began, while adding assets and salary-cap flexibility that could aid their process if he uses them right.

But last place in the Metropolitan Division, behind teams such as the aging and declining New York Islanders and Pittsburgh Penguins? Just 22 regulation wins, more than only the miserable Chicago Blackhawks (20) and San Jose Sharks (14)? For an organization that has stressed that winning games was a priority and tanking was never going to be in their vocabulary, that’s an odd way of going about it.

The primary reasons for their failures, both this season and last, when they faltered down the stretch, have been talked about ad nauseam. The goaltending will need an offseason upgrade. Samuel Ersson’s ceiling could be as a 1B, while both Ivan Fedotov and Aleksei Kolosov posted some of the worst numbers in the NHL. Finding a reliable goaltender who can play at least half of the games next season will be no easy task for Briere, and may force him into using assets and/or cap space that he could have used elsewhere had he more suitably addressed that vital position last summer.

The Flyers’ final power-play ranking again begins with a 3. It was 32nd, dead last, for each of the three previous seasons, and at 14.9 percent this season, finished 30th in the NHL. Had the John Tortorella firing not been so abrupt, power-play overseer Rocky Thompson may have followed him out the door. It seems inevitable that whoever the next head coach is, he will have to hire at least one new assistant.

And while we’re on coaches, well, that was some unexpected unpleasantness a few weeks ago. Certainly, when the season began, Briere didn’t envision having to let Tortorella go before it was over. It was the right call, to be sure, considering everything that went down. The Flyers couldn’t risk further blow-ups from Tortorella, who wasn’t handling the losing very well. But every indication before that, including the morning of that game in Toronto on March 25 in which Tortorella seemed understanding of what the team was going through, was that everyone in the organization was on the same page, from the front office on down. For whatever reason, that clearly wasn’t the case.

But even before Tortorella was let go, the Flyers seemed to be losing their way. The Scott Laughton trade to the Maple Leafs on March 7 affected them much more than it should have, as they lost nine of 10 games immediately after it. Whether that’s primarily on the players for not handling that like professionals, or on Briere for not recognizing the impact that losing Laughton (and, to a lesser extent, Erik Johnson) would have on the group, is up for debate. Regardless, it wasn’t encouraging, considering how much the word “culture” has been used throughout this rebuild. If the foundation there was strong enough, it shouldn’t have gotten so wobbly in the aftermath of losing Laughton, who, as is now evident, was their emotional leader.

Further, the two primary guys the club is counting on to fill that leadership void underneath captain Sean Couturier, and who are now established franchise cornerstones with long contracts, were among the late-season disappointments: Travis Konecny managed only two goals over his final 25 games, which isn’t exactly rising to the occasion on a team with a depleted roster. Travis Sanheim, meanwhile, was never the same after the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament, at one point going 15 straight games without a point, and finally ending a 40-game goal drought on March 22. It’s the second straight season in which Sanheim got off to an encouraging start but faded late.

There were other letdowns. Owen Tippett managed just 20 goals, and in the first of an eight-year contract, he was supposed to take another step. Cam York’s struggles may have been in part due to an ongoing conflict with Tortorella, and it’s odd that he was essentially the only defenseman not to get any power-play time, but he failed to build on his strong finish to 2023-24. Rasmus Ristolainen, who was the Flyers’ best defenseman on many nights, saw his season cut short once again, vanishing from the lineup after a game on March 11 due to an undisclosed injury. Perhaps the price to acquire the frequently banged-up defenseman before the trade deadline should have been lower, considering his history.

Of course, it wasn’t all bad. Matvei Michkov had about as strong of a rookie season as could have been expected, with 62 points in 80 games and a team and NHL-rookie leading 26 goals. Getting at least 30 goals next season seems inevitable for the 20-year-old, particularly if the Flyers hire a coach who realizes they should be running the power play through him. Whether he becomes the star-level difference maker the Flyers will need him to be is not yet a sure thing, but Michkov is at least on the right path.

Tyson Foerster has probably secured his future with the club with a strong finish, while his linemates, Noah Cates and Bobby Brink, both outplayed expectations. Jamie Drysdale stayed healthy over the second half of the season and showed flashes of elite skill along with improved awareness and vision, while Ryan Poehling is arguably one of the better fourth-line centers in the league, and was one of the few consistent players over the final few weeks.

One calendar year ago, coming off of that surprisingly competitive 2023-24 season, Briere cautioned against the group taking a collective step forward. The timing just wasn’t yet right.

“I know the expectation next year will be that — oh, we’ve got to get into the playoffs. I don’t even know that we’re there yet,” he said last April.

Clearly, they were not. That part wasn’t unexpected. But Briere has already said that he hopes the team has hit “rock bottom,” while chairman Dan Hilferty acknowledged that in 2025-26, the Flyers will have to “achieve that next step in the rebuild.” That means better results, and maybe even a playoff push.

Whether this season was simply a speed bump on their way to getting there, or a concerning indication of things to come, will be revealed soon enough. But for now, it feels like a step backward.

(Photo of Sean Couturier: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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