The NHL draft lottery offers the Flyers a rare chance at landing a franchise-altering star

After a third consecutive season that concluded with the Flyers miles out of a playoff spot, there is a strong argument to be made that the organization is currently in the midst of its worst-ever period.

Sure, the Flyers have had lean years before. They missed the playoffs a franchise-record five straight seasons between 1990-94 for instance. But at least there was then a reason for optimism in the form of 6-foot-4, 225-pound phenom Eric Lindros, who the team acquired from Quebec in a blockbuster 1992 trade. While it took a few years, with Lindros it was apparent the Flyers would soon be back contending for Stanley Cups. Currently, the Flyers lack a bona fide star or prospect to hitch their hopes and future aspirations.

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Instead, they feature a roster headlined by several highly-paid veterans, some of whom are good players, but not game-changers capable of carrying a team or changing a franchise’s fortunes. And while several of their young players took positive steps this season, none of them obviously project as stars. As long as the roster is constructed this way, the Flyers will be stuck in purgatory, not good enough to compete for a playoff spot, or quite bad enough to give themselves the best odds to land a premier draft pick.

This year’s NHL draft offers a glimmer of hope for adding one of those franchise-altering stars, as consensus No. 1 pick Connor Bedard is considered a generational talent, while three to four other players at the top of this class project as high-end NHL All-Stars.

While the draft is far from an exact science, it at least offers a chance at landing a potential star.

With the seventh-best odds of landing the No. 1 pick, the Flyers have a 6.5% chance at winning the Bedard sweepstakes. Meanwhile, Anaheim, by finishing with the league’s worst record, has a 25.5% chance to land the top selection in June’s draft. While those odds may be against the Flyers, until May 8, the night of the NHL draft lottery, hope springs eternal.

The Flyers are more than due for some luck from the hockey gods. The team has never won the NHL draft lottery to pick first. (The Flyers, pre-lottery, acquired the No. 1 overall pick via trade in 1975 when they drafted Mel Bridgman.)

In 2017, the Flyers came close, moving all the way up from No. 13 to No. 2 thanks to a favorable bounce of the ping-pong balls. That year, they famously selected center Nolan Patrick, who went on to play just 197 games in four years in Philadelphia due to various injuries and a chronic migraine disorder. To add salt to the wound, the player who went ahead of Patrick, Nico Hischier to New Jersey, and the three players selected directly after him — Miro Heiskanen to Dallas, Cale Makar to Colorado, and Elias Pettersson to Vancouver — have all become all-stars.

The bad luck doesn’t end there. The last two times the Flyers have landed in the lottery and retained their pick, they have fallen a spot. This included last season, when the Flyers finished with the league’s fourth-worst record but were awarded the No. 5 overall pick. They selected forward Cutter Gauthier from the United States national team development program.

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Add in all the injury misfortune the Flyers have had over the past few seasons with Ryan Ellis, Sean Couturier, and Cam Atkinson, and you’d think sooner or later the organization is due for a break.

Finally, for those with a more cynical view of the lottery process, does the NHL really want its next potential superstar on the West Coast (Anaheim, San Jose, Arizona) and playing at 10 p.m. ET every night? How about in Columbus? Having Bedard land in a major city like Chicago, Philadelphia, Montreal, or Washington would certainly seem more advantageous from the league’s point of view.

Bedard, who put up video game numbers in both the Western Hockey League with the Regina Pats (81 goals and 163 points in 64 games, including playoffs) and at the World Juniors with Team Canada (nine goals, 23 points in seven games), is the clear-cut prize in this year’s draft.

He’s been hyped as the best prospect in the world for at least three years now and has earned comparisons to Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, and Auston Matthews. A game-breaker in every sense due to his skill, playmaking, and almost incomparable shot, the 5-foot-9, 185-pound dynamo projects to change the fortunes of whichever franchise lands the No. 1 overall pick.

While the Flyers will need a whole lot of luck to land Bedard, there is recent precedent. In 2020, the New York Rangers landed the No. 1 pick despite finishing 14th from the bottom. Even if the Flyers don’t land Bedard, winning the draw for the No. 2 pick (they have a 6.7% chance) would be almost as big a deal for the Orange and Black. That would allow them to nab University of Michigan freshman Adam Fantilli, who led the nation in scoring this season (30 goals and 65 points in 36 games) and became just the third first-year player to win the Hobey Baker award after Paul Kariya and Jack Eichel.

» READ MORE: How NHL draft prospect and Michigan freshman Adam Fantilli would fit into the Flyers' lineup

Fantilli, 18, has good size for a center (6-2, 195 pounds) and plays with tremendous pace, power, and determination. An elite offense driver with supreme confidence, Fantilli is exactly the type of player the Flyers lack, and he would bring immediate excitement and star power to a franchise that is lacking that type of game-changer down the middle.

If the Flyers don’t land the No. 1 or No. 2 pick, they will pick either seventh (their own slot based on record), eighth (if a team below them wins one of the two draws), or ninth (if both draws are won by teams below them). This is where things get muddled, as this draft class has a clear top four in Bedard, Fantilli, Russian goal scorer Matvei Michkov, and big Swedish center Leo Carlsson. (There is a small chance Michkov could slide out of the top four given his contract situation in Russia.)

Picking seventh would also see them likely miss out on United States national development team program center Will Smith. If things play out to form, that would leave the Flyers to choose from the likes of winger Zach Benson (Winnipeg Ice, WHL), center Oliver Moore (U.S. NTDP), Slovakian center Dalibor Dvorský (AIK, Swedish second tier), Czech winger Eduard Sale (Brno, Czech Extraliga), winger Andrew Cristall (Kelowna, WHL), and center Ryan Leonard (U.S. NTDP), although at least one of this group of players promises to be off the board before pick No. 7.

While one of these players could still pop and become a star, draft experts rank each of them at least a tier or two below the top four, and don’t, at least for now, project any of them as franchise-changers. This is why not completely bottoming out, and instead finishing with the seventh-worst record, was not in the best interest of the organization long term.

The Flyers desperately need a star as they embark on their rebuild, and in order to acquire one, and land a Bedard or Fantilli, it now all comes down to ping-pong balls. With a 13.2% chance of earning a top-two pick, the Flyers and their fans anxiously await their fate on May 8. With a little luck, it could go down as of the most important days in franchise history.