The Flyers have mismanaged the 2022-23 season, but they can still get the trade deadline right

The writing was on the wall last spring. Frankly, the writing was on the wall a lot earlier than that. It was time for the Flyers to rebuild.

A middling team that had alternated between making the playoffs and missing them for eight years had missed out on the postseason for a second straight year. The team had just finished with the league’s fourth-worst record (25-46-11) after a flurry of offseason moves made by general manager Chuck Fletcher flopped. Captain Claude Giroux and the pressure to try and win with him was gone. So was veteran coach Alain Vigneault. Stars Ryan Ellis and Sean Couturier had missed most of the season with serious injuries and faced uncertain futures. And looking ahead, the 2023 NHL draft was one that general managers and scouts had circled for years because of the high-end talent at the top led by generational prospect Connor Bedard.

If this wasn’t the perfect time for the Flyers to rebuild, then when would be?

» READ MORE: How will the scuffling Flyers approach the trade deadline?

The Flyers, though, refused to fully commit to rebuilding. Instead, Fletcher and Comcast Spectacor chairman Dave Scott called for an “aggressive retool” and insisted that the Flyers were merely “two, three pieces” away.

Any hope of a “tank” or for “Bedard to Broad” was quickly extinguished with the hiring of John Tortorella, a coach known for squeezing every ounce out of players and making previously bad teams competitive in spite of their roster limitations. With one move, it was apparent that nothing had changed and that Fletcher and Co. were going to run it back with a largely unchanged roster and hope for better results. For the umpteenth time in their recent history, the Flyers took a shortsighted approach.

Stuck in this in-between mindset of whether the team was trying to be competitive or build for the future, the organization only compounded its problems. After practically emptying its cupboard of draft picks the summer before to complete trades involving Rasmus Ristolainen (a first and a second) and Shayne Gostisbehere (a second and a seventh just to get out of his contract), the team recklessly threw away three more draft picks (a second-, a third-, and a fourth-rounder) for defenseman Tony DeAngelo, a player with clear deficiencies on the ice and countless baggage off it. For a team with no shot at competing for a Stanley Cup, trading three picks and committing $10 million to DeAngelo was malpractice. Already in salary-cap hell, the Flyers then generously handed 31-year-old enforcer Nic Deslauriers a four-year, $7 million contract. The aggressive retool was complete. Not exactly...

» READ MORE: Wrong guy. Wrong time. Wrong reasons. Flyers’ trade for Tony DeAngelo is a mistake in every way.

With Couturier needing a second back surgery, Ellis ruled out for the year with a pelvic injury, and Cam Atkinson later shut down without playing a single game because of a neck injury, the Flyers entered the year with a bottom-five roster on paper. That seemed to be a good development for the Bedard sweepstakes. Instead, over two-thirds into the season, the Flyers are hovering around hockey mediocrity at 23-26-10. They are closer to the middle of the pack (nine points) than the bottom (15 points).

To no surprise, Tortorella has gotten the most out of a young and overmatched team. His structure and style of play have helped keep the Flyers in games despite them being dominated in most key metrics. This has created an illusion that the team is progressing and making positive steps. Sure, there have been bright spots like Travis Konecny (27 goals, 54 points), Carter Hart (.909 save percentage), Owen Tippett (16 goals), and the two-way play of Noah Cates, but the reality is this is still a bad roster and an organization with little cap flexibility and a limited pool of prospects and picks. The Flyers despite a better record are no closer to winning a Stanley Cup, and they might be further away than ever.

If the season ended today, the Flyers would be slotted eighth in the draft lottery in terms of points per game. Not ideal in a draft where three players — Bedard, Adam Fantilli, and Matvei Michkov — are considered to be in a tier above the rest. The Flyers would be best served by falling into the bottom five to give themselves the best chance for the lottery balls to bounce their way.

With just 23 games remaining and a week before the March 3 trade deadline, the organization should look to do everything in its power to make that happen. The Flyers sit seven points above fifth-from-the-bottom Arizona, which has been hot and has a game in hand. While it might be too late for Bedard, the Flyers can still salvage a top pick by bottoming out down the stretch.

The easiest way to do that is to undercut Tortorella and become big sellers at the trade deadline. The team is almost certain to move veteran James van Riemsdyk and likely will recoup a second- or third-round pick. Fringe defenseman Nick Seeler is another player that they should sell high on for a mid-round pick. After that is where the Flyers need to get creative.

Would a contender bite on Kevin Hayes or Ivan Provorov if the Flyers were willing to retain some salary? Hayes, 30, is in the midst of a career season with 48 points in 58 games. On the other hand, he and Tortorella don’t seem to see eye-to-eye, he’s unhappy playing out of position, and he makes a lot of money ($7.14 million for the next three seasons). But if the Flyers were willing to chip in and pay, say, $2 million-3 million of Hayes’ deal, there would likely be a strong market for the All-Star center.

» READ MORE: No end in sight: Why the Flyers 47-year drought shows no signs of ending soon

The same is likely true of Provorov, who is a bit of an outsider in the locker room, and has never developed into the No. 1 defenseman the Flyer hoped he’d become. Provorov, 26, still has value in that he logs heavy minutes, blocks a ton of shots, plays with physicality, and can move the puck. For a contender that doesn’t need him to play on the top pair, he could potentially be a real asset, especially in the playoffs. A package for Provorov, who will make $6.75 million for the next two seasons, would also almost certainly include a first-round pick, something the Flyers can’t have enough of these days.

Trading JVR and either Hayes or Provorov would free up much-needed cap room for a team stricken with bad contracts. It would also deplete the roster further and likely lead to more losing. The Flyers already could be without Konecny, who is out with an upper-body injury, for a while after he was spotted wearing a sling this week after taking a hit from behind on Monday. Last year, the Flyers finished 7-16-0 over their final 23 games after trading Giroux. A similar swoon would be a godsend a year later.

The Flyers should be at least listening on every player on the roster, maybe outside of Hart and Konecny, as they are in a dire position where everything should be on the table. Drafting Cutter Gauthier and acquiring Tippett was a start, but the Flyers need to keep accumulating picks and acquiring prospects. If the organization wants to end its 47-year Cup drought, things need to get worse before they get better. That is how good teams are built — last year’s champs, the Colorado Avalanche, are living proof of that.

It’s long overdue, but the rebuild should start now. The Flyers have gotten most of this season wrong, but with the trade deadline coming and 23 games remaining, there is still time for the organization to get something right.