Eric Hartline - USA TODAY Sports
NHL

What We Learned: Rebuild now a necessity for Philadelphia Flyers

The easiest way for NHL general managers to avoid a hard look in the mirror is to avoid saying "rebuild" at all costs.

You can use any other term — retool, rebuild on the fly, refresh, revamp, etc. — to describe the process of taking a bad roster and trying to make it better over the course of a year or two. "Rebuild," on the other hand, evokes images of trying to lose a la the mid-2010s Buffalo Sabres or current Arizona Coyotes, trading every useful player on the roster and effectively attempting to get as close to an 0-82-0 record as you can.

But the problem for the Philadelphia Flyers, and specifically for general manager Chuck Fletcher, is that they just spent this past season trying to retool, refresh, revamp, and rebuild on the fly, and now they're in the midst of their second double-d

Access this article with EP Premium

Go Premium to access this article

Register your Premium-membership at eliteprospects.com to get access to this article and more quality, in-depth coverage at EP Rinkside

This article is about:
NHL Philadelphia Flyers NHL Cam Atkinson Justin Braun Sean Couturier Ryan Ellis Claude Giroux Kevin Hayes Ivan Provorov Rasmus Ristolainen Travis Sanheim James van Riemsdyk Keith Yandle Cam York Chuck Fletcher Alain Vigneault Mike Yeo
Scoring Leaders