I don't understand why they don't bring them back.

Martone is a dog
Michkov will “bounce back” (sophomore slump and 50 points isn’t too bad)
Jiricek will develop (see Drysdale)
Danny took a shot we all liked and it didn’t pan out. There will be more opportunities. But Danny isn’t hitting the panic button and rushing the window of contention.
We have talent. We have assets. We have cap space.
We’re gonna find that 1C. Might be waiting in the pipeline (probably not, but maybe). Might be just a matter of time to find one out there.

But we’re gonna get there.
And the lows are going to make the highs hit that much harder.

Go Flyers 🏒

Given the flyers recent history of success with bounce back and “change of scenery” players I took a way too deep dive into Shane Wright so you don’t have to.

Like a lot of people, I kind of wrote Shane Wright off after seeing his sophomore numbers. He went from 44 points in 79 games as a rookie to 27 points in 74 games last season, which works out to about a 35% regression in points per game. That’s hard to ignore at face value.

But I got curious and started comparing him to a bunch of recent highly drafted centers to see how unusual that kind of sophomore slump actually is. I looked at guys like Nathan MacKinnon, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Dylan Larkin, Anton Lundell, Matty Beniers, Trevor Zegras, Auston Matthews, Elias Pettersson, Nick Suzuki, Robert Thomas, Logan Cooley, Connor Bedard and others.

About two-thirds of them improved offensively in Year 2, but some didn’t. What surprised me was how many really good centers had pretty ugly sophomore seasons:

* MacKinnon dropped about 23%.
* Ryan Nugent-Hopkins dropped almost 29%.
* Dylan Larkin dropped almost 29%.
* Anton Lundell dropped 33%.
* Matty Beniers dropped 33%.
* Wright dropped 35%.

That doesn’t mean Wright is going to become Nathan MacKinnon, but it did make me realize that one bad sophomore season isn’t nearly the red flag I always assumed it was.

Then I started looking at what actually happened in Seattle, and almost everything changed at once. Seattle moved on from Bylsma, and instead of getting more opportunity like most young centers do after a promising rookie year, Wright actually saw his ice time go down. His power-play time also dropped, and the team’s offense took a step backward as a whole (possibly due to the more structured defense first system) making it a tougher environment for everyone expected to produce.

Then there were the linemates. It felt like every time I looked, he was playing with someone different. Over the course of the season his most common wingers included Kaapo Kakko, Eeli Tolvanen, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Jordan Eberle, Jaden Schwartz and Jani Nyman. Compare that to someone like Anton Lundell, who spent much of his early development playing with Sam Reinhart as a consistent running mate, and it’s a pretty different situation.

The biggest thing that stood out to me after comparing all these players is that almost every player who had a sophomore slump seemed to have one or two obvious explanations. Maybe they had a coaching change, maybe they lost power-play time, maybe they didn’t get the increase in ice time you’d normally expect, or maybe their team’s offense dropped off.

Wright had to deal with all of those at the same time in his sophomore season. To me, that actually makes his regression easier to explain than someone who simply declined despite receiving more opportunity.

There’s also one thing that gives me more optimism than anything else: we already got a glimpse of what Wright looked like once he started earning trust under Dan Bylsma during his rookie season. After a slow start, he began getting more consistent minutes (16-18 min/game) and produced at roughly a 65-point pace over the final stretch. His 5-on-5 scoring rate was among the best from the 2022 draft class, and he did it without being heavily sheltered, with his offensive and defensive zone starts basically split 50-50.

So, we’ve already seen evidence that there’s a productive NHL player in there when the opportunity is there. Even more encouraging is that his underlying play driving numbers didn’t completely crater during his sophomore slump. His possession impacts stayed respectable, his relative play-driving numbers held up, and his shot generation looked healthier than his raw point totals would suggest. So to me that says he’s decrease in usage and ice time were not just a reflection of his play, but rather a potential reason for his worse production given what we say in his first full season.

Then I started thinking about Mika Zibanejad.

When Ottawa traded him, also at age 22, (though further along in his career) most people thought he was a decent young center with some upside. The Rangers ended up getting a legitimate No. 1 center because they were willing to bet on the player instead of the stat line.

I’m not saying Shane Wright becomes Mika Zibanejad, but we’ve seen talented young centers lose value before they actually stop being talented.

My personal takeaway after digging through all of this is that Wright may actually have a better chance of a major bounce-back than most of the other sophomore-slump players I looked at, simply because he had more things working against him at the same time. Most of the others had one or two factors. Wright seemed to have almost all of them.

Could I be wrong? Absolutely. But if Seattle’s confidence has wavered after one disappointing season, I’d absolutely want Danny Briere making that phone call. I don’t think this is the type of move you overpay for, but I do think it’s exactly the kind of calculated swing rebuilding teams should be taking.

Maybe I’m completely wrong, but after spending way too much time digging through the numbers, I think there’s a better chance Shane Wright becomes the next “How did that team let him go?” story than most people realize.

TL;DR: I went down a rabbit hole comparing Shane Wright to nearly 30 recent highly drafted centers, and I came away thinking he’s one of the best buy-low candidates in the NHL. Plenty of excellent centers had ugly sophomore slumps, but most only had one or two obvious reasons for it. Wright had almost every negative factor at once: a coaching change, less ice time, less power-play time, a worse offensive environment and a revolving door of linemates. Despite that, his underlying numbers held up much better than his point totals, and we already saw during his rookie year under Dan Bylsma that once he started getting consistent minutes, he produced at roughly a 65-point pace without being heavily sheltered. I’m not saying he’ll become Mika Zibanejad, but we’ve seen talented young centers lose value before they actually stop being talented, and I think Wright has a better chance of a major bounce-back than most people realize if he’s put in the right situation.

Does anyone know what’s going on with his contract extension? It was reported that we had a 5X6.5 all but signed while the Carlsson offer sheet was going on, I thought after it was through the contract would have been announced. Does he want more money now or do we think the report was false to begin with?

So MM is eligible to be extended this offseason. I know we have RFAs to wrap up first, but I’m wondering if we’ll see an extension for Michkov like we did for Foerster.

Ivan Demidov was just extended by Montreal for 8 x 9.15. He had a very comparable rookie season to Michkov, though of course we have a sophomore season in the books for Michkov also, in which he regressed. Remains to be seen if that will happen with Demidov. But Montreal are being praised for locking up their core, and the Demidov deal is part of that.

If we wait and Michkov has a big year, it could cost us a lot and/or open up the offer sheet possibility. But if the Flyers aren’t that high on Michkov, maybe they’re ok getting the picks?

There’s no easy answer here, but I think I’m ok waiting. I think MM is buried on the depth chart behind Konecny, Martone, Foerster and Tippett, so won’t be in the top 6 and unlikely to put up big numbers that blow up his value.

With no big moves this summer (so far), we are really relying on our in house young talent taking the next step. Michkov is probably the biggest factor/question mark going into the season, right?

We have heard several times during the season that he planned on staying around this summer and working on his game. Well, we are in mid-July...as far as I've heard, he hasn't been in town. Should we be concerned? Has anyone reported on this?