I know youve said it before, and maybe he is, and i hope so, but right now he is the highest player drafted in that year, that hasn't played a game yet, and that will only grow after this year.
- bradster

and they so need the skillset he has

“I want us to be the hardest working team in the league. I want us to compete hard, to battle hard, to make teams say, ‘You know what, that team works hard and competes for 60 minutes,’” Gallant said Tuesday morning during his introductory press briefing. “We can do a lot of good things. We can be skilled, we can be talented, but if the work doesn’t come first, all the skill and talent doesn’t get you too far down the road.

Chara's skating's been complete ass his entire career, yet he's still effective into his 40's. Knowing where the puck is gonna go beats fast legs chasing the puck every time.
- Tomahawk

Love when people use hall of famers as examples. There are exceptions to the rule obviously.

Sign Giroux to home town discount.
Keep Couturier.
Hope Hayes can play like he did his first year.
Hope Seattle grabs JVR.
Do anything possible to get rid of Jake. It's just a bad mix with him there.

and I hate banking on 'hopes'

“I want us to be the hardest working team in the league. I want us to compete hard, to battle hard, to make teams say, ‘You know what, that team works hard and competes for 60 minutes,’” Gallant said Tuesday morning during his introductory press briefing. “We can do a lot of good things. We can be skilled, we can be talented, but if the work doesn’t come first, all the skill and talent doesn’t get you too far down the road.
- hello it's me 2050

Wish we had that guy, this team needs that attitude more than anything

Love when people use hall of famers as examples. There are exceptions to the rule obviously.
- Stayin alive

Because Coots is some slouch

Fair enough. I respect you, your pov, and likewise for Bill.

But there is a case for trading Couturier in the current situation Flyers find themself in. It is a solid one, supported both by probabilities and precedent (other teams have done it too). It is not outlandish.
- PT21

Sure there is a case but it's not a better one than keeping him.

why I said this year could change the grade. I am not sure with Provy, most of me says the right partner has slowed his growth, hard to expect as much as they have since drafting him. If Hart hits, Provy becomes a true top 2 in the league and 1 more of the picks is among the best at the their position, I would say it was an A. It sure is taking a while

Patrick was the pick and they had been picking D or felt like they had their D and needed that big, skilled center.
- wcorvette

Provorov in my opinion is already a true top pairing NHL defenseman.

1.



No Bill, that is not all the reasons. It is also the team he happens to be on. If that team did not have Hayes signed with a NMC, or had other pieces which were like comparable pieces in top teams (wingers like Tarasenko or Marchand or 1D guys like Doughty, to use the context of some of the players you mentioned), I would never advocate for the trading of Couturier. It is the reasons you provided and the CONTEXT OF TEAM that is relevant here. The absence of proven supporting pieces compounds the inherent uncertainties of Couturier's contract.

You are not going to win a cup with 2 30ish+ centers likely your top 2/3 centers with large salary hits. No team has ever done so.
- PT21

But it appears to me you are leaving out the possibility that the Flyers can obtain these pieces without jettisoning Couturier to get a top 5 draft pick. Your argument all along is that it is more likely for the Flyers to obtain players like Tarasenko and Marchand if they blow this thing up and start over. Yet Tarasenko was the 16th pick overall and Marchand was the 71st pick. Likewise the Flyers have drafted two really good players in Farabee and York with the 14th pick and are picking 13th in this draft. So the evidence is clearly stacked against the idea that you must blow it up to draft in the top 5 for multiple years in order to build a contending team.

Sign Giroux to home town discount.
Keep Couturier.
Hope Hayes can play like he did his first year.
Hope Seattle grabs JVR.
Do anything possible to get rid of Jake. It's just a bad mix with him there.

and I hate banking on 'hopes'
- black_francis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHd-PLgKlbs

I'll grant you this, it didn't help them last night
- jd250

That’s the point. Speed and skill is required. Flyers have some skill boy little speed.

But speed and elite talent at the end of the day almost always win out.

Such as the trading away of superstar Jagr by the Pens leading to a succession of very high picks of Fluery and Sydney and Malkin.

Those guys never won anything. Utter failure, that move. That team: constant rebuild move ever since.
- PT21

Again, you only consider the successes and ignore the failures. You just did the same thing you accuse Bill of doing.

Sign Giroux to home town discount.
Keep Couturier.
Hope Hayes can play like he did his first year.
Hope Seattle grabs JVR.
Do anything possible to get rid of Jake. It's just a bad mix with him there.

and I hate banking on 'hopes'
- black_francis

We should be working very hard with the Blue Jackets to see if a deal could be made for Jake. Robinson as a bottom 6 winger would add size and speed....we wont get equal value but we'd offload the contract.

CBJ are up against it. Jones has announced he wants out....rumors are Zerenski made it quietly known he is going to look to UFA so he can get to Detroit. Apparently this is also making Atkinson a little queasy and not sure what his next move is. They will need bodies that can score and top shelf FA's will be leery of signing into that situation.

2.



Bill, cherry picking exceptions to further your case is not the soundest way to do so. Capt. Ahab has already provided examples of the reverse.

In general, you have to look at overall trends. There, the fact that performance starts to decline for NHL forwards at that age is relevant. If we don't use that statistic, we are essentially arguing about the soundness of smoking as a health practice by pointing out smokers who lived a long and healthy life.
- PT21

Bill is not saying that you should ignore the evidence that NHL forwards begin to decline at age 30 or even disputing that most do. Bill instead advocates to take it on a case by case basis given there are plenty of examples of forwards that play even better in their 30s. Which player is Couturier going to be? Well, to me you project this based on what type of game he plays and how he adds value. For example, if Couturier was strictly a speed daemon and that is how he generates value for his team, then its likely his legs will lose something as he gets older and thus be less effective. However if Couturier adds value by his smarts, positioning, vision, faceoff ability, etc., these are attributes that do not decline into your 30s but in fact get better. Thus the Flyers have to make this determination and decide what to do. If it were me I would commit to Couts because I believe he has the attributes that will only get better over time.

Honestly, they are illogical on the merit of it . Just because some players did not decline in their 30s doesn't mean that Couturier will follow that trend, does it? You have to look at overall probabilities.


- PT21

In the same way that just because one team traded away a player such as Jagr and had success does mean that if the Flyers trade Couturier, they will follow that trend. Doesn't that also make your post illogical?

Also, the argument for keeping Couts, and the hole that will be present in the lineup if he goes, and so on ...all of that is based on the premise that we really need to maintain our regular season trajectory. But this regular season trajectory hasn't gotten us any postseason success. How exactly is Couts continuing presence going to help in that regard? Could it possibly harm it? What happens if the current young kids DONT turn out to be studs, and Couts begins at best a slow decline? Where is the discussion of that very real possibility? Is there any blessed *guarantee* THAT wont happen?
- PT21

That's false. The idea of keeping Couturier is not to maintain the team's regular season trajectory. It's to have him as the #1 center on a team that improves it's regular season trajectory over the life of the contract. There is no guarantee of anything. What else is not a guarantee is that Couturier will begin a slow decline and the young kids don't develop. Never seeing the flip side as part of your equation. You want the team to tank, yet ignore that far more teams fail doing that than succeed.

Succession of high picks? They were bottom feeders for almost 10 years. They got luckily that Sid and Geno were generational talent. They were also guaranteed 1st overall pick.

As of now theres a lottery meaning like 2007 we can move back and lose out on a guy like Kane and to make matters worse you can only have the 1st overall 2 times in the last 5 years. The tank method doesnt work anymore. EDM and BUF are prime examples. Unless you get lucky and a generational player is available the year you have the 1st overall pick, you arent going to improve.
- xShoot4WarAmpsx

The point us, they traded their best player, and lowered the odds of success in the near future while raising it in the longer future.

The fact that we are not bottom feeders is frankly unfortunate. Because it obscures the fact that the distance between bubble teams and cup is on average as large as distance between bottom feeders and cup

Wish we had that guy, this team needs that attitude more than anything
- ClaudeFather

pretty sure AV said something similar

3.



Bill, bro, love and respect you to bits, but can we stop erecting this insane monument to guarantees already? Is there a guarantee that you will win WITH keeping Couturier in the fold? Is there a guarantee you will win without tanking? Why invoke this condition for only 1 side of the story?

How many decisions in life did you take with a guarantee? Did you have a guarantee that things will work out when you left the academic path and took up sports journalism? Does any business owner start a business with a guarantee of success?

The question is, what do the odds say? And here, I am afraid, the evidence is not in your favor. We have discussed this many times before, so I will not provide yet another probability argument.
- PT21

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush! If the Flyers believe, as I do, that Couturier is a core player that you build around, why get rid of him simply on the chance you might draft the next Nathan McKinnon instead? There are too many examples of teams like Jersey, Rangers, Coyotes and Sabres that consistently draft high and go nowhere. Are Dahlin, Kakko, Hischier or Keller ever going to impact their teams more that Couturier??

The quote that you posted from Bill is accurate. He is correct in stating that there is a group of fans who don't want to sign Couturier due to his age. He did not in any way state that is all the reasons why some don't want to re-sign Couturier.
There are many issues that are relevant or are you the only person who decides what is relevant?
I'm going to do some research later on to see if you last claim is correct.
- MJL

Are you gonna research and produce that nopa pre draft dated proof of migraines? That be nice. Oh wait your the only one that still believes it existed

4.



This is arguably the most disappointing of all the things you wrote. For the case you make for keeping Couturier seems to utterly based on regular season performance and there is no comprehensive discussion at all about how keeping him furthers our chances of winning the cup.

I leave you with this thought/question

How does Couturier's post-season production stack up with the names you mentioned? Wouldn't Ryan O'Reilly be a better aspiration, since his performance exceeds that of Couturier and he has won a cup?

Would you sign Ryan O'Reilly to a huge contract now on this team if he was an UFA?
- PT21

The question I would ask is, can you see Couturier having a post season as good as Ryan O'Reilly did in 2019? And would we even remember O'Reilly's post season performance if its was not for Jordan Binnington standing on his head? It takes more than 1 player to win a cup. With the right players around him, Couts can definitely have a similar post season impact as Bergeron has with Boston.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush! If the Flyers believe, as I do, that Couturier is a core player that you build around, why get rid of him simply on the chance you might draft the next Nathan McKinnon instead? There are too many examples of teams like Jersey, Rangers, Coyotes and Sabres that consistently draft high and go nowhere. Are Dahlin, Kakko, Hischier or Keller ever going to impact their teams more that Couturier??
- jd250

what impact has he had team wise?

But it appears to me you are leaving out the possibility that the Flyers can obtain these pieces without jettisoning Couturier to get a top 5 draft pick. Your argument all along is that it is more likely for the Flyers to obtain players like Tarasenko and Marchand if they blow this thing up and start over. Yet Tarasenko was the 16th pick overall and Marchand was the 71st pick. Likewise the Flyers have drafted two really good players in Farabee and York with the 14th pick and are picking 13th in this draft. So the evidence is clearly stacked against the idea that you must blow it up to draft in the top 5 for multiple years in order to build a contending team.
- jd250

We have done this before 😃.

The chances of you landing a top player are about 42 times greater at the top of the draft than any other equivalent range.

Could we get them? Sure. But the odds are different.

The question I would ask is, can you see Couturier having a post season as good as Ryan O'Reilly did in 2019? And would we even remember O'Reilly's post season performance if its was not for Jordan Binnington standing on his head? It takes more than 1 player to win a cup. With the right players around him, Couts can definitely have a similar post season impact as Bergeron has with Boston.
- jd250

Honestly, the Blues were an outlier.

But even then, there are 2 basic differences.
1. Blues personnel were well suited to their style of a heavy, defensive, possession style game.
2. Pietro.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush!
- jd250

Because you want golden eggs, not any eggs, and your current farm, coop, feed and flock dont lay em. However if you sell your prize rooster you will have a better chance of getting those golden eggs.

To be fair the first part of your post is correct….but I dont see Bill’s response as being illogical. He also has a pulse on what the Flyers are actually thinking. I don’t always agree with him but it’s a position that differs from yours…that’s all. I actually understand yours and others position, I just think a rebuild isn’t necessary. I think they have enough assets to add some pieces that may make this team look a lot better, very quickly.
- landros 2

Yes … infuriating the term of rebuilding… it’s moving assets to better the team. It’s the natural progression in building a team. Hexy gain lots of assets. Time to move some. Young and old(coots) that have value. Do you do it just to do it? No. The eye on prize is the near future