Latest / Hattrick's Unofficial Flyers Podcast / S2: Episode 2 - Patience or BIG TRADES - Oct 7th, 2026

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S2: Episode 2 - Patience or BIG TRADES - Oct 7th, 2026 · Hattrick's Unofficial Flyers Podcast

• Rick Mullen: Hey everybody, welcome to Hatrix Unofficial Flyers Podcast. Man, we got a lot to talk about today. taking I've taken about a week off here. I haven't posted an episode since the first game. I figured, what, the Flyers look terrible in the Penguins game. And let's just give it some time and see if we can get a couple games under our belt and really see what we have here for the year. And then kinda talk throughout. I I didn't think it was a a great choice to just talk after game two, but three, four games in, I I I think it's a good time to talk about, you know, the status of this team and and where we're at. And the first four games for the Flyers this season have been terrible. they're they're they haven't won a game yet. they haven't won one game yet. They got blown out against Pen the Penguins, they lost to the Keynes. They Lost to New Jersey, and they lost to Tampa Bay. not looking good, you know, and there's so many things going on. And, I don't I don't I don't want this episode here to come out like I'm giving up on the team 'cause 'cause I'm not. And and there's a lot of people out here that are, you know, so burnt right now, they're forget this team, you gotta get rid of it, tear it up, break it down, whatever you gotta do. start over and what I want to do is just kind of realistically go through some things right now and just kinda talk through them and and see what options are, right? And for first off how how have how has this team looked? And last year for the most part, a lot of the guys looked good. They didn't look too bad and all focus was on Matt Vemishkov. And and rightfully so. Mattvey struggled last year. It was it was a really hard year for him. There was a lot of the tension between him and Tocket. And we're past that now. That's not even a topic of conversation at this point at all. Matve Mishkov has looked very, very good this year. Yeah, he's made a couple bonehead plays, but that's that's just because he's young, he's gotta learn. But When Mave touches the puck, he seems to be the only one on this team that really kind of knows what to do with it. And, the problem is is he's he knows what to do with it, but no one in his line really knows where to go or what to do. So him trying to make plates is is is difficult, in my opinion. Like he's skating well, he's seeing the ice, he's pushing the puck to open ice, but in instead of these line mates of his like going, okay, he's got the puck, he's gonna go here with it. They're not really sure I think where he's going with it. They don't know how to read him yet, I guess. And he's not really able to make that really good play, if that makes sense. he ha he has made very good plays. He's found that open guy and has gotten him the puck. But hockey is a weird sport because a lot of times when you're playing good teams that are marking up on you on defense It's the pass that doesn't go right to you that creates a good team versus a bad team. It's the pass that gets put into open space where no one's defending, and the the receiver of that pass realizes that and skates to that open space. And that's where the Flyers have a struggle. Like these guys that are on this team, they don't necessarily have that mindset to be like super good. offensive players. They they don't. They're reactionary. It's just like it's not in them to be really creative. It's more of a a style they play. It's like along the boards, put the puck in deep, throw it to the net, hope somebody's there to get a shot. it's sad. It's sad to watch. It's hard to watch. The creativity in this team just doesn't exist. So anyhow, you look at it and You kinda look at the team as a whole and let's let's kind of start there. when we look at a team as a whole, you yeah, everyone's talking about Rick Tocket. You know, most of us know Rick Tocket's going nowhere. Like like the realistic fans, the people who follow this team, like Rick Tocket's going nowhere. He's he's going absolutely nowhere. So these people on Twitter or X or wherever or Facebook, calling for his head, he ain't going anywhere yet, guys. Like you Totally out of place. You can cry all you want about removing Rick Tocket and he's not going anywhere yet. this team has a lot of building to do. He's got a really young core. He's gotta train them. They have to learn the systems and and it's not anywhere close to Rick Tocket losing his job at this point. Now with that said, I I'm not saying that Rick Tockett's doing a great job either. I'm just saying it's too early. it's definitely too early. my questions about Tocket and his system. are h hopefully legitimate questions that should be being asked. And when you look at Tocket, you know, before he was bought in, I had said back then that I'm not sure if I like Tocket, you know, as as the coach for this team because Tocket is a dump and chase mentality. And there's been a lot of stuff made up before he came in here, like, you know, is His teams never have any offenses. And I'm I'm not and forgive me, I'm not gonna say it was messed made up. It was a lot of stuff in the in the social media out there was Tockett's teams don't make offense. Tockett's teams don't get shots. Tockett's teams are dumping chase. blah blah blah blah blah. And they could be a hundred percent be right based on what we were seeing right now and and what we can look back at the teams that Tocket coached and what their results were. And you know, right now, Tockett's teams have always had one of the lowest shots for every team he had. they were in the bottom, like like number 29, 30, 31 in the league with shots four. Okay, which okay. maybe he's started with a couple of hard teams that just didn't have town and he had to go to defense only, and that's it, right? But here here's my take on this, right? Shots four, I think you're definitely better in an offensive minded system. the players will have a system to get out there, to get attack, to not just dump in chains to actually carry that puck and and get shots. If tock it system is Defense, defense, defense. It's a defensive system, it's a defensive system, it's a defensive system, right? You would think if all of your focus was on a defensive system, that there wouldn't be a ton of shots against. Okay? All right. So right now, out of four games, the Flyers have 76 shots for, and they have 158 shots against. Almost every team we've played has hit close to forty shots a night on the Flyers. That's unacceptable, especially in a defensive first system. It makes no sense. So either two things are happening, or actually three things are happening, right? One, Tocket system is horrible on defense and the players are playing it fantastically the way they're supposed to, and it's just a terrible system. Two, the players have no idea how to play together system, and they just are all over the place playing out of position, which we've seen a lot, sadly. If you watch these replays, you know, you can see just from some of these replays that guys are in the wrong spot, you know, York's doing backhanded passes at his blue line and giving the puck away on a two or one. year check's making mistakes and doing turnovers and it looks like to me. Again, and I don't believe in just a defensive system. To me, it looks like Tocket's system is too defensive-minded, which is hurting our offensive chances. And even though we're playing that defensive system, these guys aren't really playing this defensive system. You know, I watched the first four games, and this team struggles with the high bumper position right in the middle of our slot. Now I think, again, and I I don't know. I know I'm not privy to what cock tock it's teaching or what his system actually looks like, but I think teams around the league know the Flyers play a collapsed box to try to block the goalies and from getting shot at one and also to stop the cross-ice passes to the back door and they pay they play a really tight box. And because they do that, you know, there's a tight box and there's one guy, you know, off to the side trying to chase the puck carrier on the boards maybe a little bit, right? But because they do that, there's a guy that's actually sitting right on top of that box in the slot. And when the play turns around like towards behind the net, you know, and all of our guys are looking back towards our goalie or our corner, that guy in the top of that four man box is wide open. Like he's wide open sitting there, and this has been for multiple games. And they work the puck in the corner around and then hit this guy in that top box and bam, they're getting like point blank shots on Vladar and Wall that are almost impossible to save. And it it's a system problem. And it's it it's either they should be picking this guy up and they're not, or the system is too tight and they can't cover everything that talk it's asking them to cover. Which is leaving somebody open and they're getting and these other teams are smart enough, these coaches are smart enough to, you know, figure out talking system and put a guy in a spot where, you know, nobody is. And and that's what I've seen for most of these couple these four games. That that top bumper spot has been wide open and they're getting point blank center slot shots over and over and over and over again. So something is just not working out. correctly here on the Flyers defensive end of the ice. And it's either a tocket issue, a system issue, or a player issue, or obviously all of the above. Okay. really really really hard to watch. Hard to watch. All right. So then then when you look at this team as a whole, not just on defense, th this and I said this last year on a lot of our broadcasts, right? These teams that have good Offensive chances. They're not playing anywhere near how the Flyers are playing. the these other teams get into our zone extremely easy. Extremely easy. We give them the blue line. We give them the blue line. We back up and we create a tight box around our goalie and that's it. So these teams that can skate just skate right in, go down the side, throw the brakes on, and then they start playing keep away like they're on a power play and we can't touch the puck. It happens over and over and over and over and over again. The Tocket system needs to change. It needs to change because it's not gonna work. It's not gonna work. They have to attack these guys in the neutral zone. They have to play more defense and stronger defense between our blue line and the red line. They have to stop these guys from skating into our zone. And and that's where you start wondering. Like Is Tockett playing or having these guys play the system of falling back because he's got no faith in these guys being able to, you know, pinch or forecheck in that blue line to red line area and then still get back if they get beat. And then that's and that's where it's a personnel issue. You know, if he feels like they have to play this way because they're not strong enough or quick enough to play any other way, then this team's in trouble. This team has the wrong players and they need to be moved. Period. They need to be moved. We can't go this way much longer. So you either have to teach these guys to play, have some faith, have some layers that when your defenseman, you know, pinches up and tries to poke the puck between the blue line and the red line that the center's coming back and fill in his role to cover that defensive gap that was just made by the defenseman standing up. But just backing in doesn't work. It just doesn't work at all. So again, that's on the defensive end. On the offensive side, when we go on offense, w we look like we can't skate. I mean we r we really do. It's really sad. You know, we look like we can't skate. Last year we had Ziegress, he was able to fly up the ice, he was able to get the puck in, try to be a little creative. you know, Mishkov for the most part, like he'll get over that line and like throw the brakes on if he has to, but here here's the difference between like all these other teams and us. When these guys get in, They're not just s like dumping in the corner. Like they're literally going over the line. If they have a if they have any room whatsoever, they may throw the brakes on, they cut off the boards, they actually come around the top of the zone skating to make the guy chase them, which leaves a gap that they pass back to and they do that cycle up high. Our our team, the Flyers, nobody, nobody wants to cut through the center of the ice. No one. Everyone wants to go down the boards or up the boards, back and forth in the offensive zone. So if we have the poor the puck at the point and we dump it into the corner, or we try to skate it into the corner, and then when it gets stuck in the corner, they try to come back to the point. And if that don't work, they try to go around the net to the other side, and half the time there's nobody there, and it gets out of our zone. So this is like this is like just maddening that you know they don't see this. They don't see this. We need players. To have the consistency, the skill set, and the need the want and desire to carry the puck and get off the boards. How you create offense is getting off the boards. You need to cut into the middle. Obviously, you need to keep your head up, not to get knocked out, right? I'm not saying that. But what I'm saying, if you watch all these other teams, you see these guys doing that. You see Quinn Hughes, you see McCarr, you see, you know, McKinnon, you see Baldy, you see the the Canadians, you see Demodov, you see a lot of these guys. They did when they have good chances on net, it's because they get the line and they come across the middle of the ice, which opens up somebody, or the defenseman can't keep up with them and they get a good shot. These guys have to learn to stop playing on the outside, to shrink the ice down and play in that slot area, right? Like even if you're playing that slide area most of the time and defensemen step up to try to stop you, a lot of times as they're moving up, you can like dump past to the side with one of our guys like swinging around and trying to beat them wide. There's so many things they can do. And obviously it sounds simple. I mean, obviously I'm talking about it here, but they don't do any of it. I mean, they don't do like grade school plays here. They do nothing creative whatsoever. The only one that tries it is Matt Vemishkoff right now. That's it. He'll throw that brake on, he'll skate the puck back to the top. He tries to go across the top of the zone to make something happen. And nobody else is. So in my opinion, this is where it comes back down to this team, okay, as a whole. And my opinion is I think they have a system issue. Number one, on both ends of the ice. Defense needs to step up more and stop and close down the neutral zone. And the offensive side, they need to stop dumping and chasing. They're not fast enough to get the puck. And they gotta try to carry in, throw the brakes on, and go cross the ice and play that slot area more. So how does that how does that relate to this current group of flyers? Well, I think the flyers on a whole have a lot of good pieces. Like they really do. I think Martone's gonna be a good player down the road. I think Forster's going to be a good player down the road. I think Mishkov's going to get better. You know, you look at these pieces, and this is where it gets ugly, right? Because you have good individual pieces, but none of these pieces gel together. None of them. You know, you got Mishkov, who's super creative, like a Kucherov, and I'm not saying it's Kucherov yet, I'm just using him as an example because that's what everyone tries to compare Mishkov's future to. But you got you got Imagine having Kucharov actor on your team and then having guys like Dvorak that have no idea where Kucherov's gonna go or where he should go and Kucharov has nobody passed to. And that's kinda what Mishkov's doing right now. Mishkov's got like this this vision and he knows where to go and he's putting pucks into open space, but Dvorak and T K aren't really doing anything good here. They're not helping in any way. Like I think T K and and Mishkov are are better together than anyone else on this team, for sure. But this team has individual pieces that are good, but they don't know how to put people together or make lines because I don't think there are people on this team to make good lines out of what we have. And this is where it comes down to Danny Briere right now. Because we've We've waited a couple of years. These kids are still young and holding them are gonna they are gonna get better and maybe they'll figure this out. But this is where what do they call it? The rubber hits the top the road. There's only a couple ways out of this. It like A, you have to accept the fact of what the flyers are and just have patience and just wait this out. And it may be a year or two, right? And I'm okay with that. I I really am. If they feel like, hey, they can't get rid of Forster or they don't want to get rid of Martin, they don't want to get rid of Mishkov, they can't get anything of value because everybody wants them or they won't trade with them, then A. You just hold tight. We are what we are. we try to tank, right? Get a high pick to keep adding to our assets, and just accept it that we need another year or two on a rebuild. Okay. That's A, if they don't want to get rid of anybody. B is you say, okay, look, like what we have here isn't all working. And what we need to do is can we gotta trade a couple of guys here. Now This is where it gets iffy, right? What do you do? can you can you trade TK? he's older, he's not getting any younger. Yeah, yes, he wants to be here, yes, he's got a no-trade clause. and it may not work. But if you went to him and just said, TK, like we just can't do anything here, we're gonna be really terrible here for another year or two, you know, maybe TK says, Yeah, okay, it's time for me to move on. But, you know. They're gonna have to do things like that. They're gonna have to l take chances. They're gonna have to like maybe take a TK and maybe a pick and go out there and find some other people that may gel a little bit better with what we have. Because we just we just aren't built right. Like I I truly think after watching that this this team will get better as this year goes by. And they did had a heck of a run at the end of last year, but they did just squeak in and they did have long time terms of unable to win games. and they're I think they're going to do the same thing this year. I think they're getting their feet wet right now. They're learning again that they're not as good as they thought they were and they're figuring it out and they'll go on a winning streak too here and there. But I I just think Danny Brere has to think out of the box here and he has to try to move some of these veterans, maybe to bring in some younger people like Burn was it Bonair's I'm not saying shame right, but something like that, like something out of the box where, hey, we're just all in on these kids. Let's get what we can for some of these vets because it's silly holding these vets. And then maybe bringing in a couple younger guys and letting these younger guys grow with our younger guys and just seeing how we work out. And and again, that's that's option A. Option B is you have to see what you are and you have to know what your team is. And if these pieces don't work together, regardless how much you like them, somebody's gotta go in order to fix the problem. And and there's gonna come a point in time, and it may be here now, or it could be coming soon, or maybe it's next year. But if if things stay the way they are right now, regardless of how much you like Mishkov or Martone or Forster, you have to cut bait and move on. You know, Torts said you can't fall in love with anybody. And this is where I see Danny Brere. And I like Danny Brere. I really do. I like what he's doing. I think he's the best we've had in a long time, and I'm supporting him 100%. So I don't want this to be tilted where I'm talking crap about Danny Brere. I'm not. But I think there comes a point in time where Danny's got to look at this and say, we just got the we got good guys, but we don't have. The right guys together, because together they can't figure it out. And he's gonna have to trade somebody like a Forster, right? Because I I just don't see him trading Mitchkop or Mertone, right? So there could come a time where he's gotta say, you know what, it it's just time to do this. Let me let me move my Forster, maybe a pick in somebody else and grab some other people and bring them in here and just see what we can do. You know, I I I do think maybe if they make Forster available and maybe like a first and somebody, they could get binares, right? I don't know. Like I I'm I'm not sure. I'm just saying I think more teams would be willing to listen to that deal than a couple picks and a couple of phantoms, right? At Jet Lachenko, right? I just I just think Danny has the ability to pull off a big trade here if he wanted to. He just doesn't want to let certain guys go. So That's where I think he's at now. I think last year he didn't want to do it, beginning of this year he didn't want to do it. But I don't know. This this year's feeling a little different right now to me, where like I think maybe there's a lot of s l lot of fire out there now on people talking that he may not have any choice. Like I said, like he he might look at this and just finally admit that we have good guys as individual pieces, but these individual pieces just don't go together. And we gotta change that. And they gotta bring in different different p pieces. So he he might be forced to do that soon. there's some talk out there right now that Survaly just I think he just said it today, he just posted it that there's been some interest in Eurocheck out on the market that there are teams watching. that could be just all smoke. they're trying to drum up some some people to read those articles and go, ooh, yeah, you yeah, Eurocheck's got value. I I think Eurocheck had some good parts of his game. Like I really do. Like he forechecked and kept a puck in. He got a couple blasts on net. has he made some bonehead plays? Yeah, absolutely. So I think he needs some work there. But I don't think he's all doom and gloom. I I think like given the right opportunity in the right time, I think he'd probably figure it out. I think the problem just is like we we don't want to give anyone the time to figure it out right now. We want to win. And I don't think we have a lot of patience with him. We're another team Who's up and coming, like maybe a Calgary or something like that, they could probably give him all the time in the world. And this guy might finally develop. So keep keep keep an eye on the Euro check move. And the the other thing is I said last the last episode that when the Flyers in the old days were getting beat pretty badly, when that fourth line came out with Hathaway. he would go out there on fire. he would go out and he would hit everything. The energy level would come up. you know, then when he would throw a big hit, I guess Coots would like really get feed off of that and go, All right, my turn, you know, he'd go throw a big hit. Now you got the fourth line, like smoking people and you know, maybe creating some opportunities, lightening the team back up. And when we traded Hathaway, that disappeared. And and you could see through these first four games that They're they're missing that desperately. They're they're just missing that guy who says, Okay, guys, we're not going to go down this way. I'm going out there and we're going to try our hardest to just hit everything we can, create something, and Hathaway was the guy to do it. So we were missing that. lo and behold, after what, two or three games of watching this, I guess Danny Brere felt the same way too, because he just went out and signed Michael Bunning to a one year deal. And Michael Bunny's a good little player, man. He's a gritty little player. He plays hard. He's got some offensive talent. he's not scoring 30 goals or anything, but you know, he can definitely contribute. He's played with some of the bigger names in hockey, like when he on the teams that he was on. So Michael Bunny might be like a really nice pickup for us. It gives you a vet presence who can play, who's a little gritty, you know, can make up that that spark that maybe Hathaway didn't have. well that we don't have since we don't have Hathaway. So I'm not I'm not dead against that trade at all or that signing. I think I'm anxious to see what it looks like. It could turn out to be horrible, but it was worth the stab. I think bringing in a veteran sparky gritty winger is is fine. I don't think there's nothing wrong with that, especially how we're playing. And it gives us the opportunity to move bump down to the miners, which he was just moved down to today. Let him get some playing time down there and perfect his game. So I think that's an okay move. and you look at that move and you think. You right away I I I thought it too, and we still could be right. But hey, is that like is there a reason why we picked him up? Like is it just because? when you wanted somebody and not bump? Or is that the start of something else? Like we're we're gonna lose a couple of guys and we needed some extra contracts. So we haven't seen anything a secondary trade drop or anything like that, but maybe it's coming and maybe that's what's going on here. But we'll we'll see. You know, we'll see. But either way, I I I don't think it's a poor thing bringing bunny in at all. looking at this team with like prick picking up bunny, you turn around and you think about it and you say, okay, well, where where where are we? Like what what can we do to get like two decent lines out there that can actually score and play and contribute? And and in the old days the Flyers would have like one good line. And then three crappy lines, right? And you do r everything would rely on one good line. And I'm kind of against that. I'm kinda like with Carolina's mentality where it'd be nice to have one good line and they do, you know. they have a couple good lines, but it'd be nice to have one or two good lines and then maybe put a bunch of grit gritty guys on like a fourth line, like a coots, carry a chariot, bunning, maybe. I don't know. I I think bunny goes higher up the lineup. But no nothing wrong with that. However, if you have The idea of like, yeah, we're gonna put two solid lines out here. We have too many players to put two solid lines out there, right? We have Barkey, you have Bump, you have Mishkov, Tippick, TK, Martin, Forster. That's a that's a lot, right? So, if I was Danny, I would start looking at it and thinking, okay, obviously it's gonna be almost impossible to put three line good good lines together just from financial perspective. It's probably very difficult to squeeze three good solid lines at at a cost of the cap and the cap is going up. But if I was Danny, I would focus solely on how do I make one line really good here. Okay? Because we have a plenty of other guys that they will backfill into that second line and probably make a good second line too. But the first thing I would do is How can I improve our first line? And if that means like training Forrester for somebody, you know, some good player to fill that role in the first line, like Forrester a pick, something, then I then I do it. I try to make this as simple as possible and try to try instead of trying to fix the whole entire thing at once, which is almost impossible to do, focus on a line. You know, find that. 1C, and I know it's not he might not be a true one C, he might be a 2C, but a 1C for us. But find that center, build one line, then give it some time and see how the team responds. Even if you had to give up Forrester or somebody like that, just just do it. Like just do it, move forward. Yeah, you're thinking, man, I'm giving up Forrester, but You don't know what you're getting back in return. Like if you got back Bere Bonaires, right? Would you be happy with that? Like giving up a four-star and having Bonaires? Yeah. But a lot of times I think these GMs just see what they're they're giving up and like the potential they're giving up and they're afraid to move. And they're not really thinking, well, I'm losing that by getting this guy, and he's probably only gonna get better because he's young too, right? So I think that's where he is right now. Like I think he's in a predicament where this team is what it is. It is what it is. If he doesn't do something like that. This team is what it is, and we're going to keep seeing a couple winning streaks and then a bunch of losing streaks. And again, that's okay. Sort of. If we win too much and we don't get picks and we just keep doing this, we're not getting anywhere. You know what I mean? We're not getting high draft picks. We're not able to move some of these guys. We're not getting, that one C, two C. We're just staying standard. So if we're not going to Do these little moves to try to improve one line at a time and we're just stay where we're at, it makes no sense. Because unless we tank and lose badly, then it does make sense. Because then we can get some high picks and keep adding to this group of guys. Okay. So we're we're literally, I think, in my opinion, we have a whole year here and these flyers might be, fantastic the rest of the way. And this episode did look silly after the fact, but We have a whole year here, in my opinion, to either tank, play with what you got, and just play through it and just lose however many you lose. Fans aren't gonna be happy, front office isn't gonna be happy, but at the end, when we get like a top four, top five, top ten pick, everyone will be happy. That's one way to do it. The other way to do it is they you you gotta get rid of some of your guys, man. You just have to. You were not gonna get better with these guys. If we wait, we're gonna just wait and wait and wait for them to develop, and it may take two, three, four years, and we're always mediocre, we're never getting picks, and we're never really getting where we need to go. And at that point, TK and our vets are useless. They're gonna be too old, so you should just move them now. So if that's the scenario, which is B scenario, right? Trade your vets if you can, bring in some young blood, stay the course and just ride it out. Whatever we are, we are. Or C. You gotta sell somebody now. You gotta get rid of that Forester. You gotta put some kind of package together. You gotta focus at building that one line right now. Build one good solid line. Ziegris is not your starting center. I don't care what anyone says. Zegris has looked horrible this year so far. I think he needs to get his legs under him. I don't think he's played good hockey at all. Houston him and him and Mishkow, I think were the only two guys that actually used to be able to skate around the zone. And Z doesn't look like he's doing that at all this year. So I'm not sure what's going on with him. I'm not sure if he just needed a little more time to get his legs back. But option C is kind of where I'm at right now. Option C is take one of these kids, package them with something, and bring in something that we need now to get better. Right? That's my opinion. Now, the other hot topic out there is Edvinson. from Detroit. You know, Evanson is a six foot six, like what, two hundred and twenty-two-pound guy who skates like a five foot ten guy. He's got a lot of potential. He's he hits, he's physical, he's fast. He wants out of Detroit. And I think it was Elliott Freeman had said that the flyers are all over this. They're definitely circling his camp. Detroit is trying from what they're saying is trying not to let him go. They're trying to give him a bridge deal as well as a long term offer. I think last I saw they offered him like a two year bridge deal and like a seven year offer. but the money was nowhere near f supposedly what Edvidson wanted. And I don't know. You know, Edvidson pretty much said he doesn't be there. So he doesn't have a lot of sh lot of power here. Like, you know, he doesn't have any any strength or in this position or leverage in this position at all. Yeah, he's theirs for a long time, so if they choose not to play him, I mean, they have his rights. So I think he'll get moved. I do. I don't think they're gonna work it out. Detroit thinks they're gonna work it out, but from what is being said, it doesn't sound like Edwardson is interested, nor is Detroit offering anywhere near the package that he wants. Larkin came back and played last night. He got booed awful every time he touched the puck. But then he scored, he got a little scrap. I think the fans might like, you know, it might have gone really far in the fans' minds, but I think Larkin still wants out, but he wants to be a hockey player and play through it until they trade him. So there's people out there, Larkin doesn't want to come here from what he said, but as time goes by, if maybe we're the only one that can afford him, maybe Larkin opens up and says, Okay, let's do this, and the Flyers make that move. but with Edison, I think we have a shot at him. I really do. I think it wouldn't surprise me if the Flyers went out and got him. And in all honesty, I think they should if they can. I I just don't like our defense at all. Like I like our Sandheim. I I am not a Yerk lover, and I'm really not a Jamie lover either. Like I just think the combo of those two guys together is just not not a good combo. yeah, we don't wanna be looked at like we lost the Cutter Gothier trade, but you have a guy like Jamie, who's small, he's somewhat fast, he's not Quinn Hughes or anything, flying around with the puck, but that's kind of the position we want him to play. And he's tried for two years, man, and he can't play that way. Like he's the number one quarterback on our power play and he can't move around the ice really, you know what I mean? Like Every now and then like someone will forget he's there and some like one of our forwards will drop a pass back to him coming up the slot for a shot and he scores, which is great because no one else does. But but in reality, like he's not doing anywhere near what we want him to do. Like he we want him to be that quarterback. We want him to like move that puck around. We want him to skate that puck up the ice. We want him to get pucks through to the net, and he's not doing any of that. So like to me, I I I don't know. Like maybe he develops in the future, you know, possibly. But right now I just I just don't see it. I just don't think he's got the mindset. Like every time he makes plays, I I I really do second guess like what what did he just see there? Or why didn't he skate to that side instead of this side? Like there's just something missing in his game. And yeah, you beat me up on this because I know it's not even close, but like Yanni Nenema used to do that. He had all the skills and all the ability to do it, but he had he had just this thing in his head where he had no idea what to do in his brain, his brain wouldn't function. And I think Jamie's a little like that too. Like he just he's got a lane, but by the time he looks at it and thinks, okay, do I have that lien? It's gone. It's gone. So he's just not a quick thinker. He just can't move that that fast. And by the time he can move, what he wanted to do is gone and now he's reactionary trying to figure out what his next move is. So I I just don't see Jamie as a huge as a huge piece here. I mean I would I would a hundred percent any day right now, I I would trade Jamie and I would trade York I would get Edwardson 100% here if they could. bring him in. That gives you a really nice piece. But you figure we have Yerk, we got Yurichek, we got Benoit, we got Jamie Drysdale. Four of these guys are hit or miss on this team. Our defense is pretty weak. And maybe that's why we're getting outshot, you know, 158 to 76 over the first four games. But It ain't pretty right now. I'm hoping they do a turnaround. I still support them. I still support Danny. You know, Danny's been waiting. I in my opinion, I think he's done it right. He's cleared cap space. He's actually accumulated money so he can go out and sign that guy when that guy comes due. He's moved a lot of these people off this team that needed to move off this team. He's made a couple really good trades in like Vladar, in Ziegris. I I think he's done some really good things. but a GM can only do so much before they have to stop and wait and see what he actually has. And that's the where he's kind of at right now. He knows he needs a big player, but there are not many available, if any available right now that he wants to pay. these kids are young, so he's gotta let them play more and he's gotta let them learn. So we all need patience. if you sell weather young and learning and they turn into studs. That's what he's most worried about. So he's doing everything right. he's slowed this down. He's given these guys the ability to grow and learn and get better and they're still young. Like I said, this year is still a year in my opinion. I would trade my vets, let these guys play as much as they can, lose whatever they have to lose, get higher draft picks, and then target next year would be a lot better. You'd have, more money. You have the kids that played a lot, that learned a lot more this year. You have some drafts draft picks to pick high, hopefully. And we're in I think a little bit better shape because cap will go up. We'll have more money to maybe trade and and buy, right? But I don't know. I don't know what Danny's plan is. So let's hope whatever it is, he's got a plan. Let let's hope soon something changes, something drops, because I think the Flyers need it if they want to win. He needs to make some changes. If he they want to stay status quo, I still think he needs to make some changes. Let some of these vets go then and let some of these kids play because they need to learn. So anyhow, we'll try to get another episode out at the end of this weekend. Flyers play tomorrow night. I I think it's against Ottawa. So we'll maybe we'll drop another one like Saturday or Sunday after they get a game or two under their belt. They have what Ottawa, the Canes coming in again on Sunday. So it's gonna it's gonna be tough. There's they still have a really hard schedule here. So God knows when's gonna be the first time they actually get their first win. But a lot a lot to think about, a lot floating out there. it's it's an exciting time for us Flyers fans because we do have a good group of core kids, but it's also a frustrating time for us Flyers fans because we wanna win now. And these kids need time. And we can't end up keeping all these kids. There's gonna come a point in time we gotta we gotta do exactly what Tort said. And you can't you can't fall in love with everybody. Some of these guys have to be moved to fill the right holes with the right people. Because again, this Flyers team right now has a bunch of individuals, but not good cohesive lines. They have to figure this out and they gotta figure it out fast. So until next time. Go flyers.