Flyers Stuck In The 70's

Flyers Stuck In The 70's

- Joe Bartnick 10/15/13

I’ll put this right out there. I hate the Flyers. I enjoy a Flyers loss almost as much as a much as a Penguins win. The beauty is they both happen so frequently. The question is why. The answer is the Penguins have a sound management and the Flyers do not. The Flyers are stuck in 1975. The last time they won the Cup. The Chairman of the Flyers Ed Snyder who’s only joy in life is jacking up your cable listens to former Flyer great Bobby Clarke for all his hockey views. Bobby Clarke is the Al Davis of the NFL. Al believed what worked to win in the 70’s would work to win forever. Clarke thinks the Flyers should play like they did in 1975 when he was the star surrounded by a few guys with talent and the rest with prison records. The Broad Street Bully punched their way to the Stanly Cup but that was almost 40 years ago. The NHL and the world changed.

Five years ago the Flyers hired Peter Laviolette to coach their team and I was scared. Lavy was not your standard issue Clarke crony. He knew how to coach talent and had won a Stanley Cup in Carolina of all places. I am now relieved that Lavy was fired 3 games into this season and replaced by former Flyer goon Craig Berube. Berube’s biggest claim to fame is taking bad penalties that have ended talented Flyer team’s playoff runs.

This is how stupid Clark and Flyers GM Paul Holgren are. The Flyers aren’t losing because they don’t play with passion are don’t take enough stupid penalties ( they lead the league in penalty minutes) . They lose because they insist on playing big , slow defensemen that can’t keep up in today’s NHL. They lose because they haven’t had a competent goaltender in two generations and the lose because they traded away a shitload of high end talent (Jeff Carter, Mike Richards, James Van Riemsdyck ) and put their team in the hands of a talented yet immature Captain Claude Giroux.

Flyers fan won’t care. They’re stuck in 1975 too. I’m sure Zac Rinaldo will board and injure some other teams star and all will be right in their world. I hope you Flyers fans are old enough to remember 1975.