In the process of replacing general manager Chuck Fletcher with Danny Brière, the Philadelphia Flyers officially joined the NHL’s Happy Club.
The price of membership is high: short-term disappointment, frustration, missed opportunities, sometimes a dose of bad luck. But once you acknowledge the reality of the situation, it’s actually a relief. Membership is often an important stage in achieving success.
The first step, which Brière took in his introductory press conference, is selecting the correct R-word: rebuild — rather than retool or reload or restructure, which would suggest something short of the total teardown required to restore the proud franchise.
Several losing teams are also in a happy place because they’ve reached the same conclusion as the Flyers. They’ve accepted reality and are determined to do something about it by attempting to build from the ground up — in a year when one lucky member of the club just might accelerate the process by winning the Connor Bedard lottery.
This isn’t a new phenomenon, but it’s been magnified in the era of the hard salary cap. Committing to a rebuild is a difficult choice. Buy-in across the board is crucial.
This struck me recently in Chicago, as I watched a very upbeat game-day press conference featuring Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson. My TSN producer and I marvelled at the tone of the questions and answers. The team was mired at the bottom of the standings, had just traded away superstar Patrick Kane — the defining player on three Stanley Cup champions — and their lineup that evening was far from elite. Yet the mood was buoyant.
I covered the Hawks during the lean years before the arrival of Kane and Jonathan Toews and it was different then. Apathetic fans turned away, the building was often less than a third full and the mood was despondent. Today, they have a plan in place and the future appears brighter. Their strategy is no secret, giving the fan base a chance to know what the front office is thinking and get on board.
Two current powerhouses, meanwhile, only required brief stops in the Happy Club, for different reasons.
Under team president Brendan Shanahan, the Maple Leafs started down this road with a regime change in 2014 and a declaration one year later by head coach Mike Babcock: “There is pain coming.” That proved to be true, but it didn’t last long — at least not in the regular season. The Leafs won the lottery and drafted Auston Matthews in 2016. The following year — with a youthful core of Matthews, Morgan Rielly, William Nylander and Mitch Marner — expectations soared after a spirited first-round playoff battle with the Washington Capitals. But that six-game defeat has been followed by more playoff pain despite regular-season success. Somehow happy isn’t a word used often any more in the land of blue and white.
Another team that sauntered through this stage was the New York Rangers. In 2018, GM Jeff Gorton’s intention to take a step back in order to get better couldn’t have been more clear — spelled out in a letter to season-ticket holders. It worked. The response was a collective shrug of the shoulders before the Rangers accelerated the pace of the rebuild with lottery success of their own, plus the acquisition of forward Artemi Panarin and defenceman Adam Fox, who chose New York as their ideal destination. Before most diehard fans could even process what was happening, the team was back to firing coaches and winning playoff series.
The Montreal Canadiens, a team I’m around a lot, have been rebuilding for the past season and a half. After a surprising run to the Cup final with a veteran lineup in 2021, things plummeted quickly. A management change introduced Gorton and Kent Hughes to the executive suite, while Martin St. Louis (coaching youth hockey in Connecticut at the time) was a brazen hire behind the bench. The roster turnover began immediately, and the route forward was well planned and accepted. While things have yet to change for the better in terms of wins and losses, the Canadiens are clearly improving on the ice, the Bell Centre is loud and a vision of what may be, with a system chock full of talented prospects in the pipeline, is beginning to take shape.
The evidence suggests short-term pain, accepted with a smile, can pay off in the NHL. In fact, for some teams it might be a necessity. My advice to the Flyers’ faithful is to buckle up and enjoy the journey.
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