The silence from the GM of the Philadelphia Flyers has been broken. Eric Wolf made himself available for questions from the media for the first time this season.
Finally. Phinally.
Some were beginning to wonder throughout the course of the season, “is there anyone home?” when questioning the whereabouts of the management team in Philadelphia.
We’re here, the lights are on, and we’re in flight.
The Flyers have surprised BEARD Hockey so far this season, pegged to finish in the bottom 10 of the standings this season by many reporters and analysts. The Flyers have quietly been humming along and keeping pace with the top teams of the league. At the 50 game mark, Philadelphia sat 6th overall in points percentage, and 9th in total points.
“We’ve been enjoying success this season, all without having to make many adjustments in player movement or change in personnel. We were confident with the group we drafted in the inaugural draft, and they’ve really meshed well together this season. The team has been playing consistently and as a cohesive group,” Wolf said.
The Flyers are right on one thing, they haven’t made many changes to their team. In fact, they sit in last place for the amount of trades conducted. With only 3 trades to date, only 1 of them involving players.
The only player Philadelphia has ever acquired so far in this young league is Shayne Gostisbehere. Back in December of last year, Philadelphia shipped grizzled veteran Marc-Edouard Vlasic to Arizona for the shifty Gostisbehere in an attempt to provide more offensive punch to the blueline.
“Gostisbehere we acquired early on, before the season even began. And he’s fit in with the blueprint of this team extremely well and has been finding good success with us. We looked into other deals, but after the acquisition of Ghost, our team was playing so well, going above expectations some would say.
"We just preferred the team to play and not try and meddle with the chemistry they had built,” Wolf said.
Recently, Philadelphia made its first ever in-season UFA re-signing, extending forward Anders Lee to a 3 year deal at $7.8 Million a season.
“We are very pleased to get this one done," said Wolf. "Anders Lee has been an important fixture of our offense this year. He plays extremely well with the top 6 group of forwards we have. He wanted to stay here and we wanted him to remain here and continue the early success we’ve had.”
With the trade deadline under a month away, Wolf will have some decisions to make. His team sits in a precarious position.
Do the Flyers have enough talent to go deep enough?
“As a general manager you want to believe so, and you want to trust your players can get the job done, but it’s also my job to make sure the shortcomings of the roster get fixed for the playoff stretch," stated Wolf. "Do I anticipate any moves? I believe so, but on the other hand, if I make too big of a change, our situation could turn fickle.
"I’ll definitely be approaching this deadline cautiously because our long term plans are much bigger than just this season here in Philadelphia.”