School is back and Exploding Goods has what you need to win your year. We've got everything from cleats to sambas, dunks, and more. Plus, the hottest looks from Nike, Jordan, and Adidas. Find your first day fits in-store or online at dicks.com. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Hey everybody, how you doing? Well, that's good. Welcome to PHLY Flyers presented by Morgan C.S. Check out Morgan C.S.com/Phly to start your home buying process today. Company on MLS ID number 1464766. My name is Bill Matts. I'm your director of fun and games for the afternoon, joining me today with Charlie O'Connor and Ralph to the draft in Vegas at the sphere. We have the star of the Anthony Gargano show. It is JP Zapata. Good to see you again, JP. Have you? Haven't been on air in a little bit. I know, man. I'll be back. So good to be talking hockey, especially after what happened this morning with basketball. I'm so over basketball for the rest of the week. I'm excited to talk about hockey. Mitch Goss got me excited, brother. I am too, man. This is weird because we just did this, but there was a technical issue. But I thought it was a good opening, so we're just going to do it again, and I'm going to pretend it isn't weird for me to repeat myself. But I got a DM, or I got a tweet last night that was like, "Oh, man, what is Maury doing this and that?" I just got bridges. I was like, "Dude, I don't have it in me." I have this ridiculous, dysfunctional hockey team that I have to focus on. I have to talk about them six hours a week. It's hard to be all in on all four or five teams, and the Sixers are my distant fourth. God bless you. If you can be all in with all four or five, that takes a lot out of you. This is Philly. It's not like this is Boston, where it's like, "Oh, well, someone's going to win a championship probably." We're like, "Everyone, shit doesn't go well here a lot." Well, we do have the fills, but no, it's an exciting time right now to be a Flyers fan JP, and something we started talking about over the last couple of days when the Mitch Cobb news built, and then it was, "Oh, yeah, he's coming." This is the biggest Flyers story in a long time. I believe he's the ... I don't want to compare him to Lindross, because Lindross was the next one. If he was that good and he came in right away, it was amazing. When an MVP, I think you're too ... If it not for the concussions, he probably is the next one. Mitch Cobb won't be that. It's impossible to expect something like that out of ... That's just not who he is. He's still a superstar. You can still win with Nikita Kucharov, you know? For sure. Absolutely. But this excitement that we have, there hasn't been a guy, like Nolan Patrick, we were told right away, like, "Listen, no, he's going to be a good 2C for you. The team is better, but you didn't get a superstar here." Like Claude Giroux, that was fun, but it just kind of happened. If they picked him in the 20s, Bobby Clark forgot his name when he went up to draft him. It was just a weird ... All right, he's good, and then he was here. He was like, "Oh, shit. He's real good." Yeah. Really, and JVR was like, "Well, you're not Patrick Kane, we don't like you." So all of that. This is our first really hyped prospect in a while, and some ... There is some ... Everyone saw the Sealski article, and people dunked on that and whatever, and I do think it's important to temper the expectations right away. Like, if this kid comes in, and he's a 70-80-point player right away, Jope, but if he's not, that doesn't mean he's a bust. He turns 20 in December. What were you doing at 20? Because I'll tell you me, I didn't have shit figured out this kid's going to be playing in the NHL. Yeah. 19 years old, he's going to make his debut. Like, I do think there need to be maybe more realistic expectations for what we're going to see, especially right away, but the excitement isn't even like, "Oh, we're winning the Cup ... No, no one thinks that. No one with half of a brain thinks that the Flyers are winning the Cup next season, but it's something to actually be excited about, and for the first time, it's like, I do see the light at the end of the tunnel. There is this star player that we so desperately need, and he's here. He's not over in the KHL, and we're waking up early to watch his games, and watching the highlights on Twitter, and shit, it's something actually tangible. He will be here. We will get to watch him play. Yeah, dude. That is very exciting. And I really just thought, like, this is the biggest story since when. So, I went back. Oh, man. This revs a whole lot more. I went back, and I wanted to get your opinion on this, because you're a bit of a younger fan. Yeah. Like, for people who are younger, at least I saw some of Lindross. I was cognizant for most of his time with the Flyers. I was a kid, but, like, 97, one of my eight, nine years old. Like, at least I can remember it. Someone younger than me. I'm like, "Why the hell are you a Flyers fan? You've done nothing but shit." It's been, they've been to, what, two cups since 1988? Like, that's, that's my whole lifetime. Yeah. Someone younger than me. They haven't even seen the good years. So, I just wanted, like, as a younger fan, JP, like, how do that? This is the biggest story since when, and how are you feeling about Mitch Koff? Oh, first off, I mean, Mitch Koff. It's exciting. I think you nailed it on the head, brother. Like, with the Mitch Koff's news, it's a, it's an array of sunshine, right? Like, this organization, like, we're about to go with, and, and we're about to talk about it in a couple of minutes, like, just a lot that's bad that's happened with this team. Over like the last 14 years. Yes. Yeah. Imagine, like, you're born in 2011 and you're a Flyers fan. You were, you were inherited into this world, right? Your dad, your grandpa, your uncles, everyone's just Flyers fans, and this is a team you have to root for. You don't know anything. Like, the, I think the one thing you're gonna hold your hat on is probably the bubble, the bubble. Yeah. Exactly. And that one was rough too. They lost game seven. Like, oh, okay. That was something at least. They got to the second round. I mean, for me personally, like, like, in my, in my teens, they were good. They were consistently good. They were consistently making the playoffs. We don't win anything, but we had the 2010 year to kind of hold our hats off. My twenties is when they were just bad. They were just terrible. So now my hope is in my thirties with Mitch Koff is being, and the thing is, is like, I don't, I don't think anyone's expecting Mitch Koff to be the Conor McDavid, but I think he can be one of the faces of this league, especially when you're supposed to be the cornerstone of this franchise. And the fly is just a very well respected organization throughout the NHL. I think just that alone, it, it's just a bright spot in his own. But I mean, dude, like, if I look back in the last 14 years, I mean, just more bad than well, I did. I did. Last night I put together this list of the biggest flyer stories since 2010. And just off the bat, I'm going to tell you Carter Hart situation, not on this list. Yeah. Listen, that's a huge story and that's a huge deal, but to put that on the same list is like the reveal of gritty. I thought like was inappropriate. Honestly. Yeah. You're right. You're right. Listen, we know about the Carter Hart situation, but this is everything else. Biggest flyer story since 2010 and just to flash the graphics, like we don't need to go through every single one, but you know, the, I, I kept this, I book ended this list. The first thing I put on there, May 6, 2010, flyer sign, Sergei Bobrovsky and spoiler alert, the last thing on this list is Bobrovsky's Panthers win the cup. His backup goalie is a guy we got in return in the Bobrovsky trade. Like we drafted him with one of the picks that we got for Bob and he's, and Nick Cousins is on that team too. Part of the Carter trade. Well, it was painful. It's just was Nasty Selmaier from the Nasty Knuckles podcast. Great podcast. By the way, for flyers fans. Well, he posted the pics with Bob when he, when he was the, what was he, he was like the equipment manager, right? Yeah. With the flyers and he's posting pics of him very young with Bob and I was like, oh my God, he was actually an orange and black. Yeah, man. It happened in that rookie year. Like he wins that first game in his NHL debut, 29 saves against the pens goes on to put up a nine 15 save percentage. They win the Atlantic division. Like when's the last time the flyers won the division? Like that happened with a rookie goalie winning your 28 games. Like the Bob stuff that's, that's 14 years ago at this point, you know, like that's when that happened. And it all leads to, yeah, getting Ilya Brzgalov and then the Richards and Carter trades. We know how all that ended, something. There is a good thing in there. Uh, the signing of Gogger, like that was when I was going through this list, like I almost forgot about it. I was like, oh, you know what? That was a great day. Claude's best line mate. Maybe. Honestly. Yeah. That year, I mean, it's one of, one of Claude's best years. And like, I think Jogger had a lot to do with, uh, Jerusalem development. I think he had a ton to do with Jake Vortchek's development. Like the flyers got Jake in the, uh, Carter trade because it was like, oh, he's kind of disappointments since we drafted him. And then he became a point of game player. Like he was right there with G. But like, yeah, I thought the, like, Jogger, it's fun. He's a legend. It was his, he was gone for three years and then he came back to the flyers, you know, the rival. He was one of the guys who tortured us for years. Like that was just a cool moment for sure. But we also were like, okay, we know he's 37, right? Like we're not getting 26 year old Gogger and we're not getting the MVP. But that was like of the 2011 stuff. That was an actually good moment. Like that one was pretty cool. And then he moved on through the years, like the 2012 one, like after June 11th, 2012, after acquiring Jeff Carter at the trade deadline, reuniting him with Mike Richards, the Kings win the Stanley Cup. And that's going to be a running theme throughout this list. And of things with this team, it's, I know sometimes we, we look so much back with rose colored glasses at these guys who like went on to win elsewhere, but God damn, man, when you haven't won since 1975 and you have these players in house and can't quite figure it out. And then they go on to win somewhere else. Like that does hurt. Like I was very happy for Richards and Carter. And I was at this time, 2012, 2014, wearing a Kings hat until they got rid of Paul Hongren. Oh my God. I was like, I think it was to the 2014 year I was like until they get rid of Paul Hongren, I'm going to be wearing the Kings hat. And that's, you know, we, uh, we go back to the bridge signing. It's like, how did these things worked out where, well, like, you know, um, Bob Rovski won a Vessina in Columbus and two years into a nine year, 51 million dollar contract. Briskalov gets bought out, you know, we're going to be paying him through 20, 26, 27. Oh, God. He's just hanging out. Yeah. He was, I think he was on an AHL stint before he came back up into the league after the buyout. He took all his teammates out to dinner, said this is on the fliers, boys. And it was just like, man, we had the Russian goalie. The wrong one though, that mistake was humongous. Absolutely. But eventually Ron Heckstall is named the fliers general manager and good things start to happen. Like, where you were you optimistic when they hired Ronnie as a GM? Okay. Yeah. Because I liked, they said he had everything to do with like the development of, you know, the Kings core and all that. Like he was integral in that and okay. That's what we need. We need someone who can build up this young core and his plan made sense to me at first because like it's something we hadn't done. And he did say like, okay, we're not going to go out and spend crazy and try to compete for the cup every year. But then you look back and realize they didn't go all the way though. Like you needed to tear that thing down. And they just didn't. I wonder if it was Ed Snyder. I wonder if it was Comcast just being like, no, it seemed like a half measure at the time. You can compare it to this plan. I think they just have a better grasp. One Ron Heckstall's drafts were mostly disastrous. Like that's why it didn't work. Like german Rubesov, Pascal, the Burge, like these things were disastrous. J.O. Brian, like we're getting a comp pick because J.O. Brian ain't ever going to play in the NHL. Like a just shit went wrong under Ron Heckstall. And the beginning things were like Augustus Bear when he won the national title with union and then his, of course, Richard Carter, win their second cup shortly after that. But like they bring up ghost. He has the crazy rookie year. Good stuff. We think something's happening and yeah, not really. And he looked back at some of the trades we made like, Oh yeah, we traded JVR. Fluke Shen. Oh, we have to dump them with Vinnie LaCavalier to get Jordan wheel in a third. You know, just like, Oh yeah, all these trades really worked out. Just like this. The theme of this is just things we think that are going to go well that just absolutely freaking crash and burn. Like we don't need to go through every item. Most of you listening live through all this. I already went through this pain together. We don't need to rehash it all, but we remembered Nolan Patrick. I mean, winning that lottery was huge. I was so pumped. The draft party, our very first one. Make sure you come out Friday for our seventh draft party at chickies in South Philly. But our first one was 2017 at a Smith's place was absolutely packed. Devils make their pick. All of a sudden the whole bar is chanting Nolan Patrick. I couldn't hear. We're doing a live show. I'm like, I think they made the pick. I don't know. It was just so cool. We know how that worked out. Yeah. It was a great day in my career. Everything after that sucked. I didn't want Nolan Patrick over Nico. He should have. I was a he-sheer guy. I just kept reading about he-sheer and I just thought he was cool. Like he skateboards and like plays soccer and other sports. I was like, this is fun. He just seems like a cooler guy to me, but it's not like we had a choice. Devils were picking one. Yeah. It was what it was. They knew too. He just go through all this like another fun day, I guess, all the way in 2018. Gritty revealed. You know? Like that was something. We were all like, what the F is this? Yeah. People two months after Gritty is revealed, GM Ron Hekstahl is fired. That was quite a day. Yeah. And when they brought in Chuck Fletcher, I will say, I had hope for one reason. They started treating us like we weren't the insane ones. They're like, no, Andrew McDonald does suck and they bought him out. Like they waved Yuri LaTera. They called up Carter Hart. We're like, these are all obvious moves and they refuse to do them for whatever reason than eventually fired Dave Hacksdahl also an obvious move was okay. So I'm not insane. Chuck Fletcher at least has a grasp on this stuff and he made some good moves. He had the one good off season. I thought it led to some a couple of good years, but ultimately like it all shit, it all shit out. Yeah. And the, my favorite one, I feel like the Ryan Ellis trade, okay, man, we got out of the Nolan Patrick thing. Phil Myers didn't work out. We got the nest. We got, we got Ryan Ellis. Cool, man. And this can end for overall. Yeah. This is going to work. Yeah. November 13th, 2021, Ryan Ellis records an assist and his fourth and final game as a flyer. That was a Dallas, right? Like Jesus man, like Jeru, his thousandth game and trading Jeru, hiring torts, I guess was a fun day because like we all saw it coming, but it's John Tortorelli. It's fun. Even if it's sometimes really ridiculous and it's just firing Chuck Fletcher, drafting cutter Gautier, those things were fun, then, you know, cutter Gautier gets traded because he don't want to play here. It was fun. Oh, man. We got the fifth overall pick. I'm watching those world juniors this past, you know, December, January, like, this is going to be our guy. Nah. They traded him like three days later. Yeah. It came out of nowhere. A long list of shit. And it all ends with Sergei Bobrovsky's Florida Panthers, along with backup Anthony Stolores, who the flyers drafted with one of the picks they got in return for Bob, win the Stanley Cup. You know what's painful about that and to the cousins also on that team and to the king's point as well, too, is like, dude, our guys go to these organizations who have been bad for so. But Ruby and Chen, yeah, the blues one too, the kings were like literally like they had the gratsky eight days and then early nineties, right? The Florida Panthers just been a doormat for their existence. And they, these guys win championships with these teams, man. I think all three were the teams first, yeah, the kings, it was their first, yeah. The blues, I think was their first one, which is crazy because Florida is definitely their first. Yeah. Oh, yeah, dude. It's insane team that hasn't won in 50 years is stuck in the league with their first cups. Great. I think there's, I think there's 10 teams left that haven't won. And maybe everyone has to get one before the flyers can go back, being the first expansion team to win one. Maybe now everyone has to get one. So, uh, it's like when we were Seattle, let's get moving here. They did the same thing with the Eagles before 2017. We were like, now, yeah, I'll just want to, it's just, oh my God, I, I put this list together, not to depress our audience. But just to say we fucking deserve something to celebrate. Yes. Flyers fans. If you have stuck with this team and my God, if you're watching this show every day, thank you so much. Yes. I don't know how in this era of flyers hockey, I have been able to turn talking into this team into like a successful career, it's fucking insane to me because like, thank you for being great fans. Anyone who ever questions flyers fans, like you can't, you simply, I am, I'm not even the team. I'm a guy who yells about the team and because there's enough pain as everyone. There's enough interest still despite 14 years of bullshit. Like there's enough interest to drive this can exist. Yeah, man. Thank you so much flyers fans. We deserve this. We deserve Mitch Cobb coming over and we deserve to celebrate it. We deserve to be excited. Yeah. It's just been so long, everything, even the things we got to celebrate like Nolan Patrick and Ryan Ellis, all this shit, it all turned bad. Sergei Bob Ross. Oh, that was fun. Yeah, it was for a year. That was a great year though. It was fun. Well, I'm always going to compare this to like the process years because like obviously we're rebuilding, we're trying to, we're hoping that we get all these assets, all these young players that can hopefully, unlike the Sixers, bring us to a championship. But like, you know, with Mitch Cobb, like, dude, like this whole time, like I'm just, I'm, you know, following hockey news hub and constantly, you know, refreshing his pace. Love you. Yeah. Seeing if he's got any news on Mitch Cobb watching all those highlights on Twitter, like every little thing that any of our prospects, even like the guys in London, like I'm just watching and just seeing him and I have these, these visions in my head of hopefully we can hoist the Stanley Cup, or at least go through a couple platforms, because it's fun, Bill. It's play off runs are so fun, man. It's just every year I watch that cup get presented. And like, I just love it because hockey's awesome in the Stanley Cup rules and what absolute how much it means to them. You put their bodies on the line for this thing. Like you think about, um, Matt Kachuk, last year playing with a broken sternum, like his brother has to get him out of bed and dress him in the morning. And somehow he's going out there and playing NHL Stanley Cup hockey, like he gets. It pays off. It's a year later, but he gets the reward for it. But part of me is always just like, God damn it, when, when's it going to be my time? When do I get to feel this from my team? Hopefully it's not another 50 years, JP. Hopefully it is sooner than later. And Mitch Cobb is the, uh, the turning point for this organization. Again, I don't think it's right away. I don't even know if he wins the Calder this year. I hope it is a finalist, like he should be in the conversation because when he flashes, I hope it's hard. Yeah. But it's just the sign that things might actually change because they haven't in so long. We've been through coaches, we've been through GMs, we've been through captains, you know, we've been through, uh, we're running aggressive retool or two, we draft picks the hope, goalies. And here we are back at square one and we think we finally have the guy. You don't know what I'm excited for? Is Mitch Caw's first game at the Wells Fargo Center build up place is going to be sold out and it's going to be like a playoff like atmosphere. And it's funny to mention that because at the draft party, okay, one of the things we're going to be raffling off is a opening night tickets guys coming. I guess it'll be October Wells Fargo Center. Our guy Vince is hooking us up. You're going to be in a club box. It's one of the many items you might be able to walk away with if you come to our draft party at South Philly chickies either on Friday. That's this Friday, June 28th starts at six. We're going to do a live show giveaways, raffles, free food, drink specials, gritty, going to be a good time, going to be a real, real good time before we move on to the mailbag portion of today's show. I got to tell you about our friends at Ali Pop. Ali Pop is the world's first functional soda with a classic soda taste and the benefits of plant based fiber, prebiotics and other botanical ingredients to support gut health. Ali Pop is a new kind of soda with only two to five grams of sugar in every can plus nine grams of fiber in every can. Two out of every three Americans say they suffer from digestive issues and 95% of Americans don't get the daily recommended amount of fiber. Ali Pop is tackling both these issues with a drink that tastes just like soda. Prebiotic fiber is the food source for the beneficial probiotic bacteria in your gut and Ali Pop has nine grams of prebiotic fiber in every can that can help support your digestive health. Where do you get it? 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So I was a look it up flyer shirts just because I was bored last night and I saw an old jogger shirt with the Jaeger font and I was like, Oh, man, I drank so much Jaeger in high school and probably freshman year of college. And now I look at the font and I'm like, my stomach hurts. Yeah. All right, it is now time for, uh, for our mailbag portion of today's show. I opened it up to questions because everyone basically wants to talk about Maffey Mitch Cobb. We have some other stuff too. But people have specific questions they want to ask about Mitch Cobb and we're here to answer them for you. So we're going to lead it off with a question from at new flyers fan. Uh, he asked, I feel like I see people comparing Mitch Cobb to Lindross, at least in level of levels of talent and hype. As far as skillsets go, as far as skillset goes, is there a pastor, pleasant, present flyer that you think he's most similar to, um, I reached out to our friend, uh, boots on the ground, one of our, uh, European scouts, Alex Appleyard, who helps Charlie out with the die hard content from the time to time, writes great scouting reports, uh, great in the draft. And I reached out and just asked like, Hey man, you're far better suited to answer this question than me. And his response was interesting because it's a comparison I made yesterday talking about the power play. It's Mark Rekke. Uh, Mark Rekke, probably a little tougher of a player just, you know, and that's the era he played and where you had to be, especially at that size, uh, but his puck skill, things like that, he thinks compares very favorably to Rekke and man, Rekke was awesome. And the thing I compared, uh, yesterday with was how they ran the power play like out of the corner and behind the net with Rekke, I want to do that with Mitch Cobb and it looks like I was on the right track. Yeah. I mean, Lindross, listen, he was a physical specimen, right? He was a bulldozer. Yeah. And when looking at Mitch Cobb, obviously we had, we need to watch him up close and personal, but watching Mitch Cobb, you definitely can tell like he's got a skill set, right? Like he's, he's great with the stick. Um, you might got where you talk about, you know, get improving that power play as well. Like I feel like he's got that shot, right? Like he can create some offense on his own, Eric Lindross, when he was out there, I mean, like you said, bulldozing over everyone, just a physical specimen. I mean, he loses a stick and can handle the puck in his skates in the corner for a whole ship. Like he was one of the most skilled players. There's not enough to say about Eric Lindross. And if Mitch Cobb, isn't that you can still go to the hall of fame and not be close to Eric Lindross, you know, levels to this thing. But I did like the wrecking comparison, just in terms of the skill set, how he handles the puck, his IQ and everything like that, tougher, tougher along the boards than you'd expect. So I, I, I dug that comparison. And for my power play purposes and serving the please set up the power play behind the net agenda I've had for 10 years, the goalie can't see you. If he turns his head, now he can't see everyone in front of him. It's very easy to trick the goalie. It drives me nuts. But anyway, hopefully Mitch Cobb brings this and Rocky Thompson configured this very simple thing out. Rocky. Well, what's going to happen if Mitch Cobb starts trying to Michigan? I can't wait. I cannot wait for his first Michigan attempt. It's going to be so much fun. He better score. Oh, yeah, he better. If he tries it and doesn't score and has to go back to the bench, like torts is famous. Like I roll, you know, I know we paint torts is this like dinosaur. But he does have some progressive ideas on just like the positionless hockey, having his defenseman be more roamers. The, I mean, they put in an offensive system this past season for the mad Russian. Like he said it, like, Hey, we're going to have that guy at some point or another. And we're going to need to be able to maximize his skill set. So this year it was like all about fast breaks. He seems a little more progressive hockey wise than we give him credit for. That said, like we played the clip a couple of shows ago after the Trevor Z. Gris Oliuk, Michigan, yeah, it's a sunny Milano. And he was like, I just don't think it's a hockey play. I think the benching stuff just is what irritates the fan base shirt. He did bench connect me the first year. I think at least once or twice, just like there was a third period. I think against the sharks where he was like him and Kevin Hayes didn't play. And obviously we know how it worked out with Kevin Hayes had to get rid of him, but he's grown to love TK. Like, so I think the attitude that Michkov plays with that he just carries himself with. And his overall just like, yeah, this team doesn't have very many good players. And we need to score sometimes. I think it's going to be a little less rocky with towards than people are expecting. There will be drama, but I don't think it's going to be Morgan Frost level where he gets scratched 10 times in the first half of the season. Yeah. And also good points I've mentioned too. I mean, Michkov from everything we've seen. I mean, the skill set on that kid is going to be greater than what he's what towards a scene in Philadelphia for sure. All right. Let's get to the next question here. One of our pretty consistent contributors on mailbag days Paul with the great car ideas. What do you see in Michkov's raw skill that you are confident will translate immediately? And what do you think will take time to develop? For example, do you think you'll be able to run the power play? Obviously he's an unfinished product, but what do you think will pop right away? I think the... Not run a power play, but be a big contributor on it. It'll be interesting to see how they have it set up, who he's out there with and everything. But I could see him being the primary puck handler on the power play behind the net, moving around in the bumper, moving behind the net, distributing to shooters, like at the dots. I think he could do that pretty well. The thing I think is going to translate right away, and it's because of what I just talked about, the system they set up last year, where it's, yeah, man, block a shot, get your head up and serve an outlet pass, like that's his game. That's Michkov's game right there. He blows the zone maybe a little early sometimes, but that's part of our system. And then you're on a breakaway. You're on a two on one. And then we'll see the hockey IQ where he's able to break down a defenseman and beat a goalie. Here's what you think. I'm wondering how he will translate with the physicality of the league. He still needs to fill on his own body. Yeah, that's the just being a, you know, he's going to be a teenager when it's still when he debuts. He doesn't have his man body yet. Like that's just right here. He's still a child. Then he just start lifting weights to like, like basically figured out weightlifting, you know, like it's, I do think that's going to be I've seen him battle through contact behind the net and along the boards and KHL clips and stuff I've seen of him. But this is the NHL, everyone's real good and real strong. So I think that will probably be just the full well-roundedness of his game and something I did. I remember criticizing Travis Connect before back in the day and now it's hilarious to think about, took him a while to really find his shot. I was back then. I was like, dude, I just don't know if he has an NHL shot. He can't beat a goalie. And now he's consistent 30 goal score. It's very funny. Yeah. Maybe it'll take a little bit of time for him to adjust to the level of goal-tending in the NHL and just how good everyone's stick is, getting in the lanes, taking away your opportunity. But I think the fast break part of his game is what's going to translate right away. Sir Fish is a interesting comparison. He compares Mitch Koff to a modern pal. Burray. Maybe not as fast. Yeah. I was going to say that when I think Burray, I just think of that blazing speed and it's not like Mitch Koff's slow. Yes. Everyone except Conor McDavid is slow compared to Pamela Burray, you know, but like, I just, I don't think he has that speed, but I think utilizes his skill in the same way. Like, you don't need to be able to just be the defenseman one-on-one with your speed to have successful rushes, you know? Yeah. All right. Let's see if we can get one more in here before the next read. Thank you, Paul. Let's go to JMU fan. Is there something specific that will determine whether Mitch Koff's skill will translate to the NHL? In other words, what keeps him from being the next Nyle Yackapov and just not translating? This was a tough one. I really had to think about this and I really think it's just up to the player and I don't know Nyle Yackapov as a person or anything, but I just think it's going to be one. Everyone believes him to just be better. Like, that was a bad draft year for Yackapov. It wasn't a great pick and he was a bust. It happens. Yeah. But I just think it's the amount of work he's going to put in and how much the flyers are able to develop his full rest of his game. Yeah. Like, how much freedom they gave him to just be an offensive wizard and then you've got to do the little things too so we can give you 18, 20 minutes a game rather than 14. Like, that's to me what's going to determine if he reaches his, you know, star, all-star, superstar. The only thing you're thinking you might have is he's got to be able to do enough of the other stuff to warrant the maybe 20 minutes a night. Yeah. I mean, like, listen, we don't know Mitch Cobb as a person and one of the big things we'll remember from Nyle Yackapov was the immaturity, like he just wasn't there yet mentally. And so we'll see with Mitch Cobb, but I mean, Mitch Cobb's skill set, what we've seen so far, that gives us, gives us an optimism. We're just going to have to wait and see what he does. And Gary B's got a super chat there. Oh, let's get to that super chat from Gary B. It's just excited. Mitch Cobb sets up TK for a shorting in game one. Yeah, man. Let's go. I, man, if they have him on the PK, game one, that will be a, that will mean he had an awesome camp and John Tortorella really likes him. Yeah. It's a responsibility, man. It is. And especially on this team where the penalty kill was like the strength of the team. That was the number one thing they did well. Like if you looked at everything they did, they had a little run there when Aerson was turning it on and before Carter Hart, you know, was charged. They had that run where they were getting very, they were getting excellent goal tending. But the thing they did in an elite level where it's like, okay, how do they compete with good teams? They do this thing better than anyone. What's the penalty kill? Yeah. Yeah. I'm just curious. So like if he meets, if Mitch Cobb meets all expectations at camp, do you want him on the PK? There's so many guys I want to see out there, like I want to see, I want, I want Owen Tippett to play the penalty kill. Yeah. Like I want him to utilize that speed, like, yo, the guy who does beat defenders and just blow past everyone, what happens when he blocks the shot high at the point, like it's a break away every time. Yeah. You know, one on ones, he turns into breakaways because he's so freaking fast. I would like to end amazing shot, really good goal score would like to see if he can kind of do what Travis Connect, he didn't add that element to his game. Good boy. And Mitch Cobb, like I'm just expecting him to listen, if he's on your first line at five on five and he's running your top power play, he's got to not play at some point. Like I don't think we're giving him 25 minutes of game, like he's a, like he's Shea Weber or something, you know, like he's, he's still a 19 year old right winger. Yeah. So maybe one day, but it's not like on my priority list. Yeah. I agree. All right. Before we get to the next question, JP, why don't you tell me about Rite Aid? Yeah. Absolutely guys. Let's talk real quick about our friends over at Rite Aid guys. Listen, after this morning, what I saw with the six years, I need to go to Rite Aid because I need some headache medication because my head right now is going to explode with this NBA offseason. All right. But Rite Aid is our spot for everything we need as far as pharmacy services go and some of the things that they can, you can expect from Rite Aid here with a, my pharmacy account at Rite Aid. You can refill your prescriptions, schedule a vaccine, get personalized care recommendations, sign up for prescription notifications, all you need to get started is a prescription at Rite Aid. Get started today at Rite Aid.com/mypharmacy. Stop stressing over about your prescriptions guys. Let Rite Aid refill them automatically, enroll in automated courtesy refills. It's free, easy and most prescriptions qualify. Talk with your Rite Aid pharmacists today or you can sign up through mypharmacy account at Rite Aid.com/restrichesdoapply. Get your prescriptions at the same time with one trip refills. Ask your pharmacist to sync your medication so you can pick them up with one visit. You can sync with other family members as well, which is pretty cool. Just ask your local Rite Aid pharmacists to get started and again, restrictions do apply. Manage prescriptions with the Rite Aid mobile app, transfer or refill your prescriptions, load up medication or minors, enroll in prescription notifications. All you got to do is download the app wherever you download apps. So if you're an app full or if you have the Android, you got the Play Store, all that good stuff. Transfer your prescriptions to Rite Aid today. Just go to Rite Aid.com/transfer. Rite Aid caring pharmacists are ready to answer your questions and help you stay healthy. Get your prescriptions along with anything at Rite Aid you may need, including over the counter medications, household products, cosmetics and much, much more. Just ask your pharmacy team for details, restrictions do apply and guys, anything you know, I'm talking about anything you need. Rite Aid always has you covered. Thank you to our friends over at Rite Aid. I think, oh, that was outstanding JP. I just appreciate it. That's nice. Having someone else do it. We have another one from Gary V. Follow up. Mishkov has too much breakout speed and passing for him not to crack the penalty kill. I think it's a possibility down the line. I just, I don't know how much I want to give the kid right away. You know, like, let's let him be good at the things he's good at and then add elements as we see fit. It's not like there's, the entire team is third and fourth liners. We have plenty of dudes who can kill penalties. That's not the problem. That unit is cool. We need the power play to be better. There's a lot of things that Mishkov can help. The penalty kill is fine. No, one day, sure, absolutely. Maybe you can turn him into a weapon like you have Travis Connecting. I remember when Ilya Kovalchuk was doing it, like, oh, man, this is a great use of his skill. He just gets his stick on a puck. It's a goal. Like, he's on a breakaway. It's a goal. You know, like, maybe that happens one day. I'm just not like, this isn't my priority. 2024. Exactly. That's why I wanted to ask you that because I feel like you want to prioritize what he can help in and especially with scoring goals. That's why I would love to see him on the power play, either one of those units, and just just skating with the line since seeing what line will fit in best, what line mates he fits in best, but we need those goals and we're hoping that Mishkov can provide much more goals this season. Yeah, it's just going to need it. Another regular contributor here, one of my favorite names, SG Bunch of Numbers. How does Mishkov's presumably bonus, oh, there was a question earlier about Ores, that was the first question. I forgot to this part about RSVPing to the draft party. That was a new Flyers fan. You don't have to. We like to just get a good head count. You can go to alphly.com, just RSVP. It's free. You don't need to take it or anything. And it's not like there's going to be bouncers at the door with a list. Like, you're not on the list, but it's just a good way for us to get a head count. Like, there's going to be food and specials and stuff and just a way for everyone to know what the thing is going to cost. Yeah. I wouldn't say like, oh, yeah, if you don't RSVP ain't getting in. It's just something management here prefers just to make everything run a little smoother for everybody. But yeah, that was that. Okay. Back to SG Bunch of Numbers. First part of his question. How does Mishkov's presumably bonus, laden, entry level contract change the cat picture for next season? That is a great question because the Flyers right now, and they can create some wiggle room by putting Ryan Ellis on long-term injured reserves so they can drop that what's he got? Six and a quarter million. But right now they're up against the cat. They have like eight hundred and three grand against available. So just to make the space, they have to figure out some cap stuff. And a lot of it comes off the books this year. Yeah. Pam Atkinson, if they buy him out, it extends his cap hit a little next year, but dramatically reduces it this year and then it'll be nothing next year and then it's off the books. And if they just let his contract expire after this season, that's gone. There's one more year left on Tony D's buyout, the Ryan Johansson situation. We'll see if they're able to buy him out. If he gets healthy or if they trade him, whatever happens, but there's four million you open up. There's going to be some flexibility and then two years from now, Kevin Hayes comes all like, while it looks dire, there are going to be a lot of things coming off the books over the next year or two, but they do have to account for this because yeah, his initial cap hit's going to be like nine hundred and seventy five thousand or something on his ELC. And then after the bonuses, because it's going to be a ton of bonuses, he's coming over. He's not doing that for free. He could be up to like three or four million against the cap. It'll carry over to the following season. So it won't kill you, but it is something they're going to have to account for. It's going to take, you know, mostly just getting all this dead money off the books, Cal Peterson, all the guys I mentioned before, and that's just waiting. That's a waiting game. There are going to need to be some other moves made eventually though, because hopefully after three years, it's like, oh yeah, let's give this guy eight years, eighty million bucks. You know, like hopefully that happens right away, probably more like eight years, a hundred million at that point, like they are going to need to plan for this. But I don't think the cap situation is quite as dire as it just looks. If you go to capfriendly.com and be like, they don't have a million dollars, huh? Like it's a little better than that. And it's going to be cleared up in the next year. Not to mention me, you still have a TK extension coming, Cam York's going to need a contract. There are things to plan for. But I think Danny has this under control. Yeah. I want to say that now, but I don't know. We haven't really seen him in this situation yet, like this is something he's bringing in the money because that's what you do in a rebuild to get more assets. Right. We'll take Ryan Johansson. We'll take Cal Peterson, whatever. That's good. The next step, though, is like, okay, after you clear out all that dead money, you've got to win some negotiations. I think the O and Tippet contract is fair. It could be surplus, like if he has the 40 goal year next year that we thought he was going to have this year, all of a sudden we're like, oh, yeah, that's a great deal. But as it stands right now, he's a 28 goal scorer. Yeah. All right. You're paying that market value for him. Nick Seiler, not a ton of money, but it's more than I'm willing to pay him. Yeah. It's a little weird situation he had to buy out his contract and KHL and they're spending so little at the position with Sam Harrison that it's like, all right, but for under five mil, we have both of our goalies. So let's say it was a little more to Harrison, a little less to Fido top. What's the difference? Right. All right. I can, I can accept that. But this next part with Danny, we'll see his trades have been good, all that stuff I liked last year's draft. We'll see about this year's draft. But that next part, it is something they're going to have to account for. It's cooking now. We'll see though. And the second part of SG's question, how should we account for all the Dimitov, Miskov comparisons? Is Dimitov really that good or are people just excited by the shiny new object? How about the meat off? If the flyers can trade up and get him, I just don't think he's getting out of the top five. I'd be all for it. The comparisons, I think it's just everyone likes to compare Russian players to Russian play. Yeah. Next for player comparisons, it's like, Oh, who does Miskov remind you of? It's like, Oh, Karol Kaprizov, Sergey Fedorov, like Nikita Kucharov, like, Oh, okay. So we're just name and Russia. Russian player. I hope that's the case because they're all great. Yeah. But like, I just think it's partly that from what I've heard, people think Miskov has a higher ceiling. He's better to meet off that doesn't mean he's not really good. He's a little bigger. I would love to have both. I, the comparisons are what they are. If Montreal ends up with the meat off and it's like, Oh, well, now we got the defenseman and the Russian. Even though everyone killed us for not taking the Russian last year, like, I still think we got the better player. And I am basing this on other people's opinions because I have no fucking idea about Russian prospects, man. Like, I don't know. You think I'm watching the KHL? Bill's waking up early Saturday morning watching. Yeah. There's other things that go on. I got to watch every flyers game already. I'm sure he was in cage. I'll be there. Yeah, exactly. But the comparisons are what they are. Take them with a grain of salt with any and all player comparisons always. I never forget when Cam York got drafted and they're like NHL comparison, Brian Leach, like, Oh, the best American defenseman ever. Oh, yeah, that's probably fair. Like, Oh, sure. Yeah. Let's do that. Yeah. So it sounds like Miskov ceiling is, is like a star player, the meat, and the meat off ceiling seems to be like a really good player. Yeah. So from our boy, Bortz, is there any pressure to maximize the entry level contract years of Miskov's contract? Now, they had a few years to be able to prep for that happy accident. But I'd imagine there's some pivoting that needs to happen. This is one thing. And I won't call it a negative because getting Miskov over at any point, no matter when is a victory. Yes. Like the reason he fell to seven is the Russian factor. And you're just never sure. Even though they always come over, it's always a fear. It's very funny. Like, you have to worry more about college players now than you do Russian play early. But my understanding when they drafted him, it was like, okay, we have to wait three years. Well, that's kind of awesome because then we'll have hopefully the best player on our team in his prime on an entry level contract. And that's kind of the like, Oh, yeah, we got Russell Wilson on his rookie deal. So we can have everyone on defense be in the pro bowl, like, you know, we can sign these guys. Like it is that financial competitive advantage. Now it's a little different. He's 19 20, not 22 23. It's just going to be harder to take advantage of the situation. I do think it makes building the eventual cup contender a little bit more difficult. But if he's a star player, it doesn't matter. Yeah, like Conor McDavid and Leon Dreyseidel just went to game seven of the Stanley Cup final, each making over 10 million bucks. The goalie for the Stanley Cup champion makes 10 and a half million dollars. It's doable. Yeah, you can do it. Now guys have done it. Oh, no, making 10 has ever done it. Now it's one of the, if you asked anyone three years ago about Bob's contract, he'll fuck. That's a dead contract. Like, you know, and now he's a Stanley Cup winning goalie. He's the wins and the win is making over 10 mill like it's doable. Everyone relax, but I do think I don't know if there's pressure because like we just talked about with the cap situation. I don't know how they can maximize. I mean, if Danny is able to figure it out in the next year or two and somehow maximize the latest one or two years of the ELC, awesome. I just don't know if it's doable now because the plan was set up for the like, okay, again in 2026, we're going to have this clear cap. Oh, shit. Well, that's what his contract expires now. It's just a little bit different of a situation, but I mean, like if you look at Lasher bill, I mean, like even without all that top in town, I mean, like, dude, we were a couple points away from making the playoffs. Yeah. So if you had a Meachkov and you get some of these young players continue to development, I mean, like who's to say what's going to happen to these next couple of years? I'm not saying Stanley Cup, but I mean, like pushing for one of those final spots on playoffs. All right. That wraps up the, not the mail bag, but just the Meachkov portion of this. It was a ton of map they questions, we got to them. If your questions weren't featured today and we have more coming up, you can always just tweet me a question at PHLY underscore flyers. I want to do a mail bag question every day. Sometimes we haven't. Sometimes we don't, but feel free. I'm always for other people coming up with my content, love it. But before we get to the rest of the mail bag, let me tell you, I want to take a minute to tell you about our friends at mortgage CS, an independent mortgage broker based right here in Philadelphia. 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I really believe he is on that path and the contract will be a bargain. So you got to explain, so you got the first part. We have both said I don't believe it's a disaster. It's not a betrayal of the rebuild. I just think given the current timeline, trading him makes more sense. When they do resign Travis Connectney, I am not going to call for the firing of Danny Brier. Like I just think it makes more sense to trade him and build around the young core you have and not a 28-year-old who's going to be making nine and a half million dollars. That seems crazy for a guy, yes, best player on this team right now. Everyone has to score and I realized Charlie makes the argument, "Okay, he's never had a 70-point season or whatever, but he missed time." That's part of it. He already misses time. To think he's on the March answer directory, maybe. March answer is going to the whole fame though. That is an outlier, that is an outlying situation. To think he could be a 100-point scorer, he has given us no indication that he can be that. If it happens, cool. I will be excited that Travis Connectney, home-grown guy, stuck here his whole career, becomes a 100-point scorer. That's not who he is though. Right now, with the way we think things are going to go, with Mishkov playing the right wing on the first line, Travis Connectney at nine and a half million dollars to be a second line right wing to me is not a good allocation of resources. It's not going to kill them. Like I said, they're going to have to make some tough decisions. This cap situation is going to get complicated. I know it's going up forever and ever. This is the NHL. The CBA is up in a couple of years. You don't think there's going to be, "Oh man, the cap's going to hit 100 million, no it fucking isn't." No it won't. They're going to somehow say, "Oh well, yeah, we introduced this new market in Utah, but somehow Arizona cost us money." There's going to be something man, there's going to be something, it's just, I don't think it's a good allocation of resources. That's all. I'm more on your line, your thought of line there, because like you just talked about, I mean, you can't just spend nine and a half million for a guy is probably going to be your second line winger there. As much as I love TK, I'm not crazy about him for the future, especially at that money you're talking about. But I also, I don't want to lose him for nothing either because I do know he does have value. And he could be a contributor for a key contender as well. So it is going to be an interesting situation as well. It's a tricky one because obviously he did a lot of great things last year and he was a big part of last year. I mean, he was your leading scorer. But I mean, we're talking about nine and a half million for this guy. I know we have to recalibrate with the cap going up. We have to recalibrate what the numbers mean because it's been so flat for so long. It's like, okay, this number is defined to this kind of player, it's all going up. David's contract next one is going to be like 15 plus. So we have to kind of put things in a different perspective, but it just seems like an overpay for what is ultimately your second line right way. But if they do it and it all signs point to they're going to, I don't think it's like, oh, well, they're fucked. Like I don't think that. I think it becomes harder. It becomes harder to build a Stanley Cup contending team with that sort of contract, but I don't think it's impossible. Yeah. Right. What was it? What was he? Did you say like 11? They were looking for AV? He asked for like 10. Like seems seems like a lot. Dude, that is a lot. And I love TK too, but I want to be realistic here. The one thing I saw today or maybe last night was maybe a six year term at nine and a half. So it's, you know, two years shorter than the max. And so you give them a little more money for a little less, a little fewer years. So you're not dealing with the back end as much. He is, you know, 28, 29, like it's going to be into his thirties this deal. I guess I understand that a little bit more if it's not eight years, nine and a half million, but it still is like that's going to be on the books or not much less you would take though, too. I mean, I do wonder like what the what I'm looking forward to seeing what the number ultimately is. Yeah. Things like 10, nine and a half. It makes me sometimes go, are they just preparing us so that when we see eight point nine, we're like, Oh, fuck. Way to go, Danny. Like, you know? Okay. Cool. Yeah. If it's eight, seven, five or like Danny one. So we'll, we'll see how it all works out, but like I'm not anti TK. I just think there's better ways to spend the resources. That's my, and to think he could be a hundred point scorer. That is very optimistic. I am jealous of your optimism, like good for you, man. Let's go to flyers fan 39 with another TK question, assuming TK gets paid and no buyouts, what can Danny be realistically due to give us a shot at the playoffs next year? Obviously that will depend on goalies and health, but given Mitch Cobb's arrival, maybe a good short term depth addition, like Walker can get us into contention. What do you think about that JP? Uh, I mean, the one thing I, he did bring up that I'm intrigued about is the goalie position. You know, one thing I did say like I would like them to bring in a veteran goalkeeper in that room. I'm not sure what Harrison can be exactly in the future, but I did see some things that I did like to give them an opportunity here. Uh, and then of course, you know, just just filling out the forwards there. I mean, obviously I'm curious to see what happens with him. You know, if you thought that buyout does happen this year, but obviously you could use some bodies, especially, you know, just, I'm curious if they would just take a whim on some of these young players who, you know, may, it may not work in other spots, you bring them in here, you know, continue to developing there. But I think that goalie and forward is really what I'm looking at as far as this upcoming year. Like the short term depth addition, if you mean like Walker, like adding a guy like Sean Walker, they did last year. Maybe that makes a little bit more sense or if you mean Walker specifically, I just don't understand why he would do that. I don't think it makes sense for either side. Walker is not young. This is it. This is his chance to go out and get paid, get the longest deal for the most money you possibly can. That does not make sense for the fliers at all to give a guy that age, that kind of money. Does he mean like a player like Sean Walker, someone in their twenties, you know, looking for a place that they could just prove themselves? Cause I listen, with Danny did last year, that was great. You get Sean Walker. Half the way was huge as well, but to me, any additions they make like short term stuff I'm not interested in, if they can make a hockey trade for a player who they can bring and makes the team better. Like if you have to give up a Farraby or a Brink or Frost or whatever to get a player that fills a need, one of the top two center positions or a top pair of defenseman, absolutely. But I want it to be a guy who can grow with this core and be part of this thing. I'm not all that interested in short term depth additions. In terms of the playoffs, it's a nice goal to have. I would like to watch playoff hockey. It's fun. Yes. But also they continue to need good players. Yes. And the easiest way to get them is in the draft. They miss the playoffs again. It's not the end of the world. The fate of the 2024, 25 flyers will be on the young players taking another step. Yes. It will be on from the back end up, Sam Harrison and Ivan Fadotov. Are they better than last year? Jamie Drysdale, Cam York. Are they better than last year? Can Travis Sandheim replicate that because he's never put together consecutive good seasons? That's why he's won two consecutive or it's why he won two different most improved player awards for the team and probably should have won a third this year because he has bad years in between his good ones. Can he be good two years in a row after that frost, forester, brink, tippet. Can these guys take another step? The fate of the team is going to be on that. And then of course, Mishkov as well, does he pop right away? Does he struggle out of the gate? Is his first half kind of men? And he turns it on in the second half. Like that's what this team is going to be about this year. I don't think bringing anyone in would significantly, especially anyone they can afford, would significantly raise their playoff aspects. All about the long term. We got a super chat from JH. Oh, we got another super chat to get to from JH says GM Danny Breyer was was Austin Matthew's favorite offer sheet. I don't think you can offer sheet guys. It is. No, I don't see it happen. And we do have a question about all for sheets coming up, though. But before that, you know, I love all for sheets. You know, I'm all about the offer sheet. And if the flyers want to get back to who they were, man, that's a big part of it. I mean, Chris Gratton, that one actually worked. Was it Ryan Kessler after his rookie year? They tried to they tried to offer. And we all remember Shea Weber. That was a hell. I was a hell of a week. It was five days. We're exciting, man. And then didn't didn't work out. But I just what you have to give up in an offer sheet and what the flyers have. I just don't know if it makes sense right now. Another super chat here from a dumb flyers fan. Love it. Please explain to me why the connecting extension makes sense when they have Tippett, Forster, Meshgav, Brink, and Hathaway here at Right Wing already. Someone else brought up Hathaway to me. And I very much expect him to get traded at the deadline. Like that's a move. He's not going to be here for the long term. I can't imagine he's not he's not young. And expiring contract, he's the exact type of player a contending team would want. Like that is the depth edition a playoff team would want to make. I think you could get more than you expect for Garnet Hathaway. But the rest of them. No, that's that's kind of my thing is you're pretty well set at this position. Travis Connectney can he's a very good player. It's not like they're not going to miss his production, especially in the short term. I just don't want to give him that long term contract and trading him could potentially help you fill the holes you have at center and top air day. That's it. Like I don't think it makes a ton of sense. I don't think it's the end of the world, but it's not what I would do personally. And we have one more. It's good dude. It's a big one. Thank you from Florida. Dude. Yeah. All the way from down there. What's I what's the name? I can't read it. It's like El. Sue Seleno. I guess. Elsie Seleno. 28. All right. Well, thank you. Hi guys. Love the show. It's my first listen every day here in Florida. Thoughts on how towards will communicate with mishkav is a translator necessary for on slash off ice coaching, et cetera, fedot, fedot off at least speak some English. I think he's been working on it and he does have like some conversational, but I wonder about this a lot. And I'm always told like, yeah, certain things you might need a translator for and stuff. But hockey is an international language. When he's fucking yelling at him, he knows he's going to know why like if he doesn't work hard on a back check, if he misses his assignment in the D zone, if he turns the puck over at the blue line, he's going to know he did those things. And when the insane man is yelling, he's going to know why, like, and also you bring up fedot off. He's in all likelihood going to be on the benches to back up a majority of time this season. Translator. That's going to be big, man. I think that's a big deal. Unfortunately, when I think of translators in the team, man, I do think of Bob Bob Bob. Yeah, let's, you know, got out of 9 15 rookie year girlfriend, couldn't get a green card, dude, couldn't get laid like, fucking doesn't speak a word of English except his name. Oh, yeah. I can't believe his sophomore season after I can't believe in his rookie year, he fell apart in the playoffs. They asked him how many games he's played in a row, like Max in his career and he didn't know what to tell them like, okay, yeah, it's probably his fault. He fell apart in the playoffs. I have a lot of confidence that we've evolved from that guys. I hope so. Anyway, we move on to a fun question now from Eddie. What would your ideal alternate Jersey be? Me personally, I just want so badly the 90s era black jerseys again. Just make that exact jersey. I have a lot of ideas for alternate jerseys because I think the NHL is missing a huge money making opportunity the way even baseball's caught on now that you have more uniforms. But the NBA especially, my God, everyone's got 12 uniforms, flyers, I think like, I would love for them to resurrect even for just a night, like, hey, remember how shitty these jerseys were? There's like 3D looking video game orange ones like this shiny silver, like, I think every team should have 12 jerseys. But like, if I had to pick one, it's just go back to the 90s era black ones, man. Those were perfect. It'd be nice if they could figure out the black jerseys because I'm not a big fan of the ones we have right now. They're okay. Yeah. They don't do it for me. Yeah. Like, I just make it pop a little more. Like, give me the orange piping, man. Why are they so against piping? Why? When did that just go? We have to get rid of this. Like, it's cool. Yeah. Yeah. But thank you, Eddie, for the question. What would yours be? I'm with the black. I don't know. Like, something, it's just tough because obviously we're the, we're orange and black, right? I've always, you know, I've had the idea, like, what about like a highlighter orange? I would. I'd buy on the ice. Like, I would love to do things as much as I hate the penguins. I think it's dope that every team in Pittsburgh wears the same colors. Yeah. And like, if the flyers were Kelly Green, like during the Eagles playoffs, that would be sick. Like, I think that would be cool. If they just threw that on, what did you feel about red and blue? It's the Rangers colors. So it's a little different. I know. It's a little different. That's like, I think Kelly Green is like the easiest way to go. Like the Sixers and Phillies kind of lend themselves more to, like, Rangers colors. But if they were to throw out a Kelly Green jersey, man, tell me that thing wouldn't fly off the fucking shelves. That would be sick. I would be sick. Like, but that's like dumb stuff like that. I would try. Yeah. But in terms of one alternate, give me the original blacks. That's it. Yeah. All right. Let's get to Chris Roberts XYZ. I hope everyone doesn't mind doing a long show today. I don't know if we're going to get to every question, but I'm still feeling it. So let's do it. Chris Roberts XYZ. The defense on paper at least looks to be a bit of a log jam at first glance. Do we see them keeping eight on defense? Adderd can't be sent down. So he is likely a regular or perhaps trade bait. And right now we're looking at York, Sanheim, sealer, driesdale, Zamoula, Risto. Keep forgetting about him. Adderd is he's in the situation. Zamoula was last year. He's no longer waiver exempt. And then they talked about bringing back Eric Johnson. It seems like they liked this like they did with Mark Stahl last year, just having a veteran who can come in and know what to do. He might stink. His best days might be well behind him, but he's going to know where to go. Even if he can't get there all that quickly, they seem to like that. And then you look like they still have Jenning who's staying and you got to believe he thinks he has a chance to make this team right email Andre did make the team out of camp last year. And they could use some help on the power play. And then Hunter McDonald, I don't know how far away he is. I just know they fucking love them. They bring them up every chance they get. So they do have a ton of guys. My guess is they do go with eight to start. And it is Eric Johnson or a vet in that role and they kind of rotate the eight. But I'm also thinking Risto Linen could very well be traded. Maybe Igor Zamoula is traded. He needs a contract. He's an RFA like I think guys are going to get moved out of this decor, but they might start with eight. Definitely possible. Yeah. My biggest question marks are Zamoul and Risto. I mean, I think like for Risto, I feel like especially if he's healthy to start the season you want to play him because like you said, well, I definitely want to use him as a trade bait later on down the line and Zamoula is tough, right Bill? Because like he showed you glances throughout the season, but like it wasn't a great end to his season as well. And it's like he's shown you more bad than good. So it's just such a tough spot to kind of be put in and I do think that Eric Johnson will be used as kind of that veteran guy, but I think it's a good problem to have. I mean, like, obviously, like I feel like York and and say and I have kind of solidified their spots with the decor, but you have a lot of guys who have a lot of question marks in this group. Yeah. Absolutely. And this is a huge season for Jamie Drysdale. Yeah, dude. I think he's a man. It seemed like him and Nick sealer were going to be a like, oh, this makes sense to staple these two together. And then they played together and it was a fucking disaster. And much real. So I don't know if that's the case. I don't know what the payers are going to be. I don't know if the long term plan is to keep York and Sanheim together. I want to see Sanheim stick on the right side because he just had the best year of his career plan there. I didn't like him when he played the left. Now I like him. I want to see him stay. Maybe though he's just good now and he can play either side. Who knows? But there are they have bodies, but there's still a lot of questions at defense. Let me ask you from Drysdale because obviously listen, he showed a lot. He showed a lot of glimpses. We see exactly from Drysdale this season, just one thing from Drysale, obviously we would like to see the defense get better and maybe now an off season going through a camp actually getting into like, okay, so what do we do in the defensive zone because it was completely different from what Anaheim was, like he needs to get a little stronger. Obviously that comes as you age, like you just get stronger. He's now getting into that like, okay, I'm really an adult. Part of his like early mid twenties, but more than anything, he needs to be a power play weapon. Like this power play fucking stunk last year. They were a couple points out of the playoffs. You can't tell me if they're just middle of the road and not by far the worst. They don't make it. You know, there's just a couple of games where you score a couple of power play goals and boom, you're in the playoffs. He needs to do that. I need to see a ton of offense out of this guy because ultimately that's what he's going to be judged on. He's never going to be a shutdown defenseman. That's just not happening. Hopefully he becomes adequate. So you can play him in the top four, but you need point production out of this guy. And the power play is so bad. He needs to be a big part of it should be. It should be fun to see man. I'm excited for drizzle as well. Like you said, defensively is really where we want to see him make the improvements on, but I mean, I really want to see him especially quarterback in a power play. I mean, we saw the skill set that he has and it feels like that translates into good QB of a power play unit. So we'll see how he kind of, you know, advances here in year two. And hopefully now maybe if he and Mishkov are out there together on the power play, now you have two kind of high or high end offense, at least potential guys, and then you have shooters in whether it's Forster or Tippett, whoever it might be, Frost looked pretty good in the bumper. And move him around, have him on the half wall, have him in the middle. I think they have the makings of at least a competent and not embarrassing Pat, like that's the thing is they could be better. And still be in the thirties, right? Like, you know, they were so much worse than everyone else last year that is like, oh, yeah, man, we made a drastic improvement. We're now around thirtieth instead of 30 second, like that's possible. I'm going to skip ahead to George Garcia, Bren. That's what we're going to do next. Perfect. Thank you. After reading, after reading Shayna Goldman's top 10 players team should target with an offer sheet. Would you be interested in going after either Anton Lundell or Thomas Harley? And this really got me thinking because like my thing all season up until he signed his extension, we got to go get Elias Patterson got to do it. And now he signed long term. So that dream is dead and I hadn't really looked at the other guys who are all for sheet eligible. And Lundell obviously recently bias. He just wins the cup of Florida. We really liked the way Florida plays. That's cool. He'll be 23 in October. He did score 18 goals as a rookie. I think that was Florida's running gun kind of crazy offensive season. He's a center, but he's only put up like 33 35 points the last two seasons and nothing special there. He's still more to be unlocked a really good deep team. There's only so much ice time to go around, only so much scoring that you can do. He was a twelfth tick four years ago. I am like I said, all four all for sheets. Maybe they could take a swing and it ends up being a home run. But he doesn't seem to solve the one C problem for me. And if you have to pay him and give up the assets like he's a if not top line center at least really good to see and it's like a bunch of draft picks and you have to give him this big contract that maybe I don't know if it makes a ton of sense. But I do like IQ and toughness. And I do think this team needs more size and physicality like just putting the depth chart together in my head like, man, this team a couple of years might be really skilled and entertaining. Yeah. It might be really small too. Yeah. I think they need to start targeting. I know like take the best players, but if it's a tie, take the bigger guy. Yeah. He needs a physicality. He's a six foot dude and a six foot three dude. There's a hundred and seventy five pound dude and a two hundred and five pound dude. Take the two hundred and five pound just saying. But Thomas Harley, I hadn't thought about it turns 23 in August. I'm kind of interested in this. Six three, two hundred and five pound lefty fills the size, fills the size requirements I'm talking about. Good defenseman played 21 minutes a night for Dallas this past season. It was his first full year in the league, 47 points from defense and only nine were on the power play. So he's scoring a five on five on a pretty good clip. Stars though, their cap situation is complicated, but I don't know like I think they'd be able to match it all for sheep. Yeah. Like that's, I don't know if you're going to be able to rip it out. Like they have 16.25 million right now. Maybe they open up a couple more million if they buy out Ryan's suitor, but Jake Ottinger's doing extension. I think they want to sign a re-sign Matthew Shane. They have to replace Joe Pavelski Wyatt Johnson's entering the last year of his entry level contracts. So he's going to need a big deal. But then you also like Jamie Ben, this is his last year at nine and a half million. You got to believe that's going to come down considerably if they keep him. Like so the stars, they have some flexibility. I do wonder though, considering all the other contracts that they have to give out, good problem to have. They have a lot of really good players, like Stankov and eventually he's going to need a deal. All these dudes, maybe there's a trade there. Maybe there's rather than an offer sheet where you just have to give them a bunch of picks and maybe overpay a guy, you'll work out an actual hockey trade. I don't know what it would be. I'm sure Farraby would be a part of it. Maybe something and maybe obviously some other things as well, but I am interested in seeing if they could maybe pursue Thomas Harley from the stars. Yeah. I mean, at these two, I'm probably I'm looking more at, uh, at Lundell than Harley, but with Lundell, I mean, because I think he has everything that I would like for this team right now. But like you said, I'm not trying to get in any betting wars for for for any one of these players, to be honest with you, but I mean, the Harley one obviously is intriguing because of what's the star situation is. And you obviously still do need some, you're still looking for like that top end defenseman there too. I don't know if he could exactly be that, but obviously he's got the production so far. These are very intriguing. These are some of the guys that I definitely would like the fliers to go out and look for. And all this said, like when we're, again, I talk about offer sheets and whenever I do Charlie rolls his eyes because he says offer sheets don't happen and they do now and then but for the most part, there are no offer sheets. There probably won't be any. But if Danny like goes out and tries to like go against his stated plan and try to spend in free agency, even if they put Ryan Ellis on LTI or like they need to clear up the cap problem first, it's going to be very hard to give anyone any amount of money until you clear up what is a obvious issue with this team, the salary cap, they're up against it right now. That's why you're probably going to look at more. So like the Sean Walker deals or those Garnet Hathaway deals. All right. We have the last one now from Marshall Morissell and I like this question to wrap up. The Hall of Fame was announced today. I believe that this guy should be in. What do you think? Picture of Reggie Leach card. Oh, yeah. Nah. I broke the note to myself. It's a picture of Reggie and I just read it like a stage direction. Turn left. No. Reggie Leach. Listen, I'm all for fliers being in like right there. Obviously he set that record back at 76 scoring. I think it was 19 goals and 16 playoff games and post ever and a playoff like it would be dope and you know, Clarkson, barbers and it would be nice to have the third dude on that line. It would be cool. But I did want to just take a second to talk about two fliers legends that got in. One, Jeremy Roanick actually played for the team. And yeah, I know Jeremy Roanick is like a jackass. He just is, but you can't tell me he wasn't good for the game. Right. He was fucking fun. He said dumb shit all the time. Like character out there. And he scored some big goals for this team, man. Like last time, like he scored that overtime winner to beat the Leafs. He had some big moments in those 04 playoffs. I love Jeremy Roanick and I just always go back to the day they signed him. They get Jeremy Roanick. I was, I remember specifically coming home on 55 from the mall from the Deferent Mall with my mom. And we're listening to WIP and they announced that we got Jeremy Roanick. I see my buddy Frankie in his driveway and I run out and I literally jump into his arms and like we got Roanick, we got Roanick and we thought we were winning the fucking Stanley Cup. Like, and so I'll just always appreciate Roanick for that even though like, yeah, I know he's a jackass, but like that's also like his ridiculousness. That's part of what makes him a Hall of Famer. Because the name Hall of Fame to me isn't like, it's not the Hall of whoever had the best statistics, whoever had the most awards, fame, the fucking stars. Jeremy Roanick was a star in this league. He was a personality that you knew in the league his entire career. And that's a Hall of Famer. Yeah. The impact on the league, man. Before, before recording, I actually did watch the Boris Marenov slap shot he took on the jaw. I almost threw up. So flyers legend Shea Weber, he was a flyer for five days before Nashville matched. I thought that was just funny. He got in first try like international success. Definitely one of the best defenseman of his generation never came away with a Norris trophy though and obviously didn't win a cup in Nashville or Montreal. First try? That was a little surprising to me. I'm a big hall guy. I think it's great. And I think Shea Weber is awesome. So good for him. He's like, Oh, first ballot. Right. Interesting. Okay. Considering especially like Jeremy Roanick had to wait forever and you look at his stats. It's like everyone around him in the stat categories comparable is him. It's like he's the only one that doesn't have the asterisk. Like, okay, but he's in now, but yeah, that was the Hall of Fame, but yeah, Reggie Leach would be cool. Are you got anything else before we wrap up today? No, man. This was a lot of fun talking some flyers looking back at down memory lane and listen, guys, it has not been fun. It has not been fun over the last 14 years, but we're hoping that this Mitch Cobb is just the ray of sunshine that we have. We earned it. Yeah. Keep moving forward here. Got to keep adding some talent, but I think this team is definitely headed in the right direction bill. All right. And that will do it for us today. Thank you all for listening. Thanks for coming out before we end. I got to remind you about Friday, Friday, Friday, South Philly chickies and Pete's down on Packer Ave. It's our draft party and live show from six to 11 p.m. It's going to be a great time, it is the Mitch Cobb celebration in which the flyers will also hopefully make some really good draft picks. Yes. That's what we're doing on Friday. Make sure you are SVP at all PHLY.com. Yeah. That's it. Also, sign up to be a die hard. There's so much great draft content, both Charlie and Alex Appleyard have been grinded in a way, man. Watch and tape, having conversations, all sorts of great content on all PHLY.com, especially if you're a die hard, so many benefits. This episode is brought to you by our good friends at NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. I'm sure by now you've all gotten back into your Sunday routines, but they could be even better. With NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get the most live NFL games all in one place, every game, every Sunday, and you can even watch up to four different games at once with multi-view. One of my favorite inventions of this decade, it's exactly what you need to catch all the action. Make your Sunday's more magical, and also YouTube TV is great. I got it this year. It's awesome. Sign up now at youtube.com/BS device and content restrictions apply. Local and national games on YouTube TV, NFL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games. All right. That's it. Thank you all for listening. Thanks for hanging out. Thank you to our sponsor, MortgageCS Proud to be brought to you by MortgageCS each and every day. Make sure you follow us on YouTube. Hit that reminder so you never miss a live show. Follow us on Twitter @PHLY_FLYERS and follow the podcast. Search "PHLY FLYERS" and follow "Boom." Done. All right. My name is Bill Matts. That's JP Zapata. Stay loose and sexy, Philly. That's it. Thanks for watching. and I'll see you in the next video. Bye. Bye. You You
Michkovmania is running as wild as ever. With the Stanley Cup Playoffs over and the Florida Panthers crowned champions, it’s officially the offseason. Flyers fans want one thing as the buyout window, draft, and free agency approach- to talk about Matvei Michkov!
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