The clear focus of the Flyers draft was on the big picture of the rebuild, drafting for upside. Now, they have time to develop these prospects to the fullest with a new player development team in place.
With four Stanley Cups and 1,906 NHL games between them, John LeClair and Patrick Sharp are hoping to serve as guides to bringing the winning culture back to the Flyers.
The Flyers front office now consists of two former players at the top – Keith Jones and Danny Briere – with Patrick Sharp and John LeClair in advisory roles. The names may be different, but the pedigree is the same.
The bad blood between the Flyers and Ottawa Senators was still fresh from a game just eight days earlier, so when the teams met on March 5, 2004, it would become a historic night in a very different way.
This series was a seven-game showdown that truly went back and forth. When the Flyers had their backs against the wall in Game 6, a late goal flipped the series back around and helped it reach the distance. In the end, just two goals separated the teams in the seven-game series and it was a one-goal margin in Game 7 that decided the series.
Someone’s long drought was going to come to an end. Obviously, we know which one ended and the heartbreaking ending it was for the Orange and Black against the Chicago Blackhawks. But how close were the Flyers to actually winning the series and their first Stanley Cup since 1975 back in 2010? That’s what we’ll look at in this Series in Review.