Should Flyers Tare Down and Rebuild Scouting Staff Before Team Rebuild

Flyers Interim GM Danny Briere did a media interview on the John Kincade show on 97.5 The Fanatic. One of the things he was quick to admit is that this year has been tough for fans to watch, but the next 2+ years will probably be even tougher. As he stated in his Sunday introductory presser, there is no quick fix, which means the absolute quickest the fans could see a turnaround happen, if certain things fall just right, is likely 3-5 years.

Unfortunately, in order for that window to even be a possibility the Flyers are going to have to lose their current "top talent" in trades because the previous regime was busy trying to put bandaids on everything with trades for less talented players which resulted in the losing picks in the first three rounds.

The fact of the matter is that in order to get (potential) top end talent, a team must give up high talent. No team is going to give up much of anything for guys like - for example - Deslauriers therefore guys like Travis Konecny, Ivan Provorov, and possibly even Carter Hart will have to be up for grabs in order to acquire the picks needed to do the rebuild not only as quickly as possibly, but as efficiently as possible.

The problem here is that the Flyers will be giving up sure fire talent for possible, maybe even probable, top talent. The biggest problem with this fact isn't necessarily giving up sure fire talent for possible/probable talent, but rather that one thing this team has not had much success with in recent years is scouting and actually hitting on real talent that can play in the top 6-9 spots in an NHL lineup.


In order for this rebuild to have the desired effect the team's scouts are going to have to be better at hitting on certain picks in order for the rebuild to go quickly. Which makes one wonder if, as many have suggested in recent months, it may be a good idea for the organization to evaluate and potentially tare down and rebuild the scouting staff before diving head first into a full team rebuild that could flop if the current scouting staff isn't better at their job.

If they keep the current scouting staff and the rebuild flops because of it, the timeline moves from 3-5 yeas to more like 10-12 years all because of failed opportunities behind the scenes that likely could have been fixed to prevent the failure in the first place.

That fact alone may alienate fans more than a full team rebuild will.