Flyers roundtable: Is the team’s overachievement actually a good thing long-term?

Capped by a 4-0 win Saturday over the Winnipeg Jets, the Flyers closed their pre-All-Star slate with a 10-4-2 spurt to claw to 21-21-9 on the season.

With the Flyers, minus Kevin Hayes, now off for a week for the NHL All-Star festivities in Sunrise, Fla., we thought it would be a good time to ask beat reporters Giana Han and Olivia Reiner to assess what has happened over the first 51 games and look ahead to the remainder of the season:

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GH: I think the young players have risen to the challenge. With coach John Tortorella evaluating who should be a part of the organization’s future, the youngsters have started to give him reasons to build around them. While Travis Konecny was doing it on his own before, he now has support from Noah Cates and Joel Farabee. Meanwhile, Morgan Frost and Owen Tippett have proved a nice complement alongside James van Riemsdyk on a line. It doesn’t hurt that they’ve stayed mostly healthy, either.

OR: A little bit of everything. Over their last 21 games dating back to Dec. 15, the Flyers have been finding more goal-scoring success. They’ve outscored opponents, 70-63, which is just two goals fewer than their scoring total through the first 30 games of the season. They’re showing when they stick to their tight-checking, hard-nosed game, they can stifle their opponents and generate scoring opportunities. Plus, they’ve received some stellar goaltending, from Carter Hart’s 40-save shutout on Saturday to rookie Samuel Ersson’s 5-0-0 performance during his two-week call-up from late December to early January.

» READ MORE: Rookie goalie Samuel Ersson has gone from overlooked to ‘living a dream’ with the Flyers

GH: In the here and now, the team’s success is a pleasant surprise. If you’re going to have a youth movement, you need to win games to help build your young players’ confidence. But, at the same time, the Flyers aren’t good enough to be a true contender. They simply don’t have the depth and talent to make a run, and if they don’t lose a bunch, they’ll end up in the middle, leaving them with a lower draft pick. While they can still add a good player from that spot, this team needs game-changers, and the odds of landing that type of player increase with a high pick. While Tortorella will admit they’re in the process of building something, he won’t commit to the word “rebuild,” and neither will the organization. Without a defined plan, the Flyers might exceed current expectations, but they won’t live up to the city’s demand for greatness.

OR: You’re right. Yes, the Flyers being mediocre and not flat-out awful is better for team morale. It provides a more positive environment in which they can develop young players without torpedoing their confidence. But from a wide-lens, team-building view, being better than the worst teams and far worse than the best teams lands you out of the playoffs and with a pick closer to No. 10 than No. 1 (phenom Connor Bedard won’t be there, sorry). But let’s face it: The Flyers were never going to be as bad as the Anaheim Ducks and the Arizona Coyotes once they committed to Tortorella, who is notorious for getting the most out of underwhelming rosters on paper (see his time with the Columbus Blue Jackets). If the Flyers are aggressive sellers at the trade deadline, perhaps they can drop further down the standings, but catching up to the bottom feeders at this point is going to be a challenge.

GH: There have been a lot of young players that have stepped up, but I’ve been most impressed with one of the veterans, Konecny. Yes, there were high hopes for him, but the last two seasons gave the organization reasonable cause to worry. While he was creating shots, he couldn’t finish, and the slump stretched across multiple seasons. But Konecny put in serious work this offeason and has already tied his career-high in goals (24) at just over the halfway point. His bounce-back season has been critical to the team’s success in terms of production and in setting an example, and it will be good for the organization in the long run. They’ll either have an incredible player for a bargain of a contract or a great trade piece, depending on which direction they decide to go with Konecny.

OR: Tippett. He’s not entirely a surprise, but I’ve been impressed with how quickly he’s seemed to put it all together this season as he solidifies his identity as a power forward. His straight-line speed is so striking for someone of his size (6-foot-1, 207 pounds) and when he combines that with his strength on the puck, he looks like he can take on just about any defender. He’s flaunted his lethal shot this season, too, with goals that have beaten goalies clean. In 46 games, he’s posted career highs in points (28), goals (14), and assists (14). He has more growing to do from a defensive perspective and as he works to achieve consistency in his game, but Tippett is proving he’s a bona fide top-nine forward.

» READ MORE: Owen Tippett’s momentum starting to ‘snowball’ in a positive way for the Flyers

GH: Well. The Flyers went into the offseason with the mindset of an “aggressive retool” which resulted in a long contract for aging enforcer Nic Desaluriers and a trade for an offensive-minded defenseman Tony DeAngelo. You would think this team should be active at the deadline, as they have serious rebuilding to do. I’d anticipate they’d at least move van Riemsdyk and DeAngelo. Ivan Provorov’s name also has been floated, although his recent decision to skip warmups on Pride Night may alter those talks.

OR: I guess the bigger question is which direction is this organization heading? Have they accepted a rebuild? Will they continue to “retool”? Let’s start with the obvious moves: The Flyers are in a different position this season than they were last season as far as their pending unrestricted free agents. Last season, they had longtime captain Claude Giroux, forward Derick Brassard, and defenseman Justin Braun who each had varying levels of value they could offer on a rental basis to contending teams. They also had goalie Martin Jones, who ultimately was not moved. This time around, van Riemsdyk, center Patrick Brown, and Braun are set to become UFAs at the end of the season. Van Riemsdyk (eight goals, 13 assists in 31 games) will be a valuable trade chip, but the other two may not move the needle enough for contending teams to justify parting with draft capital. Beyond those three, it’s hard to speculate on the trade deadline without knowing where general manager Chuck Fletcher stands on the long-term vision of the organization, assuming he’s still the one calling the shots by the time March 3 rolls around.