Philadelphia Flyers Fantasy Preview
Philadelphia Flyers Fantasy Preview
Danny Briere picked up Michkov from the airport, but will he make sure he gets the same kind of love from Torts? Can Owen Tippett finally cash in on those league leading rate stats?
In this team by team series, we’ll be previewing the 2024-25 season ahead with a specific look at banger category options. We’ll start tackling the potential lines to get a sense of deployment, we’ll rank players by offense, bangs (PIMs, hits and blocks) and overall value and finally feature a few players in depth.
Lineup projection
(update: Sep 5)
Torts is back for his 3rd season in Philly, expect more of that hard working shot suppression system again this year. The flyers bought out Cam Atkinson and walked away from Felix Sandstrom, aside from that, the only other change is incoming Russian superstar Matvei Michkov.Â
Philly ended the year with a top line of Foerster - Poehling - Konecny and Tippett - Frost - Brink rounded out the top 6. Disgruntled Couturier was on the third line between Cates and Hathaway. Laughton, who was featured on the fourth line, did see time on the first line between Foerster and Konecny earlier in the month. But Torts is notorious for mixing up his lines, he even had Hathaway up on the top line at times.
Here’s my best guess for now:
Foerster - Poehling - Konecny
Tippett - Frost - Michkov
Cates - Couturier - Brink
Farabee - Laughton - Hathaway
Extras: Deslauriers
York - SanheimÂ
Seeler - Drysdale
Zamula - Ristolainen
Extras: Johnson, Attard
Ersson
Fedotov
PP1: Konecny, Michkov, Tippett, Frost, Drysdale
PP2: Foerster, Farabee, Laughton, Brink, York
Philadelphia Flyers fantasy breakdown
Valuable fantasy options in Philly fall off a cliff after Konecny, Tippett and Michkov are off the table. Hathaway makes for a solid banger with your last pick. Keep an eye on Foerster and Frost who both have tons of offensive potential.
Player highlights
Travis Konecny
Konecny had a solid 2023-24, suiting up for 76 games and pacing for 36 goals, 73 points, 263 SOGs, 72 PIMs and 97 hits. Interestingly, his hits really popped off in the second half of the year pacing for 142 hits and 50 blocks. He fills most categories every night and has some solid value in PIMs if you’re in a real banger league.Â
What limits him from hitting another offensive ceiling is how Torts deploys his PP units. Despite leading the team in PPTOI, Konecny only hit a 56% PP share last year. If that was closer to 70% and 3.5 mins per night, Konecny would be higher in my rankings. Maybe Michkov forces Torts to deploy a real PP1?
Konecny benefited from an inflated iSH% last year, +19% compared to his previous 3 seasons (189 GP). It was only inflated at 5v5 though (+27%), his PP iSH% was actually down -32% indicating that he could pop a few more PPGs next year but see his overall conversion total drop a bit.Â
What he could lose in goals next year, he should gain in assists. His 2A/60 at 5v5 were down -36% and his IPP at 5v5 was down -12%. Most encouragingly is that he improved his iCF/60 at 5v5 by +19% to an elite 18.57. Konecny is generating chances for at the same rate as guys likeÂ
Regardless of whether Konecny plays with him at EV or not, the addition of Michkov on the man advantage could pay big dividends for him. The 4th round is a solid spot to grab Konecny in your banger leagues as your first RW.
Owen Tippett
I’m a huge Tippett fan. Actually just grabbed him in my home league in the 7th round but by my rankings, I think he’s worthy of an early 6th round pick. But I’m higher than most on Tippett, so reader discretion is advised. I just wished Torts gave this man the ice time he deserves. It was looking really good as Tippett received 17:26 mins in 2022-23 but that fell to 16:35 last year.Â
Despite the drop in ice time, Tippett recorded a career high 56 point pace last year and a whopping 289 SOGs and 148 hits, also career highs. Tippett’s second half last year looked really promising. He paced for 50 points and 289 SOGs in his first 43 games but increased that pace to 63 points and 321 SOGs over his final 35 games.Â
What’s preventing him from being a total stud in banger leagues is either hitting another notch offensively or getting more PIMs. Over the last 3 years, he’s averaged 15 PIMs per year. That’s amazing in real life, but not if you play in a real banger league. To make up for it though, Tippett is a really solid contributor in hits and an elite shot blocker. Weird that Torts doesn’t love the man more.Â
On top of his beautiful fiery orange hair, there’s so much to love about this man.
He increased his 5v5 SOG/60 by +38% last year compared to his previous 185 games. He improved his 5v5 ixG/60 by +17%, his iCF/60 (+46%) and iSCF/60 (+22%) at 5v5 were both up as well. All elite rate stats. Tippett is actually second in the NHL in iCF/60, 1st in 5v5 SOG/60. Let that information settle in for a second. If Tippett received the same amount of minutes at 5v5 as Pastrnak or MacKinnon, he would put up more shots. Filip Forsberg is the only player last year to generate more individual chances for per 60 at 5v5 than Tippett, and just by a hair.Â
Overall, Tippett is a few extra minutes of ice time away from being an elite player in banger leagues. The wild card in all of this is Torts of course. I might be a bit too optimistic in my projection for Tippett but I think he crosses a 66 point pace this year and gets more efficient on the power play. In leagues that don’t count PIMs, I think he’s ranked inside the top 50 skaters.
Matvei Michkov
The big question for Michkov this year is whether he and Torts will hit it off. Briere's so sold on this kid that I wouldn’t be surprised if Torts gets a nudge to ease up. Teach the kid the pro game, sure, but let’s roll out the red carpet for him too.
Aside from blowing up the PNHLe model and looking like the second coming of Kaprizov and Kucherov, Michkov is a high volume shooter, which makes me think he might not play too often with Tippett who likes to chuck as many pucks. You likely won’t be able to count on him for many hits and blocks but he might have a decent showing in the PIMs department. 65 PIMs in 74 KHL games over the past 2 seasons.
Garnet Hathaway
Torts is a big fan of Hathaway, he dressed in all 82 games last year and has a sure fire spot in the bottom 6 again this year. Not much to talk about in the offense department but boy does Garnet like to bang bodies and block shots. Last year he had 132 PIMs, 326 hits and 73 blocks. He even bumped those numbers in the second half, pacing for 89 blocks and a whopping 389 hits, good for 2nd in the NHL behind only Jeremy Lauzon.Â
Interestingly, this was a career high for Hathaway in both hits and PIMs. When comparing last year's 5v5 rates to his previous 3 seasons (216 GP), he saw his hits/60 rise +10%, his blks/60 up +15% and his PIMs/60 way up +75%. He was 13th in the NHL in hits/60 and PIMs/60 at 5v5.
I’ve got Hathaway ranked just inside my top 150, good for a 13th pick. Ideally though you grab someone like Martin Pospisil earlier in the draft who offers the same value in banger cats but a lot more offensive upside.Â
Emil Andrae
Emil Andrae actually made the big club out of camp last year but didn’t stick too long. The undersized Sweedish defenceman played has played 71 games in the AHL so far and has accumulated 38 points and a solid 72 PIMs. Looking at his rate stats, he ranks really well in hits as well. He’ll be in tough again to stick with the big club, needing to outplay Seeler or Zamula but he’ll be at the top of the list as an injury call-up option.
Sources I used in part for this article:
Frozen Tools from DobberHockey. Game Logs, Line Combinations, NHL Lineups, Advanced Stats, Boxscores, Reports and more.
Fantasy Hockey Life. Prospects, Team Previews, Draft Content, Dynasty Strategy and more.
Natural Stat Trick. Line Combos, Shift Chart, Advanced Stats, Expected Goals, Shot Attempts, Rush Attempts, Zone Starts, Scoring Chances, IPP, Corsi and more.
HockeyViz from Micah Blake McCurdy. Visualizations, Predictions, Shot Maps, WOWYs, Quality of Teammates, Common Linemates, 5v5 Shift Starts and more.