March 22, 2025
Derik Hamilton/Imagn Images
The Flyers' best in the past decade always involved Claude Giroux.
The Flyers have had a whole lot of bad plague them in the past decade, and you can see the worst cases of how bad it really got HERE.
But there were flashes of genuine good in that 10-year span, even for how easy it was to get jaded over the team in that stretch (and even now for some, too).
When it comes to their very best lineups, were pickings slim? Maybe...relatively...However, there were three prominent points in time where you could look at the Flyers' roster and highlight them as one of their best of the decade.
Here's the rundown of the three to wrap up PhillyVoice's best/worst lineup series...
Forwards: Pierre-Édouard Bellemare, Nick Cousins, Sean Couturier, Sam Gagner, Claude Giroux, Michael Raffl, Matt Read, Brayden Schenn, Wayne Simmonds, Chris VandeVelde, Jakub Voracek, Ryan White.
Defensemen: Shayne Gostisbehere, Radko Gudas, Andrew MacDonald, Brandon Manning, Nick Schultz, Mark Streit.
Goaltender: Steve Mason.
Dave Hakstol, as the first-year head coach, took over a roster with some glaring holes, but a roster that also had Wayne Simmonds at his peak, a rookie Shayne Gostisbehere who dazzled everyone from night to night, Brayden Schenn breaking through into a 25-plus goal scorer, and Jake Voracek and enough of an increasingly banged up Claude Giroux to keep the puck moving as playmakers.
They overachieved and rallied after a playoff spot, and in the second-to-last game of the season at home against the rival Penguins, they got it.
Lauren Hart sang God Bless America with her phone out on FaceTime. An ailing Ed Snider was on the other end of the line. The emotions in the Wells Fargo Center were high before the puck even dropped.
Then Simmonds grinded after two goals for the lead, and in the final minute, with Pittsburgh having pulled their goalie for an extra attacker, Pierre-Édouard Bellemare picked off a pass by the blue line and took off toward the empty net all alone as the crowd roared and rose to its feet.
He tucked the puck away, the horn blared, and the Flyers' bench mobbed one another. They made it.
These Flyers weren't built to win the Stanley Cup, but they put together a run to get excited about – for Philadelphia, and Snider before he passed.
Forwards: Sean Couturier, Valtteri Filppula, Claude Giroux, Travis Konecny, Scott Laughton, Jori Lehtera, Oskar Lindblom, Nolan Patrick, Michael Raffl, Matt Read, Wayne Simmonds, Jakub Voracek.
Defensemen: Shayne Gostisbehere, Radko Gudas, Andrew MacDonald, Brandon Manning, Ivan Provorov, Travis Sanheim.
Goaltender: Brian Elliott.
Giroux got moved to left wing, Sean Couturier was bumped up to the first-line center, and Voracek remained at right wing, and the combination clicked.
Voracek produced at more than a point-per-game pace, Couturier finally broke out offensively into a 31-goal season, and Giroux, finally healthy and with the position switch, was Hart Trophy-worthy.
The Flyers captain put up a career-best 34 goals and 102 points in this season, which included his first career hat trick in Game 82 against the Rangers to punch Philadelphia's ticket to the playoffs.
This team also had the benefit of Gostibehere bouncing back to his own career-best year (65 points), still having Simmonds and then a young Travis Konecny as 20-plus goal scorers, and Ivan Provorov on the back end, who was showing the skill and the promise that he could eventually be a cornerstone defenseman.
Forwards: Andy Andreoff, Nicolas Aubé-Kubel, Sean Couturier, Joel Farabee, Morgan Frost, Claude Giroux, Kevin Hayes, Travis Konecny, Tyler Pitlick, Jakub Voracek, Mikhail Vorobyev, James van Riemsdyk.
Defensemen: Justin Braun, Shayne Gostisbehere, Phil Myers, Matt Niskanen, Ivan Provorov, Travis Sanheim.
Goaltender: Carter Hart.
These were the Flyers meant to compete, and they did, even after the COVID pause and the move into the Toronto bubble.
They had all the pieces, a good blend between vets (Giroux, Voracek, Couturier, James van Riemsdyk, trade acquisition Matt Niskanen, and free-agent signing Kevin Hayes) and youth (Konecny, Provorov, Oskar Lindblom, Travis Sanheim, and Joel Farabee), and who many hoped would finally be the long-awaited answer in goal in Carter Hart (note: before anyone knew of the legal trouble that hung over him).
And it all worked.
The Flyers were legitimately good in the 2019-20 season, arguably even the best team in the NHL at one point, and you can take your pick of when they were at their true peak – like when Lindblom was in the lineup before he had to leave to receive cancer treatment, or when they put away the Canadiens to win their first playoff series since 2012, or as they were pushing the Islanders to the brink of a Game 7 in the second round.
But if there was a point where it registered how good the Flyers really were, it might've been right before Christmas (and a couple of months shy of the world shutting down) when they just pummeled the rival New York Rangers at home with Hayes leading the charge.
They caught lightning in a bottle, but they couldn't hold on to it, as the couple of years that followed made it painfully clear.
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