Sometimes, you just have to take a step back and look around. See what else is going on and what other fan bases around the NHL are dealing with, and maybe just gain some perspective. Perspective is always good.
As Philadelphia Flyers fans, we’re so accustomed to getting incredibly wrapped up in our own echo chamber and the world begins to crumble. Everything about this team sucks! What have we done to suffer? It’s all been said dozens of times almost every single week in the city of Philadelphia since the beginning of this franchise. But, in the middle of this somewhat disappointing 2024-25 season for our Flyers, we need to take a moment to breathe and look around at other teams in the Metropolitan Division that is experiencing an even more cruel fate.
Just for fun and to calm down, ever so slightly.
Columbus Blue Jackets
The Blue Jackets as a professional sports organization might be the epitome of collapsing. They have not found true relevance and every time they actually get to enjoy some wins, it is one single superstar dragging them to winning more games than people expected. And their team right now is just full of misery.
Beyond some fun talents like Adam Fantilli, the team is spiraling and just has no idea how to develop a prospect. They draft well, but then let the teenagers just sit and rot and then eventually have to move on from them. If a young player finds success in Columbus, it is in spite of the team that drafted them.
And that brings us to David Jiricek. A defenseman who had (and has) all the promise to become a bona fide No. 1 blueliner on a good team and the floor of a very capable top-four defenseman. But because they decided they don’t even want to bother with any attempt at developing him and dealing with some lumps, they have decided to trade him away for whatever sort of package they’re going to get. Unless they know that Jiricek is significantly worse than his reputation around the league, it’s just another case of the Blue Jackets being so bad.
Despite having all the draft picks and prospects some of us are envious of, there is no way that being a fan of this team is better than what we have going on over here.
Pittsburgh Penguins
Oh, this is fun. Yeah, yeah, three Stanley Cups in the modern era. Whatever. We can just stop thinking about that for a second to really take in just how awful the Penguins are this season. With other teams being a little more ruthless with their aging core — like the Flyers doing a little right by Claude Giroux and letting him try to win a Cup somewhere else before heading back home in free agency — the Penguins have committed themselves to being nice and friendly with their old dudes.
Sidney Crosby is one thing, but keeping players who certainly a whole lot of teams would’ve loved to have a couple years ago for the playoffs, and could have helped Crosby be surrounded by some exciting young talent; the Penguins are now locked in their own basement.
They have already declared that everyone except their captain is available in a trade, but it is extremely too late. It’s so funny. So perfect. We can finally have something over the stupid idiots to the west.
New York Rangers
While you can look in the standings and see that nothing is really wrong with the Rangers, they are reportedly ready to abandon the current core of older players and are apparently close to trading one of Chris Kreider or Jacob Trouba.
Despite wins piling up, having the best goaltender in the world, letting players like Adam Fox and Artemi Panarin just waltz on their team and be some of the best skaters in franchise history, the Rangers’ core is still rotten. Whatever on-ice result happens and however many wins they get and what they do in the playoffs, they are still panicking about the long-term and maybe they just realized that this super-accelerated rebuild wasn’t the best course of action.
New York Islanders
The Islanders are just bad and miserable. They have some decent players in all positions, but just will never gather enough talent to get ahead of the top teams in this division and have one of the worst prospect pools in the league.
We kind of pity them and feel bad for that fan base, but still, a divisional rival and they are just floundering in the middle until the end of time.
Other than that? It’s all just two teams reaching their potential and then a team letting a hockey legend get to a milestone on a respectable team. Kind of boring.
