New Philosophy Is Not the Cause of Philadelphia Flyers' Slow 2014 Offseason

Philadelphia Flyers chairman Ed Snider used "the P word" in a recent interview, which had to shock a lot of the team's longtime fans. Snider said that management would be more patient in the future. But based on the organization's history over the past few decades, the idea that the team has suddenly learned to wait for prospects to develop has to be taken with a grain of salt.

Snider finally admitted that the Flyers organization has lacked patience since the team's glory days of the mid-1970s.

"I have probably been a little too anxious to win another Cup," Snider told Sam Carchidi of The Philadelphia Inquirer. "I was very patient when I was young, when we built the winners. We let the other five teams trade away their draft picks and some of their top kids, and we didn't do that."

Historically, the Flyers have traded away younger players in order to acquire or sign veterans. The goal has always been to win now, rather than to allow draft picks sufficient time to develop.

The signing of Ilya Bryzgalov to a nine-year, $51 million contract may have been the worst move economically. It also led Philadelphia to trade Sergei Bobrovsky to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Bryzgalov was not worth the huge contract he was being paid, and the Flyers eventually used a compliance buyout to rid themselves of his contract. Meanwhile, Bobrovsky went on to win a Vezina Trophy and lead the Blue Jackets to the playoffs for only the second time in the franchise's history.

The Flyers also used a compliance buyout on Daniel Briere, another veteran who was productive but could not be as productive as his high salary dictated, especially later in his career.

But there is a catch to Snider's new-found praise for foregoing the quick fix. It comes after an offseason in which the Flyers had no choice but to be patient.

Because of the numerous bad contracts handed out by Snider and former general manager Paul Holmgren, the Flyers actually found themselves over the salary cap for most of the summer. That left them unable to sign any big-ticket free agents to improve the team's roster.

New general manager Ron Hextall tried to make some moves to upgrade the talent on the roster. He dealt Scott Hartnell to the Columbus Blue Jackets for R.J. Umberger. That failed to free up much cap room now, but Umberger's contract expires after the 2016-17 season, while Hartnell's expires two seasons later.

TERRY RENNA/Associated Press

Hextall tried to trade Vincent Lecavalier during the offseason according to TSN's Darren Dreger, via theScore.com, but was unable to find a taker for the highly paid veteran forward.

The Flyers have some highly touted prospects in their system like forward Scott Laughton, defensemen Samuel Morin, Shayne Gostisbehere and Robert Hagg and goalie Anthony Stolarz. With the exception of Laughton, many of them are at least a year or two away from being ready to play in the NHL according to The Hockey News 2014-15 Yearbook.

Has Snider truly changed his philosophy and started to develop a long-term plan for turning the Flyers into a younger team that can grow together and contend for a number of years? It's one thing for him to make that claim during a summer when his team has no cap room to maneuver with and another to maintain that plan if his team gets off to a slow start or goes into a prolonged slump in the middle of the season.

Snider can make all of the claims he wants about a new path in Philadelphia, but based on the team's long-term track record, the proof will be in his future actions, not his present words.