Dave Isaac

@davegisaac

VOORHEES — When his plane touched down in Philadelphia Monday night, Wayne Simmonds immediately started thinking about the answers to a lot of questions about the upcoming season.

What are the expectations?

Can the Flyers win now?

How much time do members of their core group have in their primes?

NEW HEIGHTS? Schenn has big expectations

That last one has been a popular query over the last year or so as the Flyers have Claude Giroux, Jake Voracek and Sean Couturier all inked to long-term deals. Simmonds still has three years left on his deal and Brayden Schenn, who got a four-year, $20.5 million extension in the offseason, is on the books until 2020.

The recent commentary has been, to quote Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra, “it’s getting late early.”

“I think we’ve got a pretty good group,” said Simmonds, an alternate captain. “A lot of the guys are in between that 24 and 30 mark, which is what everyone says is the sweet spot. Obviously we plan to evolve and we’ve got a lot of younger guys. Schenner and Coots took big steps last year and obviously this year they’re going to continue to progress.”

Schenn, 25, and Couturier, 23, each had career-high numbers in points last year, 59 and 39 respectively, and are part of the younger faction of that core group. Giroux and Simmonds are 28. Voracek just turned 27 a month ago.

“We’re not old by any means, but our core group of guys is in our prime now,” Schenn said the other day. “We’ve got to make it happen.”

Another name that can be added to that core group is Shayne Gostisbehere. The 23-year-old defenseman is coming off a rookie season that had him as a finalist for the Calder Trophy. Behind him are young defensemen like 2015 first-round pick Ivan Provorov, 2014 first-round pick Travis Sanheim and 2013 picks Sam Morin and Robert Hagg.

Provorov has a legitimate shot at making the NHL roster this year, but it appears significantly less likely for the other three. So with another year for the Flyers’ core, where does that leave the progression for the club? Winning a Stanley Cup isn’t the expectation this season, although the team is hoping to do better than a first-round exit like the last campaign.

“For us it’s about the younger guys and trying to cultivate them and show them what it is to play Flyers hockey and what it is you have to bring to the ice every single day,” Simmonds said. “Our motto last year was ‘every day.’ Every day you get better. Every day you work your butt off. Every day you come to the rink and you’ve got to prove it to yourself again. It’s more so ‘what have you done for me lately?’ in this league so you can’t rest on your laurels.”

Simmonds and Co. don’t think much about the criticism that perhaps the Flyers’ core group is more in the twilight years of its prime than it believes. The sixth-year Flyer thinks he’s just entering his best years.

“I would guess so,” he said. “For myself I feel like I continue to improve every year. I’m 28 now and I continue to look to improve. There’s obviously aspects of your game you’re not happy about or you feel like you can get better at. I feel like there’s always room for improvement whether it be on the defensive side of the puck or playing without the puck or just doing certain little things with the puck that you may not have been doing before.”

General manager Ron Hextall doesn’t think the window is closing on them, either.

WORLD CUP: Flyers OK with Giroux staying

“We’ve got time,” Hextall said. “We certainly have time before that (closes). And what happens is, once those guys age, these younger guys come up and take a little bit more of the burden from them and you end up having a deeper team. That’s kind of the vision that we have is that those guys are still gonna be productive players for us, but we might not have to depend on them in three or four years as much as we do now.”

If that’s the case and the Flyers aren’t in danger of their core players not being at their best, and they have a second-year defenseman who is getting huge national attention and may bring another one into the fold this year, perhaps expectations for the 2016-17 season are a little bit higher than people think.

“Last year we spent a ton of energy just making it there and it takes a lot out of us,” Simmonds said. “We were happy about getting into the playoffs, but we’re not ecstatic about getting knocked out in the first round. We want to be a team that goes into the playoffs and do damage. We’re not just trying to get to the playoffs. We want more.”

Dave Isaac; (856) 486-2479;disaac@gannettnj.com.

FLYERS UPCOMING SCHEDULE

Rookie camp opens: Monday

Veteran camp opens: Sept. 23

First preseason game: at N.J., Sept. 26