It is an incredible feat that Chuck Fletcher has survived the debacle that was the 2020-21 Philadelphia Flyers season, the massacre that was the 2021-22 season, and is seemingly going to make it through his third consecutive miserable season that is 2022-23.
You look around the NHL right now and almost every team has a plan in motion whether you’re the rebuilding Chicago Blackhawks, Anaheim Ducks, Arizona Coyotes, or whether you’re going all in like the Toronto Maple Leafs, Tampa Bay Lightning, Boston Bruins, or you could be a top contender like the New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers, Carolina Hurricanes – it doesn’t have to be the most elaborate plan, but something is in motion.
We’ve seen the St. Louis Blues understanding their position and taking full advantage of the expiring contracts on their roster and trying to retool on the fly. It’s been reported that even after trading Ryan O’Reilly, Noel Acciari, Vladimir Tarasenko, and Ivan Barbashev, while taking calls on Colton Parayko and Justin Faulk, that the Blues don’t intend on rebuilding and are focusing on using their assets to improve over the summer. They were keen on getting a deal done for Timo Meier before he was eventually shipped out to New Jersey, but they have recouped 2 roster players, 3 prospects, 2 first round picks, a second-round pick, a third-round pick, and a fourth-round pick.
The Blues are a team that have recently won the Stanley Cup, still possess a talented roster, and have put a lot of their eggs in one basket with Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou having identical 8×8.125 million dollar extensions kicking in next year, Torey Krug, Colton Parayko, and Justin Faulk on their books until at least 2026-27 at identical $6.5 million AAVs, and Jordan Binnington and Brayden Schenn are accounting for $12.5 million until at least 2026-27. Now they have 3 first round picks and 2 third round picks this summer, as well as their own first rounder and 2 second rounders next year, and 11 million in projected cap space with no player that’s entirely too significant to extend over the summer.
The Washington Capitals are also realizing that this is not their year and have already jumped the gun by trading Dmitry Orlov and Garnet Hathaway to the Boston Bruins, Marcus Johansson to the Minnesota Wild, and Erik Gustafsson to the Toronto Maple Leafs. They have no defensemen signed through this season except John Carlson and newly acquired Rasmus Sandin, which includes Nick Jensen, Trevor van Riemsdyk, and Martin Fehervary. Within their forward corps they have Lars Eller, Conor Sheary, Marcus Johansson, Connor Brown, Carl Hagelin, and newly acquired Craig Smith as pending UFAs.
Their aging core is signed through long-term with Alexander Ovechkin signed through 2025-26 at $9.5 million AAV and then Nicklas Backstrom, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and T.J. Oshie signed through 2024-25 with cap hits of $9.2 million, $7.8 million, and $5.75 million, respectively. Darcy Kuemper and John Carlson also combine for $13.25 million until at least 2025-26. With these core players on the roster, the Capitals will always be in win-now mode but will be taking care of the loose ends ahead of this deadline with plenty of teams looking at their expiring defensemen, veteran forwards, and even Tom Wilson.
The Nashville Predators’ long-time general manager, David Poile, will be stepping down at the end of this season and in his stead comes Barry Trotz. The Predators who have qualified for the playoffs in 8 consecutive seasons are currently 6 points out of the final wild card spot but hold 2 games in hand on the Seattle Kraken and are also 7 points out from the top spot with 3 games in hand on Winnipeg. However, they also understand that this season isn’t their time to do anything rash or complicated so they’ve decided to put the farm for sale.
Everyone that isn’t Filip Forsberg, Roman Josi, and Juuse Saros are available, they have traded Nino Niederreiter to the Winnipeg Jets for a second-round pick, Tanner Jeannot to the Tampa Bay Lightning for 5 draft picks and Cal Foote, they flipped Mattias Ekholm and his contract to the Edmonton Oilers for Tyson Barrie and draft picks, and plenty of teams have called about Dante Fabbro and Mikael Granlund. They plan on being busy ahead of the deadline, have a projected $16 million in cap space after the Ekholm deal, and that could climb if they find a suitor for Granlund, while also possessing 11 picks in the first 5 rounds of the upcoming draft. Alongside the Blues and the Capitals, the Predators have rebuilt on the fly and look much better positioned for the future than the Flyers.
The San Jose Sharks qualified for the postseason in 15 of 16 seasons between 1997-98 and 2013-14 and 19 times out of 21 seasons between 1997-98 and 2018-19. They lost in the 2nd round 6 times, conference finals 4 times, and the Stanley Cup Final once, they were always in the thick of it, going all in whenever they could, and eventually fizzled out after years of burning assets and salary cap. Former general manager, Doug Wilson, put the Sharks in a bind that new general manager, Mike Grier is trying to get them out of. They have officially waved the white flag in terms of a rebuild but have albatross contracts, dead cap hits, and buyouts that they are on the hook for because of their predecessors.
Erik Karlsson’s name has popped up a lot this season in terms of a trade but still has 5 years left at $11.5 million, Marc-Edouard Vlasic has 3 years remaining at $7 million, and veteran forwards like Tomas Hertl and Logan Couture combine for $16.1375 million for at least the next 3 seasons. They do carry close to $18 million in cap next summer, are recouping draft picks as best they can, just traded Timo Meier for a large package of prospects and picks, and are bound to move on from players like Karlsson. Grier took over, realized where things were heading, and decided to set out a course of action for the future. It’s going to take a lot longer than some because of the grief that Doug Wilson left him but he’s doing a pretty good job so far at clearing the wasteland.
I have absolutely loved what the Chicago Blackhawks have done and after years of losing seasons, they decided to move on from their Stanley Cup-winning front office and paved a way for a clean slate in the future. The expiring contracts of the traded Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews help their rebuild with $21 million coming off the books, they realized that Alex DeBrincat didn’t fit their timeline and he would cost upwards of $9-$10 million so they traded him for draft picks, and the Kirby Dach deal is still a little puzzling, but they wanted first round picks last year and eventually found 3 – including one for Dach.
They have $41 million in cap space this summer, that number jumps up to 69 the following season because as of right now they only have 2 players signed beyond 2024-25 in Seth Jones and Connor Murphy, they possess 8 picks in the first 3 rounds of the 2023 draft and 6 in the first 3 rounds of the 2024 draft after trading Kane, with more picks on their way when they trade Max Domi, and most importantly they are in the thick of the Connor Bedard sweepstakes where even if they lost out on the generational talent, they will have a good chance at drafting Leo Carlsson or Adam Fantilli. They also just traded Jake McCabe and Sam Lafferty to the Toronto Maple Leafs for a package surrounding future first round and second round picks – primarily because they retained half of McCabe’s contract which runs through the end of 2023-24.
There are only a few teams in the NHL that are stuck and one of them happens to be Philadelphia. They are making it out to seem that trading James van Riemsdyk ahead of the trade deadline is big news, as if that wasn’t the plan from the get go. Everywhere you look, it’s a bulletin board saying the Flyers have officially placed van Riemsdyk on the trade block and that seems to be the front office’s way of rationalizing a rebuild to their fan base. Other teams are trading everything they have for future assets, or trading players with term because they know its luxury at the deadline, or even looking for ways to already improve over the summer. The Flyers on the other hand are sitting quietly with reclamation projects in mind as they head towards the final stretch of the trade deadline.
3 teams that were interested in van Riemsdyk all made trades this past weekend in Winnipeg, Dallas, and Vegas. The Jets acquired Nino Niederreiter from the Predators for a second round pick, the Stars acquired Evgenii Dadonov from the Montreal Canadiens for Denis Gurianov, and the Golden Knights acquired Ivan Barbashev from the Blues for prospect Zach Dean.
It’s been reported that the price for van Riemsdyk isn’t as high as the Flyers expected, and a lot of that has to do with his most recent stretch of play, where he has 3 goals and 7 points in his last 21 games. That doesn’t bring about a lot of optimism or confidence for contending teams to send the Flyers a high prized draft pick when they can go out and find a younger and cheaper option – in terms of salary – elsewhere. However due to the scarcity of forwards remaining – after all the trades that went down – Carolina and Minnesota remain in the hunt for van Riemsdyk as they are looking to acquire pieces with their competitors loading up.
The Flyers reportedly were interested in Vitali Kravtsov before he was traded by the New York Rangers to the Vancouver Canucks for a 7th-round pick and a prospect who has not panned out. They were also interested in Gurianov before he was traded by the Dallas Stars in the Dadonov trade with the Montreal Canadiens. It’s interesting that he couldn’t get a deal done, especially considering the very low asking price for Kravtsov but with those two out of the picture, Fletcher has been looking at his old stomping grounds and has circled around Jordan Greenway of the Minnesota Wild. For someone so interested in reclamation projects, why was Eeli Tolvanan or even Kasperi Kapanen not at the forefront, especially considering the former’s age which fits the Flyers’ under-25 core.
The former second round pick in 2015 was a Chuck Fletcher draftee, he fits the mold of what they are trying to build which is a team that is tough to play against – 6’6”/231 lbs – and he has 2 more years remaining at a salary hit of $3 million. Wild general manager, Bill Guerin, mentioned a few weeks ago that he is looking to improve but he doesn’t want to trade draft picks or prospects, which really makes it sound like a trade can materialize with the Flyers surrounding van Riemsdyk and Greenway. With half of van Riemsdyk’s salary being retained, it’s almost equal salary coming in and coming out, Fletcher has always liked Greenways’ potential, but unfortunately he has struggled to regain his 2020-21 form over the past 2 seasons with 33 points in 105 games, including 2 goals in 43 games this year. Nevertheless, this would be a prototypical Chuck Fletcher move, while keeping in mind that he’s 1 for 3 in terms of his reclamation projects so far with Owen Tippett, Martin Jones, and Keith Yandle. However with the Wild trading for Marcus Johansson, the likelihood of van Riemsdyk going to Minnesota drops a little.
Carolina has reportedly shown interest in Tony DeAngelo, who the Flyers acquired from Carolina at the draft this past summer for 3 picks, which included a second rounder. The Hurricanes have seen the Devils, Rangers, Maple Leafs, Lightning, and Bruins stock up and as they sit near the top of the league standings, and they know they have to make some moves to fight off their competitors.
DeAngelo thrived in his one season with the Hurricanes, where he scored 51 points in 64 games, was a +30, played with Jaccob Slavin, and averaged 19:49 TOI. The Flyers thought they hit the jackpot by acquiring DeAngelo this summer as they saw him as a replacement for Ryan Ellis, however Fletcher and company quickly realized that DeAngelo was always an offensive defenseman first and foremost and that the Flyers can’t hide his deficiencies like the Hurricanes did. However, similar situation to the Wild, the Hurricanes just struck a deal for Jesse Puljujarvi, which could take them out of the running for either van Riemsdyk or DeAngelo, all dependent on salary retention.
For a move to go through, the Flyers might have to retain salary, which is something teams want them to do with Kevin Hayes as well. If the Flyers decide they want to retain $2 million of his $7.142 million cap hit, a trade can easily be orchestrated but because he still has 3 years remaining, Fletcher is extremely hesitant on bending the knee. At this point, something’s gotta give because teams are interested in several high priced Flyer veterans and it boils down to whether or not the Flyers are willing to retain salary.
This year’s trade deadline is heating up with contending teams going ballistic in trying to overcome their competitors. This year’s path to the finals is anyone’s guess, which is why there is a clear and definitive line between buyers and sellers.
It’s rather inane that Fletcher doesn’t want to retain salary on Hayes especially, which brings us back to the reported rumours that they are trying to upgrade at the centre position over the summer. That sounds like they’re going after a big fish, like Dylan Larkin, who the Flyers have been interested in for some time. He’s looking for a large contract somewhere in the neighbourhood of $9 million, which might explain why the Flyers don’t want to be on the hook for any retained salary going beyond this season. They were sniffing around Bo Horvat as well, so at this point, it’s anyone’s guess as to what the plan actually moving into the deadline, the 2023 draft, and beyond.
