It has been a very busy day for the Philadelphia Flyers after first announcing that Nick Seeler was placed on IR, then trading Sean Walker to Colorado, before extending Seeler for the foreseeable future.
Numbers were being thrown around, some intimating a 3-4 year deal worth upwards of $3.33 million but Daniel Brière came through in the clutch and delivered a 4-year pact worth $2.7 million dollars per season.
The deal also gives Seeler a full no-trade clause for the first two seasons of the contract.
The Flyers were a very interesting club heading into the deadline because they had a few expiring contracts that would have normally been moved in a rebuilding season. However, things have changed dramatically in less than a calendar year and the veteran defensemen will be sticking around for the next 4+ seasons. It was a wait-and-see approach until the Calgary Flames moved Chris Tanev, then all eyes were firmly planted on Brière and company who had 2 juicy trade baits in Walker and Seeler.
They had talked extension with both defensemen but found initial talks to be rather steep. After going back and forth between extension talks and trade talks, it was brought to our attention yesterday, from Frank Seravalli, that the Flyers will be extending one and trading the other – who fit the bill was yet to be determined.
Fast forward less than 24 hours later and the Flyers not only moved Walker to Colorado for a first round pick in 2025 – while also acquiring cap-dump Ryan Johansen – but they found a cheaper route with Seeler by giving him the 4th year. The Flyers were always looking at offering Seeler the same contract that Luke Schenn received this summer from the Nashville Predators – 3x$2.75.
Walker has been a revelation on the back-end this season, easily surpassing all expectations that were set ahead of the 2023-24 season. The now 29-year-old suffered through a torn ACL and MCL back in 2021-22 that limited him to just 6 games, He came back in 2022-23 but had lost his standing with the Los Angeles Kings. Mikey Anderson had essentially replaced Walker in the top-4 and he was now on the outside looking in on the bottom-pair.
The Flyers came knocking when they moved Ivan Provorov to Columbus as part of the three-team trade that also involved the Kings. The Flyers acquired a bevy of picks and prospect Helge Grans but also took on the contracts of Cal Petersen and Walker. He was set to his unrestricted free agency in 2024 so he was seen as a rental for the most part – at least initially.
He started off the season with a bang and has never looked back. He currently has 6 goals and 22 points in 63 contests, is a plus-9, has averaged 19:36 TOI, has blocked 98 shots to his 86 hits, has a 35:22 takeaway to giveaway ratio and has 2 shorthanded tallies. Walker had become a staple in the top-4 all season long and turned his game up a notch defensively when he was paired up with Seeler.
As for Seeler, his career turned a corner in Philadelphia after he was thinking about retirement back in 2020. He had played a combined 105 games between 2017-18 and 2019-20, missed the entire 2020-21 season after going unsigned, and joined the Flyers in 2021-22 on a one-year, two-way contract. The thought was he would be stationed with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms to start the season but with Rasmus Ristolainen on the mend, he stepped in on opening night.
In 183 games in parts of 3 seasons as a Flyer, Seeler has 6 goals and 29 points, is. a plus-13, has 163 PIMs, has averaged 15:01 TOI, and has 412 blocked shots to 313 hits. This season alone he has 12 points, holding a plus-15 rating, averaging 2 seconds shy of 17:00 minutes, and leads the league with 184 blocked shots. He has been a foundational piece to John Tortorella’s system and a huge reason why the Flyers’ penalty kill is sitting atop the NHL.
The unfortunate business is that Walker’s demands were a little too high for the Flyers, but at the same time he represented one of the biggest trade chips on the market. The Flyers weren’t all too comfortable with his asking price and although both sides got relatively close on an extension, they decided to go with Seeler while receiving the coveted first-round pick they were hoping to land for Walker.
There might be a logjam on defense – at some point – but Seeler has built himself a solid reputation as a third-pair defenseman with second-pair capabilities. He is responsible, makes the smart play, puts his body on the line, and plays the system to a tee. He earned the extension and the $2.7 million cap hit is going to look like a steal with the salary cap rising exponentially over the course of the next few seasons.
Seeler was just placed on IR after he did not return to Monday night’s game after he blocked a shot off the side of his foot. He attempted to come back but ultimately missed the latter half of the third period and all of overtime. In his stead, the Flyers called up Adam Ginning from the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
Now that he’s off the board, the Flyers can now focus on the road ahead to the playoffs but will have to do so with an inexperienced back-end that will most likely feature Ginning, Ronnie Attard, Marc Staal, and Egor Zamula on Thursday night in Sunrise, Florida.
