The trade deadline has come and gone and I think it we went as well as any Philadelphia Flyers fan anticipated. It wasn’t great, it wasn’t awful, but it was closer to the latter than it was to the former. Going into the New Year, the Flyers were dead in the water and should’ve been preparing for a fire sale at the trade deadline that would’ve been 2 months away. Claude Giroux was the main piece but they still had players like Rasmus Ristolainen, Derick Brassard, Martin Jones, Justin Braun, and Keith Yandle to dangle and possibly trade away. However, two days after the deadline the Flyers only traded half of them, extended one, and kept the other two for the rest of the season; in other words Chuck’s deadline can be categorized as “the good, the bad, and the ugly”.
The Good
In most realities it would have been hard to fumble a couple of very obvious moves and even though Fletcher didn’t do an amazing job, he at least got market value or better for players like Justin Braun and Derick Brassard. Justin Braun was acquired in the summer of 2019 from the San Jose Sharks for second and third round picks, which at the time was seen as an overpayment. On the bright side, Braun was an important fixture on the backend for almost three seasons and was tasked to play top minutes and a much larger role than necessary because of the obvious lack of defensive depth.
The market at one point suggested a second round pick for his services, but as the trade deadline was approaching, a lot of defensemen were coming off the board and the market started to drop a little. A third round pick was most likely always going to be the value for Braun as he is a dependable, sturdy, and a defensive-minded rearguard, who is better suited for a bottom pair role on a contending team. The New York Rangers traded a 2023 third round pick, which is the draft the Flyers should be targeting picks for.
Derick Brassard was signed to the veterans’ minimum during the summer and he immediately made an impact after Kevin Hayes was sidelined before training camp. The issue with Brassard was his health as he was injured 3 times, his last one being a lot longer than anticipated, and every time he returned to the ice, he re-injured himself. During his 3 stints on the mend, the market for Brassard was near zero but a resurgence upon his return helped bring his value back up as a desperate Edmonton Oilers squad squandered a 2023 fourth round pick for him.
The Flyers have apparently made groundwork for summer trades but of course Fletcher wouldn’t go into too much detail about them. He mentioned that he has had conversations with several general managers about trades that would most likely take place in the summer and as we already know about Fletcher, it’s that he loves making his moves before the draft if he can and he loves to make waves. Some names to keep an eye on are Ivan Provorov, Travis Sanheim, and Travis Konecny. This made it on the good part of the list solely because he didn’t make a panic move at the deadline to recoup assets.
The Bad
Giroux was 99.9% gone even though there were moments where it felt like maybe the player wouldn’t waive his no-movement clause, or maybe the general manager had cold feet. His deal turned out to be a lot less palatable because he preferred Florida over any other destination and it is to be believed that because he didn’t receive any assurances about coming back in the summer, he was unwilling to go elsewhere. Florida was the spot, Florida was always the spot, and even Colorado Avalanche GM Joe Sakic said he knew all along it was going to be hard to sway his decision.
It was always going to be a tough move to make, a tough decision to make, and the timing wasn’t necessarily going to be on the side of the Flyers. Giroux wanted to play in his 1000th game in franchise history, he owned an NMC, and he earned every right to dictate where he wanted to go and flex the powers exercised with a no-movement clause. It’s still not a good trade because the Flyers ended up only getting a first round pick in 2024 or 2025, a third round pick in 2023, and a prospect that Florida was happy to unload.
Nothing against Owen Tippett, but Fletcher’s decision to go with the more “NHL-ready” Tippett was head scratching because Grigori Denisenko and Mackie Samoskevich represented two players that the Flyers needed, should’ve gotten, and are totally different from the rest of the prospects in their pipeline. Instead Fletcher was happy to go with more experienced Tippett because he wants to re-tool right away.
Martin Jones could’ve been traded earlier in the season to the Edmonton Oilers for a fifth round pick. Chuck Fletcher believed that the goaltender was worth more, so he countered with a fourth round pick, which was swiftly rejected. He held onto Martin Jones on the basis that he wanted true value in any deal involving the veteran goaltender; something every team interested didn’t want to do.
Instead of trading him for a fifth round pick, the Flyers ended keeping him for the rest of the season because they didn’t want to throw a young goaltender to the wolves but also because Samuel Ersson is out for the year, Kirill Ustimenko is battling injuries, and Felix Sandstrom will be used for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms’ potential playoff run. It’s not really the greatest excuse, considering the amount of games the Flyers will be using a backup goalie for the rest of the season. The Flyers only play 19 more games until the end of the season and have 5 sets of back to backs. Once again, with the season lost and losses pilling up regardless of who tends the twine, keeping Jones was not the wisest decision. This could’ve been the perfect sample size for Sandstrom, who shined in his NHL debut, gauging where he stands in the franchise’s goalie totem pole.
The Ugly
Rasmus Ristolainen. That’s the sentence. If the Flyers were a contending team and if the Flyers had an iota of a chance to be one next season and beyond, then extending Ristolainen to 5 years would’ve made sense. However, Fletcher is throwing a wing and a prayer in the hopes that the team rights the ship next year and extending Ristolainen was the first step in that process. He already has Ryan Ellis extended, Sean Couturier and Joel Farabee’s extensions kick in next year, and Kevin Hayes rounds out his perceived core.
Elliotte Friedman has alluded to the idea that the Flyers are going to drastically re-model their defense next year, but Ristolainen’s extension was always in the cards and was the first domino to fall. Provorov and Sanheim have had their names thrown in the rumour mill for some time now and there’s a better chance that the former gets dealt than the latter. They really like the pairing of Sanheim-Ristolainen and believe they’re the perfect duo to complete the Flyers’ top-four.
With how crazy the market can get for a defenseman at the trade deadline, no less a right-handed shooting physically minded rearguard, the Flyers missed the boat on this assignment. The experiment didn’t work this year and they should’ve closed the books and tried to recoup as many assets as possible. Even though the defenseman took less money than his current contract and what he could’ve received in free agency, it still wasn’t a move that needed to be completed.
Ben Chiarot, previously of the Montreal Canadiens, somehow had worse analytical numbers than Ristolainen, but he fetched a first round pick, a fourth round pick, and a prospect from the Florida Panthers. Josh Manson cost a second round pick and a defensive prospect, while Mark Giordano and Colin Blackwell went for a pair of a second round picks and third round pick. Ristolainen could’ve fetched a first round pick and a third round pick, while having half his salary retained, without blinking. Instead the Flyers cut bait on that idea and doubled-down on the defenseman.
This team has very little to look forward to in the future and the 5 year extension was a bizarre move for those clamouring for a rebuild.
No Comment
The only other expiring contract that could’ve maybe fetched something was Keith Yandle but due to his inexplicable NTC, the Flyers didn’t trade him. In fact, it seems that Yandle was never approached about waiving it either. The Flyers have had the veteran defenseman play in every game so far, extending his iron-man streak and having him at the top of the list. His play has deteriorated, his sole value to the team as the top unit’s quarterback has long since sailed, and he’s become more of a deterrence on the back-end than anything else. On the flip side, the Flyers don’t have much defensive depth and have had to play Yandle with the likes of Nick Seeler and Kevin Connauton all season long. By finishing off the season in Philadelphia, Yandle has assured himself of playing every game on the schedule, barring an injury or illness, extending his iron-man streak with Phil Kessel right behind him.
