March 09, 2024
Scott Laughton's name was out there on the rumor mill for more than a month.
He was on a stretch of inconsistent play, Sean Couturier had just been named the next captain (and Travis Konecny the other alternate), Ryan Poehling – a younger and faster player of a similar role – had been signed to an extension, and the center market leading up to the March 8 trade deadline was extremely thin.
There was some belief for a while that it might've been time, that the Flyers could land a major future asset for Laughton in an overpay – on a bar set by the Winnipeg Jets sending a first-rounder to Montreal for Sean Mohanan – and that the team had progressed far enough along for them to be safe enough to do it.
They were never outright looking to trade him, the Flyers maintained through the past several weeks, but they were listening. They had to, and if an offer came in that they couldn't refuse, they had to act on it.
But deadline day arrived. Friday at 3 p.m. ET came and went, and Scott Laughton was still a Philadelphia Flyer.
There was interest, a lot of it, general manager Danny Brière said from down in Tampa afterward, but nothing compelling enough to make a deal. "Fair value" wasn't going to cut it, Brière said, because for everything Laughton has brought to the Flyers, especially in the past two years as the organization set out on its rebuild, he means a whole lot more than that.
"I was upfront with him," Brière said. "I told him that I wasn't shopping him, first of all. I wasn't gonna trade him for fair value because he's more than fair value to us. The intangibles that he brings in the locker room are something that has no price, and the other teams don't see that, but we do. I told him that. I said 'We're not gonna trade you if it's just a fair trade.' Someone would have to overstep and really knock it out of the ballpark for us to consider it.
"I did listen. I had a lot of teams interested in him, as you can imagine. There's not a lot of centermen. He's a good one, so it's a good thing for him. Teams around the NHL still value you, so I think that's exciting for him, but not good enough for us to let a player like that go who is critical to the development of our locker room and our young guys around him."
So the longtime forward is still here, and getting the shot to see this unexpected playoff push that has now pressed well on into March all the way through, even in the face of a rebuilding tag that hasn't gone anywhere.
"I've been here a long time, and take a lot of pride in being a Flyer and being part of this," Laughton said ahead of Saturday night's road game against the Lightning. "Obviously, you hear all the rumors. I've heard them for a while now, but I've had those convos with Danny and [president of hockey ops Keith Jones] throughout the year. They've let me know where they're at with it, and yeah, it's a special place to be.
"The things that they're doing here, not only from the players but from up top and everything that goes on down, it's special and I'm very grateful."
His teammates were, too, who Brière said after the fact were pressing him not to move Laughton as rumors swirled. Again, he was too important to that room.
"I talked to the players. I've had people come to me and say 'We need him! We need him for this stretch!'" the Flyers GM recalled. "Obviously, it's teammates supporting teammates, which is great, but we started when we hired [head coach John Tortorella] – We started kinda changing the culture a little bit and without Sean Couturier around the dressing room last year, Scott was probably the guy who stepped up the most and started working on that culture change. And then this year coming into the season, again, he was one of the leaders, still one of the leaders in that department. It's the way he treats his teammates, his coaches...
"He's someone that brings people together. It would've been scary to let a guy go like that, especially in the situation that we're in that we're trying to make the playoffs."
And it's not like he's been lacking on the ice of late either.
Dating back to February 10's win over Seattle, after that aforementioned run of inconsistent play, Laughton has turned his game around significantly, which has led to him garnering more and more ice time while moving into the lineup's top-six.
In fact, in the last 12 games, he's posted 12 points (five goals and seven assists) with a plus-14 rating while skating at an average of 16:10 heading into Saturday night. While Konecny as the team's leading scorer was out with injury and the back end was getting increasingly banged up itself, and while Couturier had fallen into a slump after getting the captaincy, Laughton stepped up as one of the driving forces to keep the Flyers in playoff race, which also might've helped solidify the case to keep him around.
"We weren't looking to move him," Tortorella reiterated pregame on Saturday. "But you have to listen. What we like about him, other teams see. They don't see the other stuff as far as how he handles the room, the intangibles of it all, what we're trying to build here as far as the standard, he's a big part of that. I didn't talk to Danny on how many teams. I know there was interest, but we're thrilled that he's still with us here and to go through these next 18 games."
Beyond that, however, is unclear.
Laughton will turn 30 after this season and has two more years left on his contract at $3 million per. That type of term for that type of player is more than manageable to work with over the next couple of seasons, but other teams know that, too, and might come calling again in the summer as the Flyers continue to keep an eye on the future heading into the draft and then free agency.
But for now, the dust from the deadline has cleared. The Flyers have only the 18 games left in front of them starting with Tampa Saturday night and that one final sprint to a possible playoff berth.
And Laughton will still be there trying to help push them to it.
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