March 08, 2024
The Flyers are still fully focused on the future, and while the trade deadline did yield some solid assets for tomorrow, they did go and make a couple of relatively low-cost moves that could still stand to help the team that is in a playoff position currently.
That the Flyers are even in this current spot to begin with is a good sign and well beyond the expectations that general manager Danny Brière had for them going in.
Still, what's happening now is a far way from where they really want to be: An annual Stanley Cup contender, not just an inconsistent group that's on the playoff bubble one year and out of it the next.
"It's all coming together," Brière said Friday after the 3 p.m. ET trade deadline passed. "But it doesn't change at the end of the day what we're trying to do and having an outlook toward the future. Making sure that it's sustainable for years to come and not just one year."
So here's a look at the Flyers' final deadline haul:
| Flyers Get | Flyers Send |
| To Colorado: | |
| 2025 1st-rounder | D Sean Walker |
| F Ryan Johansen | 2026 5th-rounder |
| To Vegas: | |
| 2024 5th-rounder | D Noah Hanifin (via CGY) |
| To Nashville: | |
| F Denis Gurianov | F Wade Allison |
| To Buffalo: | |
| D Erik Johnson | 2024 4th-rounder |
And some analysis going deal by deal...
One of this season's biggest, and pleasant, surprises was how Walker went from a salary dump the Flyers were taking on in the summer as part of the three-team deal to get Ivan Provorov out of Philadelphia to one of their best defensemen.
He formed an incredibly solid middle-pairing with Nick Seeler, which at one point was one of the most dependable in the league, but it always seemed inevitable that at some point the Flyers were going to have to pick between one or the other, with Walker always seeming the most likely to go.
And that's exactly what happened.
Bringing a consistent two-way game but on an expiring contract, there was a match for Walker with the Cup-contending Avalanche, who were willing to put a first-rounder – albeit for a year from now – on the table. And Brière, head coach John Tortorella, and the whole Flyers front office have consistently maintained that this is still very much a rebuild despite the team's current playoff standing. They had to take that.
Now, they did have to take that while absorbing Ryan Johansen, too, who just doesn't seem to be in the plans at all.
He was put on waivers and sent to the Phantoms down in the AHL as soon as he cleared. Brière said on Thursday that the Flyers were looking for an opening to send him elsewhere, but nothing came of it.
So for now, he's been asked to report to Lehigh Valley.
"Things change fast in hockey," Brière said Friday, adding that there were a few teams interested, and with the Flyers willing to retain on his $4 million salary, but not enough to make a deal.
"You never know," the Flyers GM continued. "Hopefully for him, he can get it going in Lehigh Valley and we'll see where it goes. I really don't know what the next step will be for him."
Which is an odd spot for a center who a key part to some good Nashville teams not all that long ago to be in, for the Flyers to some extent too.
Granted, the first-rounder was the real prize for the Flyers here and they got it. Johansen's situation can be figured out later.
And as Walker was on his way out, the Flyers came to terms with Seeler, which had been brewing in the background for a bit.
Seeler got to Philadelphia for the 2021-22 season, but his game only really started taking off last year under Tortorella and associate coach Brad Shaw, then soared to a career-best output this season at a plus-15 rating and an average of 16:58 of ice time. His 12 points on the year (1 goal, 11 assists) are also just two more shy of matching his current career-high from last season.
He's also been a shot-blocking machine, which is a gift in that it takes away a lot of opponents' open lanes but at the same time a curse in that those shots do hurt, and the one he took against St. Louis Monday night will have him sidelined for a bit.
Still, he's come a long way on the ice and has been huge in helping establish a new culture for the Flyers off of it.
He's 30 going on 31, sure, but the term is relatively reasonable and the Flyers believe there's a lot more he can do in shaping the direction of the team.
"Nick really was adamant that he wanted to stay, didn't want to go anywhere else," Brière said Thursday. "I think it's a deal both sides are happy and excited about. He's the type of player we say he's a Flyer. He's really a Flyer."
The Flyers snuck their way into this one and nabbed an extra fifth-rounder.
Vegas got their guy, Calgary got their return, and the Flyers were able to walk away with one more to give themselves 9-10 draft picks this summer.
They're going to be busy in June, for sure.
The Flyers also traded the rights to Mikhail Vorobyev to the Flames, but the last time he suited up for them was more than four years ago.
He's been playing in Russia ever since. He was not in the cards.
'Interesting' seemed the immediate term to describe this deal, and Brière felt the same.
The 26-year old was a former first-round pick of the Dallas Stars in 2015, made a splash in the 2019-2020 season when he came up and put up 20 goals through 64 games, and then in the COVID bubble, fired home the overtime winner against Vegas that sent the Stars to the Stanley Cup Final.
He came storming out of the gate but gradually fell off in the years that followed, which went on to see him get lost in the shuffle in Dallas, move on to Montreal, then go on to Nashville for this season where he spent most of his playing time in the AHL.
That skill is still there, as he did put up 12 goals and 30 points through 27 games for the Milwaukee Admirals, and the Flyers were willing to take a...well, flyer on him to see if he could recapture it again in the NHL.
"I know it's been a little tougher for him the last couple years," Brière said Friday. "But if he catches fire again, we're a little thin on the left side and he brings us speed and size, so who knows where that goes."
They'll at least find out relatively quickly as they're bringing him right on to the NHL roster ahead of Saturday's game down in Tampa, though Tortorella will get the final say on the lineup there.
Still, he stands to bring at least a little depth to bottom-six and at the low-cost expense of Allison, who had intrigue within the organization for a while, but through injuries, stalled out stretches of play, and younger prospects like Tyson Foerster and Bobby Brink leap-frogging him in development, just rapidly fell out of the long-term picture.
Both players are on expiring deals and Brière believed it was time for a change of scenery for Allison.
Gurianov could very well just need one, too.
The Flyers' final move before the deadline was one to bring in some veteran depth on the back end and Stanley Cup-winning experience.
Johnson, 35, was a fixture on the Colorado Avalanche's blue line for years, overlapping with Brière's final season playing in the NHL during a rebuilding process under Joe Sakic that he said influenced his post-career front office aspirations and culminated in the Avs winning it all seven years later in 2022.
Johnson signed a one-year deal with the Sabres in the summer and has had a rocky year for another lost season in Buffalo – posting just three assists and a minus-5 rating through 50 games and 13:48 of average ice time – and is close to the end. But whatever he has left will go toward trying to push the Flyers that are in the here and now into the playoffs while aiding the younger defensemen on the team the rest of the way.
He's not going to be Sean Walker, but at the same time, the Flyers aren't looking for him to be.
"What we're looking for from Erik is to bring his experience and the fact that he's played for a long time, the fact that he's played a lot of playoff games, the fact that he's won a Stanley Cup, hopefully he can share a little bit of that with our young group, especially on defense right now with all the injuries," Brière said. "It's a pretty young group, so we're hoping that he can share a little bit of his experience with our team."
The cost of a fourth might seem a bit high, granted, but remember, too, that the Flyers did quietly load up for this year's draft.
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