Philly Front Office

I woke up this morning prepared to write about the Flyers who may end up wearing different sweaters by the end of the day. Tankathon was my first stop, admittedly as a daily pilgrimage to check in on Sixers carnage, but also to check out our orange and black. Flyers sitting in 7th, nothing exciting. Then I scrolled down. Damn, the Flyers have some draft picks…A LOT OF DRAFT PICKS! Let’s take a look at where the Flyers stand in this whole rebuild.

Future Draft Picks

Currently the Flyers have the 7th best lottery odds, with a 6.7% chance of landing in the top 3 (the NHL lottery is different from the NBA lottery). They are 5 points out of the playoffs and 4 points out of the 6th best lottery odds with 19 games to play. Eh.

They also sport extra first round picks from Colorado and Edmonton. Unfortunately, though these picks are currently in the low 20s, they are from playoff teams with legitimate Stanley Cup hopes so they could be as low as the 30s (root against Colorado and Edmonton come playoff time). Still, 3 first round picks.

That’s only part of the story though. We also own our own 2nd round pick as well as 2nds from Anaheim, Calgary, and Columbus. Currently they are slated to be 39, 40, 48, and 49. That’s 7 of the top 50 picks!!! That is a war chest.

Nothing more in the future though. Despite having every pick this year, there are no high round draft picks coming next year. Danny Briere will look to change that.

Trades Already

Kicking off trade season on January 31, the Flyers traded long time almost-guys Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost to the Calgary Flames for a 2025 2nd round pick, future 7th round pick, Andre Kuzmenko, and Jakob Pelletier. Both contracts are up this season. Pelletier may end up staying because he is still only 23, but Kuzmenko is good as gone.

Possible Trades

The Flyers are not trying to get better at the deadline despite being in the hunt for a playoff spot. This is the last season to legitimately prioritize assets rather than talent. Anything that isn’t locked down is on the block.

Scott Laughton – Laughton seemed to be coming up forever and then blossomed so quickly that I can’t believe it is already time for him to go. He is 30 years old, but I would have said 25 if you had asked me. The problem here is that he is not on our timeline at all despite being a productive and likeable member of the team. The 5/$15m extension he signed when he actually was 25 is up at the end of next year and a great bargain for any acquiring team. They will be looking for a first or second round pick, likely in the future.

Rasmus Ristolainen – Before Danny Briere got here, the Flyers traded a first and a second to get Ristolainen. They promptly signed him to a 5/$25.5m extension and have been looking to get rid of him ever since. There are still two more years left on that deal after this season. You can bet they are trying to get their value back but may have to wait until the off-season to do so.

Anyone Else – You have to think that anyone not named Matvei Michkov is open for discussion. Though it isn’t likely someone would put out a big offer for one of our larger contracts, clearing cap space and getting value will always be on the mind of Danny Briere.

Salary Cap Situation

In the NHL you are only allowed to keep an extra 3 contracts on the books for released players. These retention spots don’t count against the roster size, but do count against the cap. The Flyers are full at 3 with one of them still being retained by Ilya Bryzgalov (WTF???). So they can’t just take on any albatross contracts in exchange for draft capital as they have done in the past.

That being said, the Flyers have $2.3m in space this season. Next year, that jumps to $26m and with only a few of the younger guys in need of contracts. Clearing the extra year of Laughton and the two extra years of Ristolainen’s $5m contract would be a nice move either now or in the summer and would bring us up to $34m in space.

The Flyers have several big ticket contracts that sprawl years into the future including Sean Couturier, Owen Tippett, Travis Sanheim, and Travis Konecny. Coutourier’s ends the earliest in 2030.

The Flyers will finally look to be free agent and trade for players this summer thanks to a huge swath of draft picks and some money to throw around.

Could not have done this without Tankathon and Spotrac.com