February 21, 2024
Nick Turchiaro/USA TODAY Sports
John Tortorella's Flyers approach the NHL trade deadline in a unique spot.
No one on the Flyers' roster is being kept in the dark about what could happen in the next couple of weeks.
The organization is in an openly (and repeatedly) stated rebuild, but the team on the ice is out there trying to chase down a playoff spot regardless.
It's a rather unique situation to be in approaching the March 8 trade deadline. Names have been thrown out there, rumors are circling, and the expectation has been for a while now that the Flyers will line up to be "strategic sellers" with the future still very much the primary focus.
And they very well could still be that, or do nothing at all and ride this run out to see what might await in the summer. The only real certainty right now is that the prospect of the Flyers straying away from their original path and buying instead seems out of the question.
Still, there's a very fine line that general manager Danny Brière, president of hockey ops Keith Jones, and head coach John Tortorella will have to walk leading up to March 8, with calls to take and some likely very tough decisions to make on the way to it.
Tortorella said after practice on Monday that he braced his team for it, particularly the players who have their names out there.
"I already talked to the players who could be moved," Tortorella said from the Flyers Training Center in Voorhees. "They know. I asked Danny if I could talk to them. I want to show them as much respect as I possibly can and not have something sprung on them. Myself, Joensy, and Danny have been very transparent with the group leading up to this deadline, where we sit as far as the organization.
"The whole team knows where we stand, and I think that's just showing them respect. I've seen it happen in other organizations where people are talking about you, but no one has really talked to you within the organization, and bang, you're moved. Players know where they stand. There's always an open door if they have other questions about it when [the deadline] starts getting nearer and nearer. We are totally transparent with them."
But it remains very much unclear from the outside how this is going to shape up.
The last time we checked in on the rumor mill, there was reported interest from around the league in defensemen Sean Walker, Nick Seeler, Rasmus Ristolainen, and longtime veteran center Scott Laughton.
Ristolainen's current upper-body injury, without a timetable to return, has more than likely removed him from any potential deadline deals, though the summer could end up a different story. Seeler and Walker have made up a solid defensive pairing all season, but both are on expiring contracts and other teams are very much aware of that. Initially, there seemed to be a reported lean toward keeping Seeler, and after Jamie Drysdale's acquisition, that looked to have made Walker the odd man out in a blue-line logjam. But the perspective may have shifted, per Sportsnet insider Elliotte Friedman on Monday's 32 Thoughts podcast. Walker could still be available at the right price, but an extension might be in play now also if the Flyers can lock his annual salary into the $4-4.5 million range.
And he may no longer be the one forced out by Drysdale, Friedman noted (around the 39:47 mark), rather, he could end up as a veteran to protect the 21-year old defensively while he continues to develop. But that's only if an extension is the the Flyers' route, and that's still far from a certainty.
As for Laughton, the Flyers have kept him as part of the leadership group after naming Sean Couturier captain, and he has put together a solid stretch of late in the face of his production declining from last season. The Flyers still don't seem keen to move him, as initially reported by TSN's Darren Dreger, but there is interest out there, with the Rangers being one of the teams on the radar, per The Athletic.
And as Brière and Tortorella have both stated before, if a call comes in, they at least have to listen given where the organization is at. Granted, Brière seems to have the Flyers' asking price across the board right now set at a first-rounder or higher-tier prospect in any possible deal.
They have the leverage to wait with a couple of weeks still to go and with the team holding up as well as it has, even if the group at ice level knows it still might not come out of the other side of the deadline the same.
"It's a situation where – the way we explained it to them – we are still in the middle of a process," Tortorella said. "And we are. No matter where we are in the standings now, no matter what people think we are or going to be, we have a mindset. We have conversations daily about where we are as an organization and we're not gonna leave that.
"It's a slippery slope when you start just saying 'Ah, you know, let's keep it this way.' We can't. We have to continue to build. I'm not saying we're trying to move them. We have to listen. We have to listen. And if there's something as you're looking in – as Danny has to, and we all have to as far as what the future looks like – we have to listen and see what's out there."
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