Stop me if this rings a bell.<\/p>\n
A star player was available for trade. The Flyers reportedly showed some interest. The team elected not to pony up the required assets to make the deal. The star player landed elsewhere and sent the Flyers back to the drawing board.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m obviously referring to Norris Trophy-winning defenseman Quinn Hughes being traded on Dec. 12 <\/a>from Vancouver to Minnesota for a package that included blue-chip prospect Zeev Buium, middle-six center Marco Rossi, prospect Liam \u00d6hgren, and a first-round pick. Hughes, the second-best defenseman in the world, and notably a well-documented fan of Flyers coach Rick Tocchet<\/a> from their time together with the Canucks, is exactly the type of needle-moving superstar the Flyers are missing on their blue line. So why no deal?<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: The Flyers are playing well for the first time in what seems like forever. Let\u2019s enjoy them and stop complaining.<\/a><\/p>\n That answer is more nuanced than \u201cthe Flyers were being cheap again,\u201d and we will address that in a minute. Nevertheless, missing out on star talent has been an all-too-familiar and frustrating pattern for Flyers fans over the past few years as the team has carried out its rebuild and focused largely on subtraction rather than addition. <\/p>\n But that was all supposed to change next summer, when Danny Bri\u00e8re<\/a>, Keith Jones<\/a>, and the Flyers suggested they would pull out the checkbook <\/a>and aggressively try and sign a marquee free agent. One problem: That 2026 free agent class<\/a>, which was once headlined by Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, and Kirill Kaprizov, has all but evaporated outside of soon-to-be-overpaid consolation prizes like Alex Tuch, 34-year-old Artemi Panarin, and Rasmus Andersson, none of whom play center, the gaping hole the Flyers need to address most.<\/p>\n With that in my mind, could\/should the Flyers have pulled the trigger on a Hughes deal? And where might the team turn from here to solve its 1C problem?<\/p>\n The Flyers were right to pass on Hughes<\/p>\n To start, Hughes would have fit perfectly in Philly, as he is one of only three or four genuine game-breaking defensemen who exist in the league. One of the world\u2019s top 10 players, his dynamic skating ability, particularly his lateral movement and ability to walk the line, and playmaking prowess would have provided a seismic jolt to an anemic offense and struggling power play, and subsequently bumped the rest of the team\u2019s defensemen back into their appropriate slots. More simply, Hughes, while a wildly different player, would have been the team\u2019s best defenseman since Chris Pronger\u2019s injury-shortened spell from 2009-12.<\/p>\n So could the Flyers have traded for him? In short, yes. <\/p>\n The Flyers boast a consensus top-10 prospect system<\/a>, own several future first-round draft picks, and have players who would have intrigued Vancouver, namely Matvei Michkov<\/a> and Michigan State phenom Porter Martone<\/a>. Both of those players are viewed as untouchables for the Flyers, and not including them would have all but removed them from the Hughes sweepstakes. Some combination of Jett Luchanko<\/a>, Jack Nesbitt, Tyson Foerster<\/a>, Owen Tippett<\/a>, Cam York<\/a>, Oliver Bonk, and first-round picks, while nothing to sniff at, was not besting the return Vancouver ultimately landed, headlined by Buium. <\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Flyers top 20 prospects: Porter Martone is No. 1, but where do Alex Bump and Jett Luchanko rank?<\/a><\/p>\n What will infuriate Flyers fans is that the team had a chance to draft Buium just 18 months ago. Ranked No. 4 among North American prospects in 2024 according to NHL Central Scouting, the former University of Denver star slid directly into their laps in that draft, only for the Flyers to trade the pick to Minnesota and move down one spot and select Luchanko<\/a>. While the Flyers still believe in the speedy Luchanko, the simple fact is the centerman is not as highly regarded a prospect as Buium leaguewide. Obviously, there is some revisionist history here, but if the Flyers had taken the consensus top player on the board in 2024, maybe they would have been in a better position to make this type of deal.<\/p>\n While the Flyers could have potentially pulled this deal off by including Michkov or Martone, they were right not to. But wouldn\u2019t landing a superstar be worth the price of a promising young player or a highly regarded but unproven at the NHL level prospect? Not when you consider the Flyers\u2019 current standing and Hughes\u2019 current contract situation.<\/p>\n Hughes, 26, is only signed through the end of next season, and his agent Pat Brisson said<\/a> \u201cthat under no circumstances could we guarantee a contract extension with anyone.\u201d In other words, the Flyers, who are not ready to compete for a Stanley Cup in the next year and a half, would be rolling the dice on Hughes\u2019 connection to Tocchet and willingness to extend beyond that point. That is far too risky for a team in their position, especially one that was already forced to punt away one high-end prospect in Cutter Gauthier, and couldn\u2019t afford to part with another like Michkov or Martone for a one-and-a-half-year lottery ticket.<\/p>\n So where do the Flyers go from here?<\/p>\n While the Flyers refuse to put a hard timeline on their rebuild and have continued to preach patience, the clock is ticking for a couple of reasons.<\/p>\n First, the team is 17-10-7 and more likely to earn a playoff spot than land a top-10 draft pick to select a prospective No. 1 center or No. 1 defenseman. For context, I\u2019d count 27 players leaguewide as worthy of that true No. 1 center designation, and 15 of them were top-three picks, 19 were top-10 picks, and 24 of them were first-rounders. In other words, the Flyers either need to trade for a No. 1 center and\/or hope they can uncover a gem like Robert Thomas (20th overall), Wyatt Johnston (No. 23), Tage Thompson (No. 26), Sebastian Aho (No. 35), Roope Hintz (No. 49), or Brayden Point (No. 79). Rightly or wrongly, the team is no longer constructed in a position to bottom out for that type of draft capital, and that isn\u2019t likely to change going forward.<\/p>\n Second, as we mentioned earlier, there don\u2019t seem to be any ready-made solutions left in free agency next summer. The top unrestricted free-agent center options available are Evgeni Malkin, who will turn 40 before next season if he doesn\u2019t retire; former Flyers captain Claude Giroux, who will be 38 and has shifted mostly to wing over the latter half of his career; Nick Schmaltz, who turns 30 in February, has never reached 65 points, and is best on the wing; and Christian Dvorak<\/a>, who is already a Flyer.<\/p>\n So who could be available if the Flyers are ready to deal? That conversation will always start with Thompson, who is on pace for his third 40-goal season in four years and is wasting away in Buffalo<\/a>. The 28-year-old All-Star wouldn\u2019t come cheap, but he is a unique player at 6-foot-6 and 220 pounds, and attractively, is signed for the next four years at a relative bargain price of $7.14 million.<\/p>\n Buffalo, which changed general managers last week, still seems to think it can make the playoffs, but when that pipe dream is extinguished, which could be sooner rather than later, don\u2019t be surprised to see Thompson push for a change of scenery. Buffalo and Philly make a lot of sense as trade partners, too, as Philly has some attractive young NHL pieces, prospects, and picks it could send back to Buffalo if the Sabres decide to tear it down … again. Thompson would be plug-and-play on the Flyers\u2019 top line and bring a mixture of size, skill, and one of the league\u2019s top shots to Broad Street.<\/p>\n Outside of Thompson, the path to landing a 1C or even a 2C is a lot murkier, as the Flyers would seemingly be out on guys in their mid-30s like Nazem Kadri, Brayden Schenn, and Ryan O\u2019Reilly, with most others unavailable. Elias Pettersson, another high-end center who has been shopped in recent years, is also likely off the block now and would be an odd fit given his up-and-down time under Tocchet in Vancouver, anyway.<\/p>\n