The Philadelphia Flyers are having a season that not many expected. Only some of the most optimistic fans would have thought that they would be battling for a playoff spot as we head into December and looking like a team that certainly deserves their record.
With the team potentially turning a corner on the ice and still with so many prospects that are hopefully going to be banging down the door of the NHL in the coming years, does it mean that the Flyers are going to shift their trade mentality soon? Well according to one report, they could certainly be looking for more future-for-present deals.
During a radio hit on Sportsnet’s The FAN Hockey Show on Tuesday, Elliotte Friedman was going on about how the Utah Mammoth are one of those teams who are looking to deal some draft picks for some NHL-ready talent as they try to be a more competitive team. Adding that they might actually have too many prospects on their reserve list and are coming close to the 90-player limit.
While going over teams that he knows are willing to do more of that, and willing to move away from draft picks for some players for their actual roster, the NHL insider just so happened to name the Flyers.
Elliotte Friedman says Flyers are open to trading draft picks for players
It might seem like it was more in passing, but the Flyers came immediately to Friedman’s mind when going over teams willing to move some picks to make their team better.
“They [Utah] have a lot of draft capital. So does Seattle. Those are two teams — Philly, they have a lot of draft capital and I don’t think they’re [all 3 teams] gonna be afraid to use it,” Friedman said.
It makes perfect sense. The Flyers already did a little bit of that last summer when they acquired Trevor Zegras from the Anaheim Ducks for a second- and a fourth-round pick (and Ryan Poehling). But, the interesting wrinkle is that Philadelphia was dealing with a true draft pick surplus last year for that deal.
As we all remember, the Flyers were entering the 2025 NHL Draft with three first-round picks and four second-round picks. A bounty of possible selections. That ended up being turned into five total picks with one being sent off for Zegras and then combining two to move up to select Jack Nesbitt at 12th overall. The Flyers were already looking at not making every single selection possible and building up this prospect cupboard with a focus on quantity of young players rather than quality — but now it is even more interesting with the timing of this information.
The Flyers don’t necessarily have a whole lot of draft picks coming up. They have their own picks for the first three rounds for the 2026 NHL Draft, but then don’t have a selection until the sixth round with the pick they got for goaltender Ivan Fedotov. That’s just five picks for next June.
Fast forwarding to 2027, the Flyers do have the Toronto Maple Leafs’ first-round pick and the Los Angeles Kings’ third-rounder to add to all their own picks except a little sixth-round pick they moved to Toronto in that Scott Laughton deal.
That’s not an immense amount of draft capital. It is definitely nice to have three first-rounders in the next two years but they still just have a total of 13 picks in that timespan — an actual pick deficit, technically.
That doesn’t mean that the Flyers aren’t going to deal any picks away, but it’s not like they’re willing to just go Maple Leafs mode and give up as many picks as possible to try and make their team better — or else, it would be a little bit aggressive to do so.
Flyers clearly believe they are close
No matter what, though, if this report is true and the Flyers are one of the first teams that come to mind when thinking about the desire to give up some draft picks to improve their roster, then they clearly think they are close enough. If the Flyers are dangling out some high-end draft picks like the first-round picks that they own to fill a hole or two in the lineup, then there has to be a belief that they have a whole lot of the core already in-tact ready to make a push for the playoffs.
Of course, we’ve already heard that the team wants to be patient with it, but if someone that fits the age timeline (under the age of 26, for example) just stumbles by and is ready to be pounced on and jammed in a truck headed to Philadelphia, then general manager Danny Briere might just take advantage.
This doesn’t mean that the Flyers are going to be dealing out first-round picks for veterans like Ryan O’Reilly in the immediate future, but just that they are moving into the mode of willing to not focus so much on the draft like they have been in the past couple of years.