The Philadelphia Flyers are floundering and the reality of them finishing out of the playoffs but not being bad enough to get a top 10 draft pick is starting to creep into the mind of every fan. Naturally, that then comes with thoughts about what they can do to either rescue the season or look towards the future with some trades before the deadline in March.
Enter Shane Wright as the hottest topic of conversation as a potential fix for the Flyers’ problem of not having enough good centers to pose a real threat.
Ever since several insiders declared that the Seattle Kraken are open to moving the former fourth-overall pick, the thought of him in the orange and black with all that unlocked potential has had some fans salivating. It makes perfect sense. There is a desperate need for a center with at least some pedigree or potential to be a top-six pivot so that this team can truly support the bounty of good wingers they have, and truly get this team cooking something. Until the Flyers figure that out, it seems like it’s not going to work.
But is Wright really the option to invest in? It sure doesn’t seem like the Flyers will be interested.
Flyers won’t be looking to get someone like Shane Wright as the answer
Wright has been praised with boundless potential ever since he was granted exceptional status in the OHL and was able to start his major junior career a year earlier than normal. Tearing it up with the GTHL’s Don Mills Flyers and then with the OHL’s Kingston Frontenacs, earned him the title of someone who is poised to be a top-of-the-lineup two-way centerman that might just be someone a team can win with.
Well, four years after he slipped in the draft to fourth overall, and had his development stuttered by the Kraken as he spent his remaining teenaged years bouncing in between the OHL, AHL (on conditioning stints), and the NHL, he is stuck. Wright is barely producing with just 18 points in 52 games this year and is behind both Matty Beniers and Chandler Stephenson in the Kraken’s depth chart. Basically, he hasn’t been good enough to leapfrog over them, but Seattle knows that there is still the mystique of him having so much untapped potential that the Kraken might as well see what they can get for him.
That’s one read of the situation, anyways.
Wright could very well carve out a career as a second-line center if he gets into the right environment, but there is still a greater possibility that he remains a player who will pot in around a half of a point per game and not be a detriment in any zone. That certainly feels like the most likely outcome for the 22-year-old center — so, do the Flyers really need one of those?
Trading for Wright would create an awkward logjam in the Flyers’ lineup
The Flyers won’t be giving up any of their existing centers in this hypothetical deal to bring Wright to Philadelphia. Either they are good (Noah Cates), have just signed a contract (Christian Dvorak), or are immovable (Sean Couturier). So, that would be the depth chart in this world. And even if you can reasonably ask one of Couturier, Dvorak, or Cates to be the fourth-line center and not have it be a massive hit to their ego that could cause some other issues, there is a little bit of a weird situation.
There are just so many moving pieces on this roster to begin with. Let’s say that they trade Owen Tippett or Bobby Brink in this deal to get Wright — sorry for all the hypotheticals. The roster number stays the same but just for a brief period of time.
In comes top prospect Porter Martone and suddenly you have to make sure you have a spot for him. And then Tyson Foerster is back from injury at next training camp and it becomes really awkward. The Flyers lineup is filled already with wingers Matvei Michkov, Travis Konecny, Trevor Zegras, one of Brink or Tippett, and the aforementioned Martone and Foerster. Through in breakout star Denver Barkey and Nikita Grebenkin and there’s little room for any maneuvering.
The wings are set in the depth chart for the projected lineup next year. But that is now centered by Wright, Cates, Dvorak, and Couturier — is that really a spine of a lineup that would make this team so much better and be an improvement from what we’re currently seeing?
But that is now what the Flyers would have to work with and have the center position more cemented than before.
That is really why there is a strong belief that the Flyers won’t even come close to eyeing up Wright as we edge ourselves closer to the trade deadline. Even if they acquire the 22-year-old, it would leave them needing the exact same thing to meet their goals. They would still be without a true top-six center to regularly compete for the playoffs but now you’ve given up assets to be in the exact same position. Assets that could be put together with other things to truly try and get that needed piece.
Getting Wright would just feel like a waste of time to try and wish that he could reach his potential despite what he has shown in the NHL so far. If the Flyers desperately needed a middle-six center — and didn’t have several prospects who project to be exactly that — then sure, getting Wright would be really fun and we would all get wrapped up in thinking he could be that two-way shutdown middleman. But with the Flyers already having lots of players currently on the roster that can do what Wright does, and some prospects who should be able to do what Wright does in a year or two, it feels incredibly unlikely that they are going to do this.
Maybe we’re wrong and they really see the potential in Wright and believe he can be that top-six center. Then, we’ll be joining them and crossing our fingers, but there is a lot of evidence that that won’t happen and the Flyers won’t be locking themselves into the 22-year-old instead of trying to reach for a much bigger fish eventually.