Pagnotta said on DFO Rundown: Insider Edition earlier this week.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cPhiladelphia has been one. They have had interest in him in the last couple of years, and still the case now. Nothing imminent on that front, yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, that\u2019s something.<\/p>\n
While there is nothing imminent \u2014 mainly because, despite being eligible, Xhekaj did not file for arbitration so this might even stretch into training camp \u2014 it is certainly interesting that the Flyers are one of the teams targeting the 25-year-old.<\/p>\n
The only problem is that it could end up being a total disaster.<\/p>\n
It makes sense, but Xhekaj is the wrong target<\/p>\n
Xhekaj is coming off a season where he scored one goal and earned three assists in 65 games. His career-high is 13 points and that was in his rookie year back in the 2022-23 season. Just last season, he averaged only 11:25 time-on-ice, almost four entire minutes fewer than his average in the three years prior. And with that decreased role (since the Canadiens were trying to win hockey games), he racked up a total of 116 penalty minutes. Maybe the lower amount of minutes per game was because he was spending half his shifts in the penalty box.<\/p>\n
If there is anything to know of Xhekaj, if you are not familiar, it is that he likes to punch other players a lot.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a wonderful sight to see, since we are all knuckle-dragging Neanderthals in our hearts. But is that someone you would bring in to have it be considered an \u201cupgrade\u201d?<\/p>\n
He doesn\u2019t score. Now that his team has turned the corner into regular playoff contention, he\u2019s barely playing. His only elite talent is being able to fight and be the favorite against almost every single player in the world. <\/p>\n
Does he even impact the game in a positive way? We are used to Radko Gudas doing a lot of that but actually providing some positive defensive value.<\/p>\n
Sadly, no. Whether it\u2019s Evolving-Hockey\u2019s RAPM model, HockeyStats\u2019 WAR model, Evolving-Hockey\u2019s GAR model, HockeyViz\u2019s sG model, or even just on-ice metrics like his 5-on-5 shot attempt share or expected goals share; no matter where you look he grades out as someone who is overrun by almost every single opponent he faces. The Canadiens are a worse team when he\u2019s on the ice \u2014 therefore, the decrease in minutes this past season.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not crazy to say that he would bring the exact same value that Nic Deslauriers did during his time in Philadelphia, but just on the blue line and younger and probably more expensive.<\/p>\n
It would not even make sense to bring in Xhekaj as a free agent. But, the Flyers want to give up assets to get this player and then sign him to a bloated contract? Are you serious?<\/p>\n
The idea in a vacuum isn\u2019t crazy. It has been reported that the Flyers are cautious to trade Ristolainen because they don\u2019t want to lose his physicality, since no one but Nick Seeler really brings that and he is a bottom-pairing player. So, do they think Xhekaj is more than that? Is he a top four guy to play next to Cam York as Jamie Drysdale gets a promotion to the top pair? How, in any world, would that be considered an upgrade?<\/p>\n
To want to get some physicality makes sense. But to only get that, while not wanting someone that can hit guys but also break out the puck, or make offensive plays, or show some actual skill with possession, is going to force them to take a massive step backwards. There are players that fit that mold. That can play in the Flyers\u2019 top four while bringing a solid level of offense and impacting the game positively, while also being able to truck dudes and make their bones crumble against the boards.<\/p>\n
The Flyers might need to pay more than what it would take to get and sign Xhekaj to get that player, but it\u2019s a much better option. Trading for Xhekaj would make this team a whole lot worse and have fans begging for the previous status quo.<\/p>\n
Maybe now, we\u2019re totally fine if the Flyers don\u2019t do anything for the rest of the summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia Flyers\u2019 not-so-big secret is that they want to get better on the back end. With the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-784278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}