The Philadelphia Flyers did not get fair value for Kevin Hayes from the St. Louis Blues, nor did they come close. Over the weekend, it seemed like they might. Rumors floated around that they would combine Hayes with cap relief by acquiring oft-injured defenseman Torey Krug’s contract and walk away with a first-round pick. By halving Hayes’s $7.14 average annual value, they would give St. Louis a second-line center and over $3 million in cap space by eating all of Krug’s $6.5 million number. It was an offer that Blues’ GM Doug Armstrong could not refuse, but he and Flyers’ GM Danny Briere neglected to remember that Krug could.
The 32-year-old Krug was one of the most sought-after free agents on the market when Armstrong signed him back in 2020, and a no-trade clause is the going rate for veteran stars in the salary cap era. Krug is no longer a star, but he thinks that toiling for notoriously standoffish coach John Tortorella and the rebuilding Flyers during the twilight of his career is for the birds. That is his choice, and Armstrong should not have given him the option if he were so intent on dumping him when his injury record flared up.
The scuttled deal hung Briere out to dry. He had to cut bait on Hayes, who waged a public cold war against Tortorella for most of the season. Tortorella does not value Hayes as a player and has made that known to anyone who would listen. The former Stanley Cup winner is untouchable in the organization; chairman Dan Hilferty has frequently mentioned him in the same breath as Briere and president of hockey operations Keith Jones. Briere will pay the big Bostonian half his salary until 2026 to play elsewhere with nothing but a sixth-round pick to show for his troubles.
St. Louis Fleeced the Flyers
The Flyers made the right call, the only call. Allowing the Hayes elephant into the Flyers’ locker room to rehab his trade value would have undermined the team’s constant rhetoric about culture. He and Tortorella have been cordial and professional for the press, but anyone could see they do not like each other or want to continue their professional relationship. Hayes had to go for the Flyers to save face before the tension between the two affected the rest of the team.
Letting a player go in a raw deal because there is no other option is hardly unprecedented. The Vegas Golden Knights traded former All-Star Max Pacioretty to the Carolina Hurricanes for nothing to create cap room. Oliver Bjorkstrand netted a modest return (third and fourth-round picks) for the Columbus Blue Jackets when they moved him to Seattle, but that trade was a money-motivated robbery by general manager Ron Francis and the Kraken. The difference? The Flyers did not trade Hayes to create wiggle room against the cap. They actually shot themselves in the foot and will pay him enough money to get a decent middle-six forward just to go away. Hayes went for nothing because the Flyers destroyed his value with their very public dirty laundry.
Hayes Was Gone Months Ago
Tortorella, Hayes, and even Briere acknowledged that certain veterans would have no place on the Flyers of the future. ‘Torts’ had talked all season about the importance of being part of the solution, and Hayes’s anemic backchecking (and forechecking) landed him on the outside looking in. At his end-of-season media availability, Tortorella did not pull any punches about axing the players who did not respond to his fiery leadership. “Some of the veteran guys haven’t [grown],” the coach said. “You don’t start adding players until you subtract players … there needs to be some subtraction.”
That same day, Hayes acknowledged that he would not rule out any new team after a tumultuous season that was, ironically, his first as an All-Star. “I picked up the message that was sent months ago,” he said. “I don’t want to say I’m suited for a contender, because I think I’m suited for anyone to be honest.” In Briere’s own exit interview, he was as honest as he could be without outright throwing the player under the bus. “We’ll figure out what needs to be done with Kevin, and if he’s here or somewhere else,” Briere said. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.
It is worth noting that in butting heads with Tortorella, Hayes was an outlier on the Flyers. He, Ivan Provorov, Joel Farabee, and Tony DeAngelo were the players with the least tolerance for Torts’ draconian locker room, and for each of them, two or three Flyers had career seasons. Travis Konecny, Owen Tippett, Noah Cates, and Scott Laughton were just a few, and the Philadelphia front office believes in Tortorella’s developmental skills. If he ruffles a few feathers along the way, so what? Provorov and Hayes are gone as such, and DeAngelo will be just as soon as someone takes him.
Related: Grading Blockbuster 3-Team Trade Involving Flyers’ Provorov
Still, when a player, coach, and GM publicly acknowledge that a trade will happen before the wheels are greased, terms agreed upon, and hands shaken, they are not doing themselves any favors in the value department.
Briere Must Rein in His Coach
In the end, Hayes and Tortorella both got what they wanted. Hayes will play for a playoff contender. If he gets back to his best, he should be the two-way special teamer that he was under Alain Vigneault there. For his part, Tortorella is no longer undermined by a team leader who feels getting yelled at on a losing team is beneath him. Win-win? Sure, but what about Briere?
Weeks on from the Provorov trade that made him look like a rising star in the world of hockey executives, Briere comes out looking like a fool who could not get so much as a low-end prospect for a 50-point player. None of this is his fault, as circumstances conspired to back him into an unwinnable situation. If he could have made the Krug deal work, it would have been a masterstroke, but there was no other way to get a return for Hayes in light of everything that had already happened.
Tortorella is vital to the Flyers; he would always come out on top of a battle of wills with Hayes. Still, next time the coach really does not like somebody, it must stay in-house. It may make Briere uncomfortable to reprimand a guy 20 years older than him, but if the Flyers get caught in many more fiascos like this one, the New Era of Orange will look as incompetent as the old one.
