The rumors have spread like wildfire. NHL general managers (GMs) know Danny Briere is open for business after the Ivan Provorov trade. Every trade conversation suddenly includes a big name from the Philadelphia Flyers. According to reports, teams have called about Travis Konecny, Scott Laughton, Kevin Hayes, and Carter Hart.
Pierre LeBrun’s statement that Briere is “listening on almost anyone who would help the organization get younger and fit into his long-term vision” is true (from The Athletic, LeBrun rumblings: Gavrikov gets NHL trade market rolling, Dubois wants out, DeBrincat’s list of teams and more, 6/7/23). However, phone calls don’t necessarily mean a ton of major trades are on the horizon. LeBrun’s statement is true about most NHL GMs.
Related: Carter Hart: The Feel-Good, Unlikely Summer Story for the Oilers
Analysis of the Flyers on the trade block requires scrutiny of the circumstances related to each individual player, his standing within the organization, and the sensibility of a potential trade. Briere stated his objective clearly during his introductory press conference in March.
“We have to be careful, and I want to make sure that rebuild doesn’t mean fire sale. There’s a big difference between the two. I want to make that clear. We’re not going to get rid of everybody. We have some good players here (and) some players that are in certain roles that we’re going to keep as well. We’re going to look at every possible option out there to improve the team,” he said.
Travis Konecny
“My understanding is the Flyers would listen on Travis Konecny if a team really stepped up,” Lebrun wrote on June 7.
As any hockey fan has heard over the years, no player is safe if two different teams decided to trade Wayne Gretzky. It makes sense that teams would ask about Konecny, who set a career-high with 31 goals in 2022-23 despite missing 22 games. There’s also a compelling case that can be made for a rebuilding team to sell high on a player coming off an excellent season.
However, the Flyers are not deliberately shopping him as part of John Tortorella’s belief in subtraction as a necessary part of establishing a new standard for performance within the organization. Tortorella, Briere, and Keith Jones have all praised Konecny for the attitude he brought to the team in 2022-23. Their continued emphasis on culture applies to the 26-year-old right winger as much as any other player on the team.
“I think he’s an important member moving forward. I’ve been really, really impressed with him, how this year he kind of took over. With the last couple of years – losing Jake Voracek, losing Claude Giroux – you’re always looking to see who’s going to take the next step, who is going to take on a bigger bite, right? And I think Travis is probably the one that jumped at the top of it this year. It was a great year, and I’m really impressed with him. He’s, to me, definitely a top-line player,” Briere said during his end-of-season press conference.
Teams will ask about Konecny, but negotiations aren’t likely to get very far. The possibility of a team overpaying in a trade always exists. Given the incredible value the Flyers place on Konecny, he’s the unlikeliest to move among the four veteran trade targets.
Scott Laughton
Elliotte Friedman continued with some more Flyers trade chatter on Hockey Night in Canada during the intermission of Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final.
“One of the names that was probably mentioned the most was Scott Laughton,” he said. “They’re turning their team over. They’re going to have a lot of young players. You need good veterans around them. In a perfect world, I think they’d like to keep Laughton, but…if they get the right price, they’ll consider it.”
Friedman, a long-time insider, made sure to include the necessary caveats of the situation. There’s real reasoning behind Briere’s insistence against a full fire sale. The former Philadelphia playoff hero spoke on 97.5 The Fanatic on June 2 about his rationale for avoiding a “fire sale” and how to maintain a strong culture during an organizational rebuild. It was his way of drawing the line between rebuilding and tanking.
“While you’re tanking, you’re also kind of losing your standard. You’re losing that culture that you’re trying to build. So when it’s time to turn it around, now you still have to build that culture,” Briere said.
Some of Briere’s best NHL seasons came with the Buffalo Sabres, a team that later allowed tanking in 2014-15 to spiral into the longest playoff drought in league history. It’s no surprise that he would value a reputable leader and versatile grinder like Laughton. Anthony DiMarco reported some eye-popping news that the Flyers turned down a deal that included a late first-round pick for their assistant captain. If teams want any chance to acquire Laughton, they better prepare to pry him away from the tight grip of the Flyers with a lucrative trade package that far exceeds the value of a forward whose career high is 43 points.
Kevin Hayes
Indicators from the organization might pour some cold water on the Konecny and Laughton rumors, but the situation with Hayes is directly the opposite. The 31-year-old all but admitted during his end-of-season press conference that he expects the Flyers to move him during the offseason.
“Younger guys are playing. I don’t know if they (the members of the front office) want a guy that’s making the money that I’m making playing 9-10 minutes a night. I don’t make those decisions – they do, and I’m sure they have to make them pretty quickly. (The) draft is coming up,” Hayes said in April.
He is not a long-term fit for an organization with such a high opinion of Tortorella, a coach Hayes clearly couldn’t find common ground with in 2022-23. Just like in the case of Provorov, it’s easy to see why a trade would make sense. Provorov saw himself as more than the dependable workhorse in his own zone that Tortorella wanted him to be, and Hayes disagrees with the veteran head coach’s assessment of his 200-foot game. Neither player fits well into the organization’s short-term or long-term goals.
There’s no need to wait on insider reports to know that Hayes will play for a new team next season. Trade conversations will have more to do with a trade partner, a return package, and possible salary retention on a contract that pays $7.14 million in average annual value (AAV) through 2025-26. The Columbus Blue Jackets are the likeliest trade partner, according to Friedman.
Carter Hart
The biggest question of the offseason has a huge asterisk that can’t be ignored. According to Frank Seravalli, the Flyers won’t move Hart in a blockbuster trade because of an issue bigger than the franchise goalie, the rebuild in Philadelphia, and the entire sport of hockey.
“The thing that hasn’t really been said publicly but is definitely under the surface behind the scenes is a lot of teams are leery about any player’s connection to the 2018 Team Canada World Junior team. Knowing that the investigation is complete, and knowing that there may be punishment or they may not be on the other end of it. Nobody wants to go crazy and acquire a player and potentially have that player sit out. I am not saying anything about Hart and his potential involvement in that. I think it just covers the entire roster. A bunch of GMs are sitting around saying ‘What do we do,’ and that could potentially impact a deal involving Carter Hart until we have some clarity.”
-Frank Seravalli
The Flyers gave a key indicator of an upcoming trade by acquiring 28-year-old goaltender Cal Petersen as part of the Provorov deal. The reports about potential return packages for Hart have been relatively subjective, but Briere is well aware that trading the 24-year-old netminder could make or break the first long-term rebuild in franchise history.
