Philadelphia Flyers: Bummer of a trade deadline

The Philadelphia Flyers acquired a pair of depth players before Monday’s NHL trade deadline, but they didn’t do much to help their chances this season.

With all due respect to Nate Thompson and Derek Grant, the newest member of the Philadelphia Flyers, I wanted more from the club before the clock struck 3 on Monday afternoon.

Thompson and Grant bring some experience and stability to the bottom of the Flyers’ forward group, this much is true. But the lack of a true impact move by Chuck Fletcher has to qualify as a disappointment at the moment. And I say “at the moment” because the team’s ultimate result this season will end up playing a significant factor in how we look back at this deadline.

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Nobody should have been expecting the Flyers to set the trade market on fire before the deadline, thanks to their tight salary cap situation. But people are paid a lot more than I am to figure these things out, and so I can’t help but feel underwhelmed at the two journeymen that the Flyers shipped out a couple of late-round draft picks to acquire.

I can only imagine that Fletcher and Co. made a full faith effort to get the money and the compensation to work for some of their targeted players, but that they just couldn’t get other organizations to make a deal. Still, even if the attempt was made, it’s tough as Flyers fans to see the team finally in a position to do something special, only to make minimal additions while seemingly everyone else in the conference (and especially the Metro Division) made a splash.

The Washington Capitals acquired Ilya Kovalchuk for a third-round pick.
The Pittsburgh Penguins acquired Patrick Marleau for a third-round pick.
The New York Islanders acquired Jean-Gabriel Pageau for three draft picks and immediately signed him to a six-year contract.
The Carolina Hurricanes acquired defenseman Sami Vatanen for a second-round pick and a prospect AND defenseman Brady Skjei for a first-round pick. They also nabbed Vincent Trochek from Florida for a package of players.
The New York Rangers, while they traded Skjei, held onto the highly coveted Chris Kreider, agreeing to a very reasonable seven-year contract extension.

Basically, the Metro seems to have gotten stronger all around, and it looks like the Flyers’ cap situation ended up being the issue that prevented them from fully joining the party. At least, that had better be the case, because there is no reason than any or all draft picks shouldn’t have been in play.

You have to appreciate the difficult situation that Fletcher was in, but it would have been nice if the Flyers figured out a way to make something happen, apart from fortifying the very bottom of their forward ranks. The real wild card here is Nolan Patrick, as his return would work as a “deadline addition” of sorts, something that sports people love to talk about when they reference “improving from within” and other such garbage. Patrick had better be back soon, otherwise the Flyers’ lack of bold moves will look even worse.

I know that some people will ding me for not offering concrete alternatives, but I will again have to defer to Flyers’ management, whose job it is to have the foresight to plan for these types of situations and press the right buttons when their players (and fans) could use an extra infusion of at least mid-level talent on the roster.

I hate to say “not my problem”, but it’s really not. So I’ll stay up here in the cheap seats, merely pointing out that the Flyers failed to keep pace with the rest of their division at the trade deadline.

As currently constructed, the Flyers are solid, but they will be judged harshly if they come up short this season, especially if it’s against one of their division rivals who maneuvered the salary cap and their assets well enough to make improvements to the top half of their roster while the Flyers just went for depth.

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I still believe in this Flyers team. We all should. But it’d be easier to feel good about things if more meaningful additions could have been made to the existing club.

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