There has been so much talk about the Philadelphia Flyers’ next move. After the Anaheim Ducks matched the Leo Carlsson offer sheet, now the Flyers are in some weird limbo where they absolutely went for it and wanted to get their No. 1 center by giving him $90 million, but coming up short. Now, their offseason has been more about slight improvement in key positions and getting some key players signed to contracts.
But, what can the Flyers do now? Are we going to see anything before the end of the offseason?
We don’t really want to wait and see and react to what could happen, so let’s make some stuff up and ponder about some potential trades and see why the Flyers might make a move like this. And more specifically, with the Boston Bruins.
The Bruins are in a weird spot where they don’t want to get worse. Every single season they waste of having David Pastrnak on their team, earns them approximately 13 years of brutal torture in the afterlife.
But they do not want to spend a whole lot of assets in win-now moves, and are happy to be patient with some young prospects like Fraser Minten, Matthew Poitras, Dean Letourneau, and James Hagens. So, can the Flyers and Bruins make out a little swap as teams in similar spots?
We came up with a couple of potential trade targets in Boston for the Flyers.
Getting Mason Lohrei to do something on the blue line
Mason Lohrei is an interesting player. The 25-year-old, left-handed defenseman is still not really solidified or shown exactly what his potential could be. He is not a good defensive player whatsoever — as he has some of the worst defensive underlyings on the Bruins and has never really demonstrated being good on that end of the puck. For instance, his xGA/60 Regularized Adjusted Plus-Minus is ranked 299 out of the 310 defenseman in the NHL last season. He has the same expected goals against impact as someone like Luke Hughes, John Klingberg, Ben Chiarot, and our very own David Jiricek.
And the problem with that is, his offense is basically just exactly league average, so it’s not in the Morgan Rielly sense of giving up some defense to get some offense — Lohrei is just bad defensively and mediocre offensively. So, why would the Flyers want him?
Well, a little guy named Rasmus Ristolainen basically had the exact same defensive profile as Lohrei when the Flyers acquired him (and was much worse offensively, actually). Considering Lohrei is a 6-foot-5, 218-pound guy who is capable of putting up 30 or so points (and actually played on the Bruins power play), there could be a little bit of a replacement there.
Lohrei could get his defense fixed by Rick Tocchet’s system and create a solid-enough contributor that could either play next to Jamie Drysdale on the second pair, with Cam York moving up to the first, or even on the first pair next to Travis Sanheim. He might not be the perfect option, but he is an option.
So, what would it cost? Could we see something like winger Alex Bump heading the other way? The Flyers do need to clear some space on the wing and could easily view Bump as someone that could be dangled out there as an asset for Boston to take. Owen Tippett feels way too good to be included in a trade for Lohrei, so if Bump is the main piece and you attach a draft pick to the 22-year-old winger for the 25-year-old defenseman that has a whole lot more experience, then could it be worth it?
It’s not the biggest blockbuster or the biggest swing that Briere could take, but it’s getting a defenseman that at the very least would raise the floor of your blue line, is a solid enough skater (was over 55th percentile in all NHL EDGE skating stats last season), and if you figure out the one massive flaw with him, then he can be a real asset going forward.
Could Pavel Zacha be a massive solidifier at center?
While Lohrei could be more of a piece for the future, the other player that the Flyers could target from Boston is a short-term fix for a long-term problem.
Pavel Zacha isn’t the hottest name on the center trade market, but he’s reportedly out there in some discussions. The 29-year-old pivot has one year left on his contract before he hits unrestricted free agency next summer and the Bruins could be looking to cash in. Does it make sense for the Flyers to inquire just a little bit?
He’s certainly no slouch. The 6-foot-4 center just scored 30 goals and 65 points last season and since joining the Bruins four years ago, he has never scored fewer than 47 points — and that was in their miserable 2024-25 season that earned them James Hagens. He does all of this production while winning well over 50 percent of his faceoffs, getting some tough defensive assignments and driving play at a very, very good rate. Zacha is not the shiny toy that most fans are hoping for to be the big center acquisition, but he’s probably the most underrated option for this.
Zacha is clearly a step above the Christian Dvorak, Noah Cates, and Sean Couturier tier of centers the Flyers have below Trevor Zegras right now. He could easily be this team’s first-line center, and might even have Zegras on his wing in this hypothetical world. With Cates and Couturier taking a large portion of the defensive matchups away from Zacha — something he didn’t have in Boston — he might be able to score even more and see his offensive really shine.
It is just for one season though, so this would be a move for the Flyers if they want to be a little bit more aggressive and think that they are in the right position to make a more win-now move to take advantage of their young players coming up and into the lineup.
Trading for Zacha is going to cost more than Lohrei, there’s no question about this. And honestly, for this player, this is where the idea of Owen Tippett comes up. Because, while Tippett is great and considered part of the young group he is already 27 years old and if he’s just a 50-point winger with some wheels, then they should maybe think of trading him at his peak value right now.
Zacha is just two years older than Tippett and is already a better player who plays in a more valuable position. It’s not a crazy stretch to think of a potential swap here, and maybe extending Zacha to something somewhat reasonable if he gels in well with the group — something like a five-million contract with an $8-million AAV isn’t crazy to think about for a player of his caliber. It takes him to 35 years old, and the Flyers would suddenly have a fairly old group of centers with Dvorak and Couturier, but maybe they move on from one of those players since they don’t have the scoring touch of a Zacha.
In the end, it feels like the Flyers are going to stay the course more than trade for either of these Bruins players, but it is fun to conjure up some trade ideas. We’re approaching the dead period of summer, so what else are we going to write about?
You can yell at me all you want about how these are really stupid ideas. We’re just bored and thinking thoughts.
