The Philadelphia Flyers have more ammunition at the 2025 NHL Draft than any other team. With three first-round picks and four second-round picks leading their haul of draft capital, general manager Danny Briere and the rest of the front office can do a whole lot whether it is trade them away for NHL players, bolstering the prospect pipeline with all seven high-end picks, or, just maybe, use a combination of some draft picks to move up in the draft.
It’s not always smart for anyone to expect something to happen heading into a draft, but we can feel with some level of certainty that the Flyers have the capability to upgrade some of their selections. Crazy stuff happens. We’ve seen multiple Russian offensive dynamos fall way too late in the last couple of years. We’ve seen projected first-overall centers slip all the way down to fourth. But, the ability for the Flyers to move up (if they wanted to) feels tangible.
Of course, this would only happen if the right scenario played out for Philadelphia and a player that they coveted and expected to already be gone by the time their pick rolled around, was suddenly dropping right into that range for them to snatch up. With the Flyers having the 22nd overall pick, the 31st overall pick, and then piles of upper-half second-rounders, they could have the right value to move up to as high as 14th or 15th overall, we bet.
Who could these players be, though? Who are players that we could see dropping into that range? And why? And would the Flyers even be interested in these players?
Okay, yeah loads of questions. Let’s try to answer them.
Roger McQueen
While it appeared to be much more likely that Roger McQueen was going to significantly drop in the first round before he calmed the speculation about his injury at the NHL Draft Combine, it’s still a possibility. All it takes is the right order of teams that are cautious about a 6-foot-5 center who still has to put on some weight to play professional hockey and how a potential nagging back injury would handle that.
But, if McQueen is fully cleared medically and his back is not something that will affect his development, then he is a perfect candidate for some team to take a substantial swing on. If the Brandon Wheat Kings center was healthy all season, there is a possibility he could be battling with Michael Misa for the second-overall spot, or at least be a top three pick in this class.
If his name starts slipping and is still available in the second half of the first round, while unlikely, the Flyers should be throwing about as many picks as possible it would take for any team to move down with them. McQueen would solve a whole lot of issues the Flyers have in their prospect pool.
Victor Eklund
While McQueen is more unlikely to drop, Eklund is going the other way in likelihood. Teams towards the bottom half of the top 10 are going to prefer the physical players like Brady Martin. And then, as we get out of the top 10, those teams might prefer to take a defenseman than a smaller, skilled winger from Sweden. Then teams might just start to prefer other skilled players like Justin Carbonneau, or the solid center Braeden Cootes. Suddenly, we’re looking at a player who was arguably the driver of Anton Frondell’s line available in the late teens of the first round.
While Eklund wouldn’t solve any positional issues for the Flyers — he literally compared his game to Travis Konecny as a heavy forechecking and nasty winger — he is so skilled and his ceiling of a top-line winger, would be too enticing to pass up and would raise the future floor and ceiling of this team by a significant margin. It’s not the best pick for those who want to pencil lineups of the 2028-29 Flyers, trying to figure out where Eklund could be, but he is too talented to not pay a couple lower picks to grab.
Jackson Smith
The lone defenseman on this list, Jackson Smith has a baseline of talent that is hard to pass up. The main complaint of him as a prospect — and why he could drop into a range in the first round that the Flyers could trade up into from 22nd overall — is his hockey sense. That is sometimes lacking but everywhere else is extremely solid.
Smith is one of the best skating defensemen in the draft class, has excellent four-way mobility, can handle and pass the puck very well, and can be a power-play threat if his shot develops just slightly more. He is uber talented, but teams could certainly prefer other defensemen to him in that range. Kashawn Aitcheson if they want a physical threat on the blue line, Radim Mrtka if they want size and reach (and shooting right-handed), and maybe even a Cameron Reid if they want a smarter playmaker. All of these possibilities would let Smith slip significantly, and maybe the Flyers can snag a high-ceiling defenseman in the first round for the first time in a little bit.
Carter Bear
If the Flyers want a Brady Martin type of player — a physical, hard-working forward that can also produce some points — they can get exactly that (and potentially one more impactful than Martin) later in the first round, in Carter Bear. He does everything you sort of want from a forward to play in crucial games. Bear is a competitor in every sense of the word while also having a top-tier playmaking ability.
Why will he drop then? That seems like an ideal player for a whole lot of teams. Well, Bear suffered a partially lacerated Achilles tendon that ended his WHL season early and teams have not been able to see his recovery. He is reportedly skating and feeling 100 percent better, but with so much pressure to make the right pick, teams might opt to take someone who didn’t suffer a late-season injury. But also, maybe teams just want a defenseman more, or want more upfront skill like an Eklund or Carbonneau, as previously mentioned.
Bear would bring his right mix of skill and work ethic to a prospect pool that has some players with the same attributes. He feels like a perfect Flyers for the next rendition of this team. And, he could possibly play center.
Lynden Lakovic
Lakovic isn’t a perfect player, but he has more than enough skill to warrant a trade-up scenario. He deserves to be taken in the first half of the first round but again (it’s a familiar theme of this whole thing) there are reasons that teams might prefer to take other prospects before the 6-foot-4 winger out of Moose Jaw.
For being that size, Lakovic doesn’t really play a physical game and a decent amount of his offense comes from the perimeter, but he is excellent in possession, creates space for his teammates in the offensive zone, is a top-tier transition player. But, again, some teams might just want a defenseman or prefer other forwards and then the large winger starts to slip.
While other offensive wingers like Eklund is just about increasing the overall talent, Lakovic would really fit the Flyers well on the wing. He is Large and uses his body more for puck protection than laying out dudes in open ice, and is a very smart playmaker. Basically, he is like a playmaking Tyson Foerster with better handles. That could be very handy anywhere in the Flyers’ top nine right now, opposite of Matvei Michkov or Travis Konceny in a potential lineup.
There is some talent that might slip and while we think that it could be so simple for the Flyers just to make the right calculation and give draft picks to one team to take theirs, there are so many other factors. The other team would want to actually make that trade and not just draft the player falling down the board into their lap, and the Flyers would need to offer the best value in a trade as other teams will certainly want to trade up as well.
We’ll see how it all shakes out this Friday.
