The dream has been slaughtered by the Anaheim Ducks. Leo Carlsson is not coming to the Philadelphia Flyers after the Ducks decided to match the offer sheet that Danny Briere tendered less than a week ago. At least we know a little bit earlier than expected and we aren’t going to experience another day of torture, waiting for the team to make their decision.
Now, the Flyers can move on with their business.
The NHL offseason is just a couple weeks old and it would be surprising if the current roster that the Flyers have right now goes completely untouched before the season starts in October. It’s not impossible, but it would be at least surprising for Briere to not use the rest of this summer. After making several swings on Carlsson, Zach Werenski, John Carlson, and others, the Flyers are going to do something in a summer where they wanted to get so much better.
While we can’t think that they take yet another swing the size of a Carlsson offer sheet, there are still things that they could do to improve this team, or just get some business done.
Get a power-play quarterback
Back to Plan A. One of the major goals this offseason was to come away with a power-play quarterback. It was the reason why the Flyers ended up offering John Carlson the most money out of anyone, but he decided to live in Florida and play for the Tampa Bay Lightning instead. They were willing to give him a two-year contract with a $10-million AAV, which would have prevented them from the Leo Carlsson offer sheet they eventually did. That’s how big of a need they think this position is.
Are there any left who are available?
They could search free agency and maybe hope to God that John Klingberg can be something resembling a bottom-pair blueliner who plays on the top power-play unit well enough. It would be an extremely low-risk option but the 33-year-old, right-handed defenseman wasn’t even good enough for the San Jose Sharks to bring back. David Jiricek might do everything that Klingberg can (including being not very good defensively) and the Flyers would much rather prefer to give him the minutes.
Philadelphia could scour the trade market for this instead. The top candidate has to be Maple Leafs blueliner Morgan Rielly and while his name has soured among hockey fans just because we have Toronto media yelling and screaming about how bad he is, he falls under the Darnell Nurse umbrella of being better than his contract and role on his current team.
Rielly as a second-pairing defenseman who is on the power play is a perfectly fine role for him. He won’t necessarily replace Rasmus Ristolainen’s physicality (if the corresponding move is to trade the large Finnish defenseman) but he would certainly give an offensive jump to the blue line overall. The 32-year-old would just need to be willing to waive his no-trade clause to come to Philadelphia.
There are still options out there and they wouldn’t cost a whole lot to check this box.
Still bolster the center position
While it’s impossible for them now to get a gamechanger like Leo Carlsson to be their No. 1 center for years and years and years, the Flyers could still very well look at cheaper options to just raise the floor further and maybe provide more offense down the middle.
There might not necessarily be a spot that’s perfectly primed for a player to come to Philadelphia and take, since the Flyers do have four capable centers, they could easily make a trade of a winger to address the center position, or just trade future assets for someone they believe could take a step further — not unlike the Trevor Zegras acquisition.
Shane Wright is an option that has potential to be much more than what he has shown in Seattle, but that is also in question and it all depends what the Kraken would want in return for their former fourth-overall pick. He’s solid defensively, but is he really any better than what they have in Noah Cates? That’s questionable.
The Flyers could revisit their trade discussions with the Ottawa Senators and really try hard to pry Shane Pinto or Dylan Cozens, but by all accounts they are not willing to trade either of them for really anything. Especially after losing Brady Tkachuk and bringing in William Eklund, they probably need both of them behind Tim Stutzle to just figure stuff out and for them to hope for the playoffs again. But, it would really be the other significant move the Flyers could make and we would all agree that it was worth it.
There aren’t many more obvious candidates who are on the move. They’re not in on the Dylan Larkin sweepstakes. Elias Pettersson is reportedly not a fit. Pavel Zacha is Pavel Zacha. And just about every other center who might be on the move this summer just doesn’t provide much else.
Regardless, the Flyers could still try hard to get a solid top-six option to pair with Zegras and let the likes of Cates, Dvorak, and Couturier settle into proper roles.
Sign the contracts that they need to sign
This is the most obvious piece of business, but it’s still a piece of business. Trevor Zegras, Jamie Drysdale, Hunter McDonald and Nikita Grebenkin are restricted free agents and need new contracts before training camp and will most likely sign them before the month is over (or, we could at least see that happen).
Now that the Flyers don’t have a big $18-million player on their books, they do have more flexibility to re-sign these players. They could go long-term with Zegras at a solid number and he could end up becoming the highest-paid forward on this team. And same goes for Drysdale, who might sign for several more years and also end up being the highest-paid defenseman, beating out Travis Sanheim’s $6.25-million AAV.
And Grebenkin’s negotiations should be very straightforward. Re-signing him to something like a couple more years with a slight pay raise. Same goes for McDonald, as he’ll get a league-minimum contract, possibly two-way, and for maybe a year or two.
Those are just the current restricted free agents, too. Matvei Michkov is technically eligible for a contract extension as he is going into the final year of his entry-level contract. The only problem with that is knowing exactly what number he deserves after having a disappointing sophomore season. If the Flyers could lock him up long-term to something like an $8-million AAV, we’re sure they would love to do that just based on his potential. But that does feel like a risk and something that Michkov probably doesn’t want to do after seeing someone who hasn’t even been that much more productive than him, get $18 million from his own team.
That’s really it. The Flyers could pivot to make a sizeable addition, but only if it really makes sense for everyone involved and now might not be the perfect time to trade some prospects away anyways. It is terrible to retreat in expectations after the Carlsson offer sheet — to go from dreaming of multiple playoff runs with a true No. 1 center to just hoping for moderate improvement from the young players the Flyers to have. But, the Flyers are still building something cool and good.
