The Flyers have been clear all season: this is a rebuild, and the winning record changes nothing. That means that, come the trade deadline, the Flyers will be sellers, moving players out for future assets.
“Future assets” doesn’t have to mean “draft picks,” though.
Generally, as NHL teams rebuild, they move rostered players out for draft picks. There’s likely two major reasons for this: contending teams don’t want to move promising prospects that they’ve invested time in and have signed to affordable Entry Level Contracts (thus extending their window by navigating the salary cap), and rebuilding teams want more options for the kind of players they can bring into the fold–a prospect is a player in progress, but a draft pick could be anything.
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