For Flyers front office, there will be no sentimentality

In case you missed it, the Flyers completed a trade Thursday night that sent Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee to the Calgary Flames in exchange for Andrei Kuzmenko, Jakob Pelletier, a 2025 second-round pick and a 2028 seventh-round pick. For the Flyers, that\'s two rostered players -- ostensibly in their primes -- traded for a pending unrestricted free agent, an up-and-down young winger, and some draft capital.

One of the major questions about the current Flyers front office has been whether they\'ll be able to make tough decisions in pursuit of building a Stanley Cup contending team. This trade shows that, yes, Danny Briere and co. are capable of trading players they like if it serves the rebuild.

When the Flyers shipped out Ivan Provorov and Kevin Hayes in the summer of 2023, those were necessary moves: neither player fit the locker room culture they were trying to build and, in Hayes\'s case, the timeline due to his age. Buying out Tony DeAngelo was also a necessary move for the culture, but it cleared his ludicrous contract off the books, too. Cutter Gauthier didn\'t want to play here, so out he went. Sean Walker was a pending free agent picked up as a reclamation project/cap dump, and any team in the Flyers\' position of openly rebuilding would be foolish not to make a trade with found money. Cam Atkinson was over the hill and his contract had to come off the books to open a roster spot.

None of these transactions seriously disrupted the \"culture\" the front office was trying to promote; they were necessary moves by a rebuilding club to clear out players that a) didn\'t fit the timeline b) didn\'t pass the vibe check c) brought back enough of a return to warrant moving on from. This week\'s trade with Calgary, however? This is different. It may be strictly business, but it\'s the first transaction by this front office that might get taken a little personal--by fans and players alike.

Leadership and culture building have been crucial building blocks for this Flyers front office; they\'ve been effusive about how important Scott Laughton\'s intangibles are to this rebuild. Joel Farabee was a critical leader, too, though--not because he wore a letter, but because the younger players on the team rallied around him; his house was, quite infamously, the place for the younger players to hang out. Now where will they go?? Morgan Frost was well liked and good natured, but as a pending RFA his future with the team was uncertain. This is the first time in Briere\'s tenure that we\'ve seen him make a cold, calculated move to shape the Flyers roster of the future in such an impactful way.

Let\'s start with Frost: he wears Briere\'s number 48, and has said that Briere has helped him significantly in his development . Frost was clearly a player the organization liked, even if the head coach has famously had issues with his play, but the cold truth of it all comes down to two things: Frost has shown a lack of consistency for three straight seasons, and he\'s due a new contract this summer.

All told, Frost is a fine player--nothing special, but not a world beater, either. The Athletic projects his market value at $4.9-million AAV, which isn\'t too bad. However, once you take into account his inconsistent play and his ideal role on a contending team (third-line center, maybe a second-line guy in a pinch), a $5-million-ish AAV contract--likely with some term--for a guy who\'s going to be 26 in a couple months doesn\'t make sense for a team in the Flyers\' position. You have to ask yourself: Is this a player who will be effective in a few years when we\'re trying to contend? The answer is \"not likely,\" and if the Flyers can\'t fill that role with someone younger through the draft, then we have bigger problems to deal with.

It\'s all projections with Frost, though--Joel Farabee\'s contract is set in stone through the summer of 2028 at $5-million AAV. It was a gamble by Chuck Fletcher to lock up Farabee at a decent value as he grew into a top six role while the Flyers were contending, similar to the contract Travis Konecny signed a few years prior at $5.5-million AAV. Teams that are going for it have to find surplus value somewhere, and giving term to young players still establishing themselves in the NHL are where a team takes a risk to get that precious surplus value through a player\'s prime years. It took Konecny a while to get where he is now, and the state of the team (and his value to the organization) have changed dramatically; the good news is he appears to be an elite NHL player who will be a Flyer for life. Joel Farabee, on the other hand...well, it\'s been rough.

It\'s a shame, really, that Joel Farabee never built on the 20-goal season he had during the covid-shortened season of 2020-21. Injuries marred his 2021-22, and then that summer he underwent disc replacement surgery; the entire 2022-23 season ended up a wash as a result, but he played all 82 games and ended the year on a hot streak. He carried that over into 2023-24 and, for about three months, was excellent on the rush and looked like a legit top-six left wing for years to come. After the All-Star break, though, he disappeared completely--and hasn\'t really reappeared since. A fresh start will do him well, and it helps the Flyers clear some cap moving forward.

This might be the riskiest trade of Briere\'s tenure, as Frost and Farabee are still young enough to improve; there\'s a chance the thing blows up in the Flyers\' face. However, it\'s been nearly three seasons, and neither has cemented themselves as legitimate, high-end impact talent--signing Frost to a costly extension didn\'t make sense, and neither did riding out the remainder of Farabee\'s contract crossing your fingers that he\'d rediscover that form he had for a stretch of 2023-24. Both players could\'ve had a future with the Flyers, but it just wasn\'t meant to be.

What this trade demonstrates is that, even if you\'re young, even if you\'re homegrown talent, even if you\'re signed long term, even if you wear the GM\'s old number, it doesn\'t matter--the Flyers are willing to make the sometimes ruthless decisions necessary to effectively rebuild the team. While the trade may go down as a C-plus (or Farabee-minus) move overall, it sends a message to fans that the front office has the stomach to make difficult choices, and that they won\'t get hung up on sentimentality if it gets in the way of trying to build a perennial winner.

Talking Points