Entering the season, the NHL’s trade deadline was a date that at the forefront of the minds of Flyers fans and employees alike. The idea was that the Flyers would accumulate assets and recoup value for some of their older roster pieces, while being deep in the throes of a season where they were most likely going to struggle to gather points. That would have also made it easier to justify parting ways with some of more established roster players, if the right trade appeared.
But these Flyers didn’t get that memo.
From the first day of the season until now in late February, they have remained a key part of the playoff picture, so much so that if this was any other year, the Flyers would likely be aggressively buying pieces to assist in their playoff push instead of talking about doing the opposite. Despite their upstart season thus far, general manager Daniel Briere has remained publicly committed to to the idea of exploring trades for some of the Flyers’ expiring contracts, with names like Nick Seeler and Sean Walker coming up in trade rumors frequently over the last month.
There was some chatter online, fueled largely by musings from Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman that the Flyers organization is making their playoff push a main priority, that perhaps the team has been too successful for their own good. That the direction that the front office is leaning towards embracing has been influenced by the fact that this team, against all odds, is still very competitive in a Metropolitan division where multiple teams have underachieved greatly.
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