The Philadelphia Flyers are just several days away from taking the first step of the 2025-26 NHL season with rookie camp starting next week, but they decided to make a quick trade and shuffle up some organization depth before doing that.
Announced by the team Thursday afternoon, the Flyers have acquired center Tucker Robertson from the Seattle Kraken in exchange for forward J.R. Avon.
TRADE ALERT: We’ve acquired forward Tucker Robertson from Seattle in exchange for forward Jon-Randall Avon. https://t.co/qqLjli342H
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) September 4, 2025
Robertson was a fourth-round draft pick of the Kraken all the way back in the 2022 NHL Draft and is now a 22-year-old center who hasn’t yet found any relatively consistent level of success in pro hockey. While with the Peterborough Petes of the OHL, he was a regular goalscorer, putting up 41 goals in 68 games during the 2021-22 season and 36 during his final year in junior, in 68 games as well. As soon as he took that giant leap up to the pro level, the 5-foot-10 center had his production halted with just six goals and 10 points in 39 games for the AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds. But, during a stint in the ECHL for the Kansas City Mavericks, he did score four goals and 14 points in 13 games.
Just last season, Robertson scored four goals and nine points in 38 games for Coachella Valley — so we’re not talking about someone who will instantly become something desirable even in the AHL.
But going the other way was someone with a similar profile. J.R. Avon signed with the Flyers as an undrafted free agent back in September 2021 and was loaned back to the same Petes that Robertson played for and put up roughly a point per game as a member of the Flyers organization with 128 points in 123 games through his last two seasons of junior hockey. He made the step to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms where he scored 18 points in his rookie year and followed it up with…17 points in his sophomore season last year.
These two former OHL teammates are now being moved for one another — to start afresh in new environments that can utilize their skill maybe just ever so slightly more.
Both players are listed as centers but were not regulars down the middle for their respective AHL clubs. Maybe the Flyers see Robertson more as a sure thing at the center position than Avon ever was and could play him there, because they certainly need more of that down in Allentown.
As it stands right now, the rough estimate of who will play center for the Phantoms is a collection of Jacob Gaucher, Karsen Dorwart, Rodrigo Abols, and maybe Oscar Eklind. That is not the most inspiring group of players to foster in some young talents like potentially Alex Bump and Denver Barkey down in the minors. Robertson is probably nothing more than a bottom-six AHL center (if he does play the position) and might not even be better than the older Eklind right now. But, this move is certainly just to give some players who are on the cusp of fading into minor-league obscurity, a new start for their hockey careers.
We’re now the No. 1 Tucker Robertson fanblog in existence.
