The Philadelphia Flyers made the biggest splash of the summer. Everyone was talking about it. The streets were paved with chatter about what general manager Danny Briere was able to do Sunday. It was not only the most important thing to happen in the hockey world in the last few days, but nothing even comes close to it going back several months. Ryan Ellis, a defenseman who played four games for the Flyers and hasn’t stepped on the ice since November 2021, was traded from Philadelphia to the San Jose Sharks.
Hyperbole aside, the Flyers did end up moving on from the two years left they had for a player that won’t play again and in return they got a couple actual, real-life players. One is 22-year-old defenseman Artem Guryev, who will be with the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms, and the other one is certainly more interesting, in 27-year-old winger Carl Grundstrom.
Originally a second-round draft pick of the Maple Leafs in 2016, Grundstrom was part of the trade that sent defenseman Jake Muzzin to Toronto as one of the larger trades that the general manager Kyle Dubas made. Since then, the Swedish winger has stuck around in the NHL but has been in and out of the lineup either due to injury or some healthy scratches as he often played a bottom-six role for either the Los Angeles Kings or more recently, the Sharks.
But Grundstrom is not some throwaway in this trade. Sure, his $1.8-million AAV is not as digestible for his role and he was taking up space in the contract limit for San Jose, but there is a real player here that can be useful for the Flyers.
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