The Philadelphia Flyers are steeped in trade talks as we are just a few days away from Friday’s NHL trade deadline. And according to multiple reports, they are continuing to have discussions with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
It’s no secret that Scott Laughton is available to be traded if a team comes up with a first-round pick to send to Philadelphia. And it is certainly a fact that the Flyers would be willing to move Rasmus Ristolainen if the right proposal came along for the hulking rearguard.
We thought all along it would be two separate deals with two separate teams, but according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, Toronto and Philadelphia might try to work out a deal to get both available Flyers north of the border.
“I think [the Leafs] would love to do something that moves the needle,” Friedman said on Tuesday’s episode of Leafs Morning Take. “I think they have accepted the fact that if they’re going to get something that moves the needle, it’s going to cost them some combination of their No. 1 pick in 2026, Easton Cowan, Fraser Minten, or Ben Danford. … I think also they’ve wondered if they’re going to have to move salaries, too. Does someone have to come off the roster to make stuff work?
“I think they’re still looking at the ‘D’ market. I know they’re interested in Laughton. They know what the price is going to be for Laughton. I’ve always wondered if they can try to do a Laughton and Ristolainen kind of deal. Knock two birds off with one stone. But that’s expensive.”
That would certainly be a significant splash, but what kind of players do the Flyers covet over there? According to a separate report, there is one young center that has been all the rage and they have already been denied a certain proposal.
“I was told that the Flyers would be interested and willing to do Fraser Minten straight up for Scott Laughton. I was told that was also a ‘no’ for the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Flyers like Minten,” Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli said Tuesday.
Minten as a target definitely makes sense. He is a 20-year-old center who isn’t lacking size at 6-foot-1 and has been heralded as a two-way force. The Vancouver native has 13 points in 25 games for the AHL’s Toronto Marlies and has been able to play 15 games up with the Leafs, where he managed to score four points while averaging just over 12 minutes a game. There is certainly a potential to be a solid, middle-six center down the line and the Flyers coveting that is understandable.
Now, how would a combination of Laughton and Ristolainen being sent to Toronto work financially? The Leafs are hard-pressed to find any cap room, with not even a million dollars worth of deadline cap space right now. As Friedman mentioned earlier, there is a likelihood that Toronto will need to send contracts and roster players back to make trades work. Someone like 30-year-old center David Kampf, who is under contract for two more seasons with a $2.4 million AAV, could be included in a deal. And if it’s with the Flyers, that team could certainly use just anyone playing down the middle with NHL pedigree.
If Ristolainen is included, maybe often-scratched Conor Timmins is someone that the Leafs would include just to make the money work.
Of course, we’re just conjuring up what a trade between these two teams could look like, but we know that there is mutual interest to get at least the hometown kid Laughton up to Toronto in a trade before the deadline. Just a one-for-one for Minten won’t work, but we could see the Flyers try to get creative to pry the young center they clearly like a whole lot, away from the Leafs.
Any minute now, a trade between these two hockey clubs could go down.
