The season hasn’t even started yet, and the Philadelphia Flyers have already been named as a team that is looking to make a deal and bring in some help on the blue line.
On Tuesday’s written version of 32 Thoughts, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported that while there might not be too many transactions with the 2025-26 NHL season getting going this week, the Flyers are one team who are certainly looking for a deal. And it just so happens that specifically, it’s for a defenseman.
“Not sure we’re going to see much trade action too early, but Philadelphia is definitely checking what’s out there on defence,” Friedman wrote Tuesday.
The Flyers don’t normally let things leak through in this new regime — typically, any trade that they have made came out of nowhere or was rumored just hours before it actually happened, like it was with the acquisition of Trevor Zegras. So, for this to be out there and written in a way that makes it so concrete and not even speculation or soft reporting from Friedman, must mean that general manager Danny Briere is hitting the phones hard.
And there’s good reason. If any conclusion could be had from the last month of Flyers training camp, it would be that this team is significantly weaker on the blue line than once thought. The roster hopefuls like Helge Grans and Emil Andrae were sent back to the AHL with haste due to either poor performance or not being six feet tall. Noah Juulsen and Dennis Gilbert made the roster, but not in any dominant way; more just because they’re the older veterans who are what they are. And out of everyone, Adam Ginning, who was once an afterthought in this pipeline and who Briere himself said wasn’t close to making this team at the start of camp, actually earned himself a roster spot. There’s a world where in a couple games, Egor Zamula is playing top-four minutes for this team.
While the Flyers don’t expect or promise a playoff appearance this season, they are still looking to take a step forward and that feels unlikely with that entire situation going on amongst their defenseman. Yes, Rasmus Ristolainen should be back in several weeks (hopefully), and Oliver Bonk could play very well for a month in the AHL after he recovers from his own injury and earns an easy call-up — but there would still be holes to fill.
It makes perfect sense that instead of scrambling to find some help on the blue line when they inevitably need it, to get that player as soon as possible and not waste some games coming down the stretch, where they’re icing all three of Noah Juulsen, Dennis Gilbert, and Egor Zamula.
Now, the only question that remains is just what defensemen they could be potentially targeting. Because, in the end, roughly 90 percent of blueliners in the entire NHL would make this back end better. The Flyers could be looking at a player who is good but not good enough to play regular minutes on a contending team. Or, Briere could have his eyes on a bigger splash and pounce on an opportunity when eventually a team with high hopes starts to fall back and in a month they’ve already lost their season.
Unfortunately, Friedman did not give any further details or specific players, but at least we know that Flyers management has the same qualms with the current roster as most of us do. It was almost painfully obvious throughout the entire preseason that there just needs to be some support and assistance from the blue line whenever Travis Sanheim, Cam York, or Jamie Drysdale aren’t out there.
We’ll see if anything happens in the coming days, weeks, or months.
