Danny Briere had to strike the right balance at this year’s trade deadline between building the future of the Philadelphia Flyers while not fracturing the current roster too much to negatively impact the team’s improbable playoff push.
No player made that goal more complicated than Scott Laughton. Currently the second longest tenured Flyer behind Sean Couturier, Laughton’s numbers on the scoresheet won’t jump out at you: he’s on pace for just 40 points this season. Still, given that his career best effort was a 43 point performance last season, that’s more than serviceable for the role he’s being asked to play. After all, he’s just four points behind Morgan Frost for highest point production on the team at the center position.
It’s been well established by now that statistics alone don’t tell the whole story with Laughton. He’s a leader on and off the ice, a ferocious competitor, a two-way player, and an ambassador for the You Can Play Project which aims to empower the LGBTQ+ community in sports. But it wasn’t always clear what his path would be.
Drafted in 2012, Laughton was just the team’s second first round selection — Couturier came before him in 2011 — after shockingly trading away Mike Richards and Jeff Carter. The Flyers needed to restock their prospect cupboard at the time, and their first real stab at it was Laughton, since Couturier jumped right into the NHL.
Given the similarities (penalty killing, physical two-way centers with offensive upside), many speculated that Laughton was an attempt at replacing Richards. Ironically enough, both players were once captains of Canada’s World Junior Hockey Team. Laughton also referred to Richards as his “favorite player” and someone he modeled his game after early in his career.
Brent Sutter, the coach of both players’ respective World Junior teams, praised Laughton after naming him captain. The way Sutter described him is strikingly similar to the rhetoric used today by his current teammates and coaches.
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