This summer is going to be an interesting one in Philadelphia. After almost making the playoffs — and really only missing them because they could not get some points against terrible teams in a late-season stretch — the Flyers are dealing with a potential transitional roster and continuing their rebuilding process.
Of course, we are just days removed from the end of the regular season so we truly have no clue about what the entire NHL roster is going to look like, but general manager Danny Briere made it clear on Friday that two players will not be with the team next season.
During his season-ending press conference, Briere mentioned that he doesn’t expect defenseman Marc Staal and forward Denis Gurianov to be back in a Flyers uniform. Both players are pending unrestricted free agents and will be hitting the open market on July 1.
For Staal, the 37-year-old was signed to a simple, one-year contract last summer to help bridge the gap as a depth defenseman. A hole-filler on the blue line that can be an injury replacement so they don’t need to bring up boatloads of AHL defensemen to play in the NHL (they needed to do that anyways).
Considering Staal played just 35 games for the team — earning one single goal and five points while averaging under 14 minutes a game — his departure is just confirmation of what we expected to happen. The more interesting side of this is letting Gurianov walk without any further discussion.
The soon-to-be-27-year-old was acquired at the deadline in a simple one-for-one swap with the Nashville Predators for AHLer Wade Allison, so it’s not like the Flyers are just letting a transaction go to waste, but there was clearly not a relationship formed and he didn’t quite gel with the team. Gurianov was a consistent healthy scratch and laced up for just four games for the Flyers. Despite being a speedy and shooty winger, there was just something that didn’t click and he wasn’t really given a full opportunity with this team.
Nevertheless, he will have to find a home elsewhere, where he could potentially rejuvenate his career and show that the success he found back in 2020 with the Dallas Stars, wasn’t just a pure fluke.
See you, boys.
