As the offseason comes into view for all teams but two, the rumor mill is starting the heat up, and the Flyers are right in the middle of it all.
David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period published an article recently that suggested that the Edmonton Oilers will be looking to acquire another winger to potentially play alongside Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl, and a name that’s been bandied about in potential talks is the Flyers’ Owen Tippett.
Tippett is coming off of a really solid season where he scored 28 goals for the second time in his four seasons in Philadelphia, and had stretches where he looked like one of the most electric players in the NHL. By the time the Flyers had reached round two of the playoffs this year, Tippett was too beat up to continue, with a sports hernia topping a laundry list of injuries that had contributed to his absence from the entire series against the Hurricanes. But up until injuries consumed him, it was one of the better seasons Tippett has had since being acquired in the Claude Giroux trade.
His elite skating ability and 30-goal potential is not doubt enticing to a whole host of teams, and with his ten team no trade list set to kick in on July 1st, there could be some teams circling around as the draft approaches, looking to jump the queue and secure a high end talent, who is already signed to a very reasonable cap hit of 6.2 million dollars up until 2031-32.
For the Oilers, the incentive is obvious. Pairing someone like Tippett with the speed and skill of Connor McDavid is a tantalizing prospect, and would put two players together who were both in the 99th percentile of skating speed according to NHL EDGE stat tracking. With the playmaking of McDavid alongside him, there’s a chance that Tippett could surpass his career highs by leaps and bounds.
Do the Flyers need to trade Owen Tippett?
But for the Flyers, it’s not like there’s a big flashing sign hanging above Tippett’s head that reads “TRADE ME”. Danny Briere already deemed that Tippett was worth resigning to a long-term deal, and there’s really nothing that’s happened since to suggest that the contract is going to age poorly. Tippett is a legitimate middle-six winger at the absolute least, and if he was ever to put together a consistent scoring stretch that spanned the majority of a season, he could take a leap to an entirely new level.
As the Flyers look to shift into contender mode, Tippett is the type of depth scoring option that great teams have plenty of. Getting rid of these sorts of players is not normally what contending teams do, especially when they would be trading them to a fellow contender like Edmonton, who probably won’t be keen on subtracting players from their NHL roster.
But to be fair for a team like the Oilers, there is really no other option but to try and make a so-called “hockey trade”. They don’t have their first round pick in either of the next two drafts, and the prospect pool is looking increasingly shallow outside of Matthew Savoie, Ike Howard, and Quinn Hutson; all of whom likely will never possess the same ceiling as Tippett.
A team like the Oilers will be desperately looking to find another offensive asset to try and entice McDavid into believing in their project long-term, and if they want to try and pry a player Tippett out of Philly, they are going to have to provide a really exorbitant package. While the Flyers have the requisite depth at the position to be able to absorb a potential Tippett move, that doesn’t necessarily mean they should be chomping at the bit to do it, especially when you’re being approached by a team like the Oilers, — or even a team like the Avalanche who could be interested in shaking things up — who are eager to make a move.
A similar stance can be taken in the case of a player like Noah Cates as well, who would also have a host of suitors if the Flyers ever looked to move him for whatever reason. This team has some really underrated players who could contribute at a high-end middle six level, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise when teams come knocking. But just because there is a move to be made at a position of surplus, it should not mean that you have to explore the possibility, even if you might get a need in return.
