Top 5 ‘should’ve kepts’ in Flyers history

The Florida Panthers have taken a commanding 3-0 lead over the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup Final, and All-Star goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky — a former Flyer — is a big reason why.

The 35-year-old netminder is putting together a Conn Smythe-worthy performance in the playoffs with a 2.07 goals against average and .916 save percentage, leaving much of the Flyers fan base pondering what life would be like had the club not prematurely traded him away in 2012.

With Bobrovky continuing to excel in the playoffs, it sparked a conversation among the Broad Street Hockey staff regarding the top \"should\'ve kepts\" in team history.

Here are the ones that got away.

Justin Williams

Williams was a Flyer for the first four seasons of his career, and as soon as the club moved on from him, he instantly blossomed.

The Flyers selected Williams with the No. 28 overall pick of the 2000 NHL Entry Draft. He immediately made the leap to the NHL from the OHL\'s now-defunct Plymouth Whalers, but struggled to catch on due to typical growing pains and, of course, a slew of injuries, including tears to both his ACL and MCL. Williams logged 43 goals and 115 points in 226 games with the Flyers before he was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes for Danny Markov midway through the 2003-04 season.

In his first full season with the Hurricanes after the 2004-05 lockout, Williams put together the best statistical campaign of his career, posting 31 goals and 76 points in 82 games. He also played a crucial role in the postseason for Carolina, potting clutch Game 7 goals in back-to-back series en route to a Stanley Cup title. His playoff heroics eventually earned him the fabled \"Mr. Game 7\" moniker.

Williams went on to win two more Stanley Cups with the Los Angeles Kings in 2012 and 2014. He retired in 2020 with a total of 320 goals and 797 points in 1,264 career games.

Patrick Sharp

One year after the Flyers selected Williams, they added Sharp, another future star, in the third round of the 2001 draft.

He just didn\'t become a star until after the Flyers moved on from him.

Sharp put together a strong career at the University of Vermont before signing an entry-level contract with the Flyers in 2002. He logged just five goals and seven points in his first 44 games as a Flyer, but stood out during the 2004-05 lockout while helping the Philadelphia Phantoms win the Calder Cup. However, his point-per-game playoff performance with the Phantoms wasn\'t enough to keep the Flyers from shipping him elsewhere. In the middle of the 2005-06 season, the Flyers traded Sharp and Eric Meloche to the Chicago Blackhawks for a third-round pick and Matt Ellison.

Ellison played a grand total of seven games with the Flyers.

Meanwhile, Sharp flourished with the Blackhawks. He set a career-high 36 goals during his breakout 2007-08 season, and eventually became a key cog on the Blackhawks\' juggernaut teams during the 2010s. He won three Stanley Cups with the Blackhawks — the first of which came against the Flyers in 2010, of course.

Sharp has since returned to the Flyers as a special adviser to hockey operations.

Rod Brind\'Amour

Before establishing himself one of the NHL\'s top head coaches, Brind\'Amour was a fan favorite with the Flyers in the \'90s.

The Flyers acquired Brind\'Amour from the St. Louis Blues in 1991, and it didn\'t take him long to become one of the club\'s cornerstone players. While not a primary member of the famed \"Legion of Doom\" line comprised of Eric Lindros, John LeClair and Mikael Renberg, Brind\'Amour was a key cog at center and one of the Flyers\' top point producers. In just under a decade with the Flyers, Brind\'Amour logged 235 goals and hovered around a point-per-game pace.

After missing the start of the 1999-00 season due to an ankle injury, Brind\'Amour was traded to the Hurricanes for Keith Primeau. Primeau, to his credit, put together a solid run of his own with the Flyers, highlighted by his game-winning goal in quintuple overtime against the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2000. Brind\'Amour, however, ended up winning a Stanley Cup — alongside Justin Williams — with the Hurricanes in 2006.

Brind\'Amour was inducted into the Flyers Hall of Fame in 2015.

James van Riemsdyk

The Flyers traded van Riemsdyk just as he was hitting his stride, and by the time they reacquired him, his best years had passed him by.

The Flyers finished the 2006-07 season with the worst record in the NHL. Despite having the best odds at selecting Patrick Kane with the No. 1 overall pick, the Blackhawks won the draft lottery and leapfrogged the Flyers in the draft order. The rest is history. The Flyers selected van Riemsdyk as a consolation prize with the No. 2 pick, and Kane went on to cement himself as perhaps the greatest American hockey player of all time.

This is not to say that van Riemsdyk hasn\'t had a solid career, of course. On the contrary, only 26 active players have lit the lamp more than van Riemsdyk since he made his NHL debut in 2009. Unfortunately, the Flyers moved on from him just before he hit his ceiling.

In his first three seasons as an NHLer, van Riemsdyk posted a total of 47 goals and 99 points in 196 games. The Flyers then traded him to the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for Luke Schenn after an injury-plagued 2011-12 campaign.

Van Riemsdyk took his game to a new level in Toronto. In six seasons as a Leaf, he logged a pair of 30-goal campaigns and potted an impressive 154 goals in 413 games — an average pace of 37 goals over a full 82-game season.

Van Riemsdyk returned to the Flyers for a five-season stint from 2018 to 2023, but failed to reach the 50-point threshold over that span — something he\'d done in four of his six campaigns with the Leafs.

Sergei Bobrovsky

Here\'s the big one.

Bobrovsky is a three-time NHL All-Star and two-time Vezina Trophy winner. He\'s just one win away from having his name engraved on the Stanley Cup and possibly winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the postseason.

At one point, of course, he was property of the Flyers.

The Flyers signed Bobrovsky as an undrafted free agent in 2010. He appeared in 54 games as a rookie during the 2010-11 season, logging a solid 28-13-8 record along with a 2.59 goals against average and .915 save percentage. However, Bobrovsky fell out of favor after a poor showing in the playoffs, which led to the Flyers signing Ilya Bryzgalov to a massive nine-year, $51 million contract the following offseason.

Bobrovsky served as Bryzgalov\'s backup for the 2011-12 season, and soon after the season\'s end, the Flyers traded him to the Columbus Blue Jackets for a second-round pick and a pair of fourth-round picks.

The Flyers used those selections to draft Anthony Stolarz, Taylor Leier and Justin Auger, respectively. Stolarz and Leier combined to play 74 games for the Flyers. Auger never played a game in Philadelphia.

Bobrovsky, meanwhile, won his first Vezina Trophy in his debut campaign with the Blue Jackets and went on to establish himself as one of the NHL\'s premier workhorse netminders.

After seven productive seasons in Columbus, Bobrovsky signed a seven-year, $70 million contract with the Panthers in 2019. As recently as last season, many considered his enormous contract a major liability to the Panthers\' Stanley Cup aspirations.

Now, he\'s one of the NHL\'s top success stories.

Talking Points