With trade winds blowing as the deadline fast approaches, plenty of NHL teams are gearing up for the playoff push a few days in advance. Earlier Wednesday, it was reported by TSN’s Darren Dreger that the Buffalo Sabres were in the process of acquiring St. Louis Blues defenseman Colton Parayko, whereas Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman was first to the news of Utah acquiring defenseman MacKenzie Weegar from Calgary.
This is important for the Philadelphia Flyers because they have a trade chip in Rasmus Ristolainen that a lot of teams around the league are interested in. However, the caveat remains the same, as GM Daniel Brière is looking to blown away by an offer to pull the trigger with Ristolainen having one more year of team control.
Ristolainen’s stock has been up-and-down over the last few years as his injury frequency has kept many teams at bay. The Finnish national has missed a majority of his Flyers’ regular season openers and has fallen to injuries in-and-around the trade deadline over the last few seasons.
Nevertheless, his improved play, especially at this year’s Winter Olympics, has given risk to his stock to a point where plenty of playoff suitors are knocking on the door. While the market is exactly what you want if you were a rebuilding team, the Flyers seem content with holding out until they receive their preferred offer.
Brière has shown that his willingness to wait comes at a high cost, considering he’s been able to acquire a first round pick and/or prospect for Scott Laughton and Sean Walker.
So far the market has been moving towards the sellers as the Edmonton Oilers acquired Connor Murphy for a second round pick from Chicago, the Dallas Stars acquired Tyler Myers for multiple picks from Vancouver, and the cost of acquisition for both Parayko and Weegar are reportedly very high as well, with the latter officially fetching 3 second round picks and a prospect.
This should force the Flyers to free Ristolainen from their clutches, but do they want to make the move?
Before the regular season started, Flyers President of Hockey Operations Keith Jones and Governor Dan Hilferty spoke at length about the team’s plans heading into the 2025-26 campaign and beyond – including their stance on roster construction. Jones made mention a few times that they’re no longer looking to subtract, and that they want to reward their guys with additions instead.
“I think we owed that to our players that are here. They’ve done everything that we’ve asked of them,” said Jones. “We’ve moved out a lot of their friends, we’ve taken away players at times where other teams are trying to build for a playoff run, we’ve continued to accumulate assets to help us build towards the future and a lot of our top players have been patient with that.”
Jones also talked at length about moving Walker at a time that the team was holding onto a playoff spot. He mentioned that it was a difficult decision to make at the time because of how well the team was playing, but they felt they needed to do it to set themselves up for the future, since they were in the infancy of their rebuild.
“Not at all, I think the year before we felt pretty good about our team going into that season but we recognized we needed to be more flexible in the future and I think that’s what led to some of the selling off at the trade deadline, Sean Walker comes to mind,” said Jones. “Last year was kind of a steady progression up until the trade deadline, it was clear that’s the way we had to go last year, it was easier in that regard, but recognizing what was on the horizon made us feel pretty good, I think the execution of the draft is a very important step for us, and we feel really good about the accumulation of talent, not just assets, and I think that’s going to help us build our foundation of younger players advancing and some of our top young guys that have been in the NHL for a few years now in a position to really take on roles of leadership.”
Have things changed since their press conference? The Flyers are in an unenviable position in the standings once again, where they’re not bad enough to compete with the basement of the NHL for a chance at a top pick, but they’re also not good enough to compete with the upper echelon of the league. Currently sitting in 20th place league-wide, the Flyers are one win away from potentially jumping to 14th.
Additionally, the Flyers are just 3 points away from Columbus for 12th, compared to being 9 points up on Winnipeg for 6th-worst. The Western Conference has performed so poorly that they’ve essentially locked up their spots in the bottom-10. They could think to themselves that a playoff run is still possible, but they’re 6 points out of the final wild card spot and 8 points out from the final spot in the division – leaving them right in the middle.
The playoffs are a pipe dream for the Flyers, who are on the verge of setting a franchise record for their longest playoff drought. With 22 games remaining, they’re still talking like they want a postseason berth, the leadership group has shown their frustration over the lack of playoff hockey, and for a team that is rebuilding, another pick labelled for the 11th-12th-13th range is on the horizon without lottery luck.
The Flyers brass were not trying to move Walker in 2024, but extension talks broke down, and they found a suitor that was willing to pay up in Colorado. The same is expected to happen this year with Ristolainen, but having an extra year of control helps Brière weed out the offers, and decide whether it’s better to wait things out until the offseason.
The Flyers also really like Ristolainen as a player and he’s currently playing like a legitimate top-4 defenseman, which would in turn have massive repercussions on their everyday lineup. While that doesn’t mean much to the majority of the fanbase that wants them to sell off assets, it means a whole lot for the front office, coaching staff, and players that are giving their all to win games and make a push.
It’s a frustrating position to be in as a fan because this is a massive seller’s market right now, but with potential suitors turning elsewhere, will there be much of a bidding war for Ristolainen come Friday? Detroit and Boston remain the two top teams to be looking for a splash on their back-end and they both have exactly what the Flyers are looking for in picks and prospects, but will they be desperate enough to pay the high asking price set out by Brière?
Only time will tell, but with under two days remaining, all eyes will be fixated on Brière and company as they face another trade deadline crossroads.
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