Elliotte Friedman Links Flyers to Former Rick Tocchet Disciples

With the trade winds brewing, specifically out of Rick Tocchet’s former team in the Vancouver Canucks, the Philadelphia Flyers are inevitably going to be linked to some of their players, like forward Conor Garland, according to Elliotte Friedman.

The biggest trade bait out of Vancouver is going to be defenseman Quinn Hughes as the former Norris Trophy winner is going to be on every single team’s wishlist. Tocchet has a great relationship with the future Olympian, but the asking price is going to be gargantuan, if and when the Canucks decide to pull the trigger.

Other players that have generated interest and should be made available are forwards like Garland, Jake DeBrusk, and Kiefer Sherwood, the latter of which has been speculated to be available for a first round pick from prospective buyers.

However, Friedman does believe that the Flyers will be in the mix, and their 14-7-1 start to the season will only add more intrigue as we get closer to the roster freeze, the Winter Olympics, and eventually the trade deadline.

In his most recent episode of ’32 Thoughts’ the prominent NHL insider dove deep into the Flyers and their expected interest in several Canucks forwards.

“I had a couple people tell me that Vancouver has players that Rick Tocchet likes. And I don’t know if it’s Sherwood, it would fit, but nobody knows the Vancouver players better than Tocchet does, right? And so a couple of people said to me, ‘You better keep an eye on Philly when it comes to Vancouver’s players.’”

And they’re not even talking about Hughes. Like, everyone likes Hughes, that’s just crazy talk and I don’t think there’s anything going on there right now. But, as the Canucks talk about some of their veterans, the question you should be asking is:’ What veterans there does Tocchet like?’”

The Canucks were a game away from the Western Conference Finals two years ago with a rookie goaltender in net after Thatcher Demko went down with an injury. They had won the division, Tocchet won the Jack Adams, Elias Pettersson notched his first 100-point season, and things were looking great in Vancouver.

All of that came crashing down last year as they went from being 50-23-9 to 38-30-14, were forced into trading J.T. Miller after his feud with Pettersson became public, and nobody outside of Hughes registered more than 50 points.

Things haven’t gotten any better with newly appointed head coach Adam Foote now calling the shots as the Canucks sit in 7th place in the Pacific Division, 14th place in the Western Conference, and 30th in the league with a 10-13-3 record.

Sherwood leads the Canucks with 12 goals and is third in points with 16 to go along with 106 hits. Garland is tied for third in points with Sherwood and Filip Hronek at 16 and DeBrusk is third in goals with 8.

All 3 forwards are unique in their own way with Sherwood being the ultimate power forward in a league that doesn’t necessarily breed his kind anymore. In his first year with the Canucks, under Tocchet’s tutelage, Sherwood scored 19 goals and 40 points and led the league with 462 hits in 78 games.

Garland on the other hand is a sneaky scoring winger who has registered 128 goals and 306 points in 506 games over his 8-year career. He’s topped the 20-goal barrier twice, most recently in 2023-24, and has come close to the mark on another two occasions with two 19-goal campaigns.

Garland is also a special teams player with 23 career power play goals, including 7 last year, and he’s recently been involved in the penalty killing aspect of the game, having served 64.5 minutes last year and 56.8 minutes already this year.

DeBrusk is a similar player to Garland, a rather sneaky scorer with 174 goals in 573 games across his 9-year career. The former first round pick of the Boston Bruins has topped the 25-goal mark on 4 occasions, most recently scoring a career-high 28 last year, and has produced 51 power play goals.

As for their respective contracts, Sherwood will be an unrestricted free agent this coming summer, but has a minuscule cap hit of $1.5 million. Garland is playing on the final year of his contract that pays him $4.95 million but has a 6-year, $30 million extension kicking in at the start of next season, whereas DeBrusk is currently in year 2 of his 7-year contract that affects the cap at $5.5 million.

Neither player is going to come cheap, and in Sherwood’s case his upcoming contract will be close to Garland and DeBrusk’s cap hits with how the salary cap is rising and how much teams covet his style of play.

They all had fantastic seasons under Tocchet and the interest makes a lot of sense, however can the Flyers afford to add more wingers to a team that has plenty to offer at the NHL-level, in the AHL, as well as the junior circuits.

With Tyson Foerster sidelined for the next 2-3 months due to an upper-body injury – and with Keith Jones’ early-season press conference still ringing in our ears about making additions – it will be interesting to see if the Flyers look to replace him with one of Vancouver’s many options.

For the time being look, for Nikita Grebenkin and Nicolas Deslauriers to get more looks on the NHL roster, as well as potential call-ups for Anthony Richard, Carl Grundström, or Alex Bump. However, should the Flyers offense fall flat, they could look to add reinforcements.

It’s something to monitor with the Canucks expected to be one of the first teams to set the trade market and the Flyers potentially looking to add to a roster that is playing for a playoff spot.