The Flyers have been stuck in hockey purgatory for quite some time now.
The issue, obviously, is that they’ve never committed to a rebuild.
For years, the Flyers have tried to get away with a “retooling” or “restructuring”.
That lends itself to perpetual mediocrity.
The Flyers hadn’t won a playoff series since 2012.
Those picks ended up being Morgan Frost in 2017, and Joel Farabee in 2018.
These guys were supposed to be huge pieces to the future of the Flyers.
But things just never really panned out the way they hoped they would.
- Joel Farabee’s contract is now off the books.
He still has 3 more years left on his contract with a $5M AAV cap hit.
Now as far as the players involved here go, Andrei Kuzmenko is an interesting return.
He’s got a high ceiling, and a low floor.
you’re able to’t exactly be sure what you’re getting out of him.
He was a 39-goal scorer two seasons ago in Vancouver.
But 39 goals two seasons ago, and this year he has 4 goals in 37 games.
He could either be great, or he could be awful.
But the good thing with Kuzmenko is two-fold here.
Not only is it just another Russian, but one that Michkov is already familiar with.
They played together in the KHL a few seasons ago.
He waived his no-trade to come to Philadelphia.
They told him it would be worth his time.
They freed up a ton of cap space, with the cap going up next year.
Does that mean they’re going to make a run at reunite him with Elias Pettersson?
But it’s at least way more of an option today than it was yesterday.
Can’t be having that.
As far as Jakob Pelletier goes, he could end up being a good project for the Flyers.
He’s still just 23-years-old so there’s plenty of time for development.
He’s offensively skilled, but just hasn’t been able to produce much at this level.
If it works out, it works out.
If anything, the Flames made out better in terms of roster players involved.
Which is a good thing for the Flyers, because that means that they get worse.
You combine that with the fact that they cleared cap space and added more draft capital?
Big move for Danny Briere and Keith Jones.
