NHL Trade Deadline Primer: The Flyers need to be smart, but also have fascinating opportunity

They need to be careful about what they do at the trade deadline but they have some intriguing options here.

The 2023-24 NHL Trade Deadline is just a couple of weeks away so it is time to start taking a look at some of the teams and players that could be big factors. Today we are taking a look at one of the most fascinating teams ahead of the deadline — the Philadelphia Flyers, who have to walk a delicate line between taking advantage of a surprisingly good season and not getting too far ahead of themselves and sticking with the plan.

When the 2023-24 season began I had the Philadelphia Flyers as one of the worst teams in the league. Certainly not on the San Jose Sharks or Chicago Blackhawks level of bad, but definitely in that bottom-five or-seven range where they would be closer to the top pick in the draft than a playoff spot. I don’t feel too bad about being wrong about it, because I get the sense most everybody else was as well. I was. You probably were. Most national pundits were. Hell, they probably were as well.

They were one of the worst teams in the league a year ago, finally acknowledged that they were rebuilding, and subtracted several veteran players off of the roster by letting James van Riemsdyk leave in free agency and then trading Ivan Provorov and Kevin Hayes.

They were short on impact talent, didn’t bring much in from outside the organization, and even though Sean Couturier and Cam Atkinson were set to return, I don’t know that anybody really expected much from them. Especially Couturier given how much injuries ravaged his career the past two years. It just seemed like another down year was on the horizon while they patiently waited for Matvei Michkov to make the NHL next season and probably sold off more veterans.

I think that is the road map pretty much everybody had for them this season.

But about a month into the season they started to hit their stride and started piecing together wins. A lot of wins. And while they have had some moments of inconsistency, the big picture outlook for the season has been promising.

Couturier returned and started playing like a top-six center again,

Travis Konecny and Joel Farabee started having bounce-back years.

Owen Tippett emerged as a legitimate core piece and showed his 2022-23 performance was not a fluke.

And man did they start defending well. That is the thing that I think stuns me the most because this team STUNK defensively a year ago. Head coach John Tortorella has this team playing fantastic team defense, while also turning them loose and creativing an environment where they have one of the best counter-attacking and rush offenses in the league.

It’s a fascinating team. When you look at the roster itself, it’s about as mediocre as you can get. But their overall metrics, especially during 5-on-5 play, are shockingly strong.

They rank eighth in expected goal share. They are also eighth in expected goals against per 60 minutes. They have the second-best penalty kill in the league and have scored a league-leading 14 shorthanded goals, three more than any other team in the league.

Statistically, they are playing like a legitimate playoff team and fringe contender, and it would be easy to think that their timeline has rapidly changed and they have simply arrived a year or two early.

Was it as simple as just getting rid of Provorov and Tony DeAngelo and not asking them to play the most minutes on the team? It’s a valid question!

But all of that could also be a very dangerous long-term game, and it creates quite a dilemma for the front office.

How do you balance wanting to reward this team for overachieving and playing its way into a playoff position, while also not losing sight of the long-term goal and being realistic about what your chances actually are this season?

Let’s talk about it. Because I think there is a way to potentially do it.