“I’ve had many discussions (About moving Joel Farabee),” Flyers’ General Manager said on Saturday. “We are always checking in with different teams on a daily basis. There were no teams really that showed any interest in taking on the full salary for Joel until Thursday during the day when the talks escalated with Calgary.”
To be clear, what Briere was saying, sure sounds like it was a miracle that Farabee was able to traded without the Flyers retaining money. Shedding his contract offers more cap flexibility for the Flyers to obtain a Center in the future, and this does not mean they will obtain one by the trade deadline, “It’s not giving up on the season,” Briere said. “Really, this was a move for the future. Not so much about this year the way I look at it. Ideally, we wanted to add a Center, in this case it didn’t come through.”
Briere continued, “The biggest thing in all of this is the cap flexibility that it gives us moving forward, maybe not this year per se but moving forward. It’s no secret that especially in Joel’s case, the cap hit moving forward was tough. Most of the discussions we had were teams were not willing to take on his full salary, especially with the term left on it.”
The Flyers and Danny Briere prove that they are open for business, and they will pull the trigger on a deal or sign someone that they believe fits the mold of being a Flyer, “It gives us some possibilities going into the offseason,” Briere said of the trade. “It’s like cracking the door open a little bit. I wouldn’t say that it’s wide open, I’m not saying that this will be the year that we go out. It’s got to be the right player, or players, if we do decide to open up the checkbook and go after free agents. But, it does crack the door open to some possibilities.”
This move opened the door for Jacob Gaucher, Andrei Kuzmenko, and Jakob Pelletier. Gaucher made his NHL Debut yesterday, and he became the 70th Flyer in franchise history to make his NHL Debut as an Undrafted Free Agent. There are more young prospects that could see a recall with a glaring hole with scoring, especially down the middle, so keep your eyes peeled for the next few weeks Flyers fans for more moves possibly.
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