Photo Credit: NHL.com
The Flyers announced today they acquired depth defenseman Erik Johnson,35-years-old. He has been suffering from an illness, but has been traded to Philadelphia in exchange for a fourth round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft.
Johnson signed a one-year deal with the Sabres this past July. For the season, he played in 50 games, while scoring three goals and averaging 13:48 of ice time.
“I’m not expecting Erik Johnson to replace Sean Walker,” Flyers’ General Manager Danny Briere said. Briere says he was brought on board because he’s played in the playoffs and won a Cup, so he’s hoping that helps the youth with tutelage.
Wade Allison traded
The big man, 6’2, 205 pound, from Myrtle, MB, CAN, Wade Allison in just a short time unleashed some fury on his opponents, but just cannot stay healthy. He has endured an injury riddled career thus far at times, but when healthy he shows promise. He has faced adversity after adversity with injuries during the last three years of his collegiate hockey career, and that filtered in to his professional career at the AHL/NHl levels. Allison is physical, good along the boards, has an absolute blast, and creates a net front presence that the Flyers could use in the future.
He did fall out of favor with Head Coach John Tortorella, and Allison did get off on the wrong foot in Lehigh after he was waived from the big club. He did finish, eventually, with 10 goals and seven assists in 46 games played with the Phantoms.
I actually wrote a piece on this yesterday saying that the Flyers would try to trim down the number of total contracts, as they sat with 48 to start the day.
“Wanted to give him a chance to kickstart his career again,” Briere says of why he traded Allison.
Scott Laughton stays put
“As far as Laughts’ game, I don’t need to explain it to you guys. He leaves it on the ice all the time. You can tell the spots I’m putting him in, we depend on him. Does he make mistakes? Yeah, but I’m going to go with him. I have a good feeling of who he is. He’s done some really good things for us.” – John Tortorella said in November
Laughton’s like the energizer bunny, he never takes a shift off. He hits, creates some scoring opportunities, and just busts his butt every single shift. Laughton is one of those players that every team covets, mainly because of his versatility to play any position, and move up and down the lineup if need be. He is the leader this team needs, and Laughton has registered 12 points in the last 11 games played (5g,7a).
One thing every NHL team needs for success are solid bottom 9 and 12 lines. Even though, Laughton may not pot 20-25 goals, he is still very useful, and really makes the bottom 9 and 12 lines thrive. It just makes this young Flyers team that much more difficult to matchup with, and It makes their opponents think twice, as to what defensemen to put on the ice for matchup purposes, “It really doesn’t matter to me. I signed here long-term, I want to be playing meaningful hockey. When it gets nice outside, I think that’s the best time to play. I really hope these young guys can experience playoff hockey in Philly, because I don’t think it’s like any other. So that’s obvious, you want to do well for yourself and help the team.”
Laughton in the end stays put, as I have been writing for about a month. Honestly, there were lots of rumors swirling around Laughton, but when he played against the Florida Panthers last night that was the first signal that he would stay put.
“I did listen,” Briere said. “We had a lot of teams interested in him. Not good enough for us to let a player like that go that’s critical to the development of the locker room.”
Briere continued, “I wasn’t going to trade him for fair value because he’s more than fair value to us. I told him that, we are not going to trade you just because it’s a fair trade.”
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