Photo Courtesy of, Vasili Gianarakos
Philadelphia Flyers General Manager Danny Briere acted in advance of the NHL’s March 8th trade deadline making several moves on March 6th.
The Flyers most notably traded second pairing defenseman Sean Walker and a 2026 5th round pick to the Avalanche for a conditional 2025 1st round pick and Ryan Johansen.
The condition on the 2025 1st round pick is that it’s top ten protected. This means the draft selection could potentially slide to 2026 depending on certain circumstances.
Philadelphia moving on from Walker was necessary considering the contract situation at hand. With the likelihood of the Flyers re-signing the player being slim, trading Walker on an expiring contract made a lot of sense. Especially when considering the Flyers current position within their overarching plan.
One critical aspect of this deal was that the Flyers took on Ryan Johansen as a cap dump from Colorado to ensure they also received a 1st round pick in compensation. This further cements Briere’s willingness to get creative in trade negotiations if it means securing a high value asset in return.
Johansen has since been placed on waivers by the Flyers. It’s certainly a possibility the front office explores flipping Johansen before Friday’s trade deadline. Placing the player on waivers could be an attempt to initiate some trade interest in this situation.
Another piece of business the Flyers completed on Wednesday was signing defenseman Nick Seeler to a four year contract with a cap hit of 2.7 million dollars. Seeler received a full no trade clause for the first two years of the deal as well.
The 30-year-old currently leads the NHL in blocked shots with 184. He’s also recorded one goal and eleven assists for 12 points in 63 games played this season. Seeler is only three points shy of surpassing his previous career high in points of 14.
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This is a fair deal for both parties. The Flyers were only paying Seeler, 775,000 thousand dollars over the past two seasons while the defender has provided far greater value on the ice and in the locker room than his actual cost. Due to that, slightly overpaying Seeler at a 2.7 million dollar AAV is essentially paying back the player for these past two seasons when he was significantly underpaid.
The final Flyers transaction of the day consisted of GM Danny Briere effectively weaponizing the organization’s cap space to acquire further draft capital.
For retaining 25% of Noah Hanifin’s contract the Flyers acquired Vegas’ 2024 5th round pick. Here’s the full trade breakdown below:
Overall, it was a very active Wednesday, March 6th for the Philadelphia Flyers. It should be interesting to see if the Flyers execute further transactions before the 3 PM, March 8th trade deadline.
Two things to monitor will be the possibility of Philadelphia continuing to weaponize their cap space as a means to acquire draft capital and if Ryan Johansen gets traded to another team with salary retention.Â
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