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The Flyers made a big trade at the trade deadline this year, and it shook most of Philadelphia. They traded away a leader in Scott Laughton, finally right!!! Let’s see how the Flyers locker room deals with this adversity, as less than a month ago they also traded a leader in Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost.
Flyers’ General Manager Danny Briere spoke about the deal today, so here are some good tidbits from the presser.
- Danny Briere admits that trading Andrei Kuzmenko was not on the Flyers radar. They were not actively shopping him, and didn’t have plans to.
- Danny Briere is hoping that the locker room bounces back from the loss of Scott Laughton, but hopes that Laughton leaves an imprint on it.
- Danny Briere says that he is happy that Scott Laughton gets a chance to play in Toronto.
- Danny Briere says that teams were not willing to meet the needs of what the team wanted for Rasmus Ristolainen.
- Danny Briere said he talked to approximately 14-15 teams about the availability of Scott Laughton. He was a hot commodity.
- Danny Briere says that Emil Andrae will be up for the rest of the season. Guess trading Erik Johnson facilitates this.
- Danny Briere on the team adding: “I wish it was now. The team will let us know, but I think we are getting closer and closer.”
- Danny Briere on Scott Laughton: “Ultimately, we have had to make this difficult decision for what’s best for our future. Scott will always be an important part of the Flyers organization, and his footprint will be felt on our team because of the culture he helped establish”.
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The Laughton trade was excellent Hopefully they will let Grebenkin play 4 or 5 games at the end of the year.
But the Kuzmenko trade goes against what Tort’s has said for 2 years, we need skilled players’. Yet when they acquired one they immediately get rid of him. Now no one has talked about his agent’s outlook on a new contract. So we don’t know, but his 5.5million was fair and it is a little surprising we didn’t try and sign him Hopefully Danny will sign him back in the off-season. It would have been exciting to see Grebenkin, Michkov, and Kuzmenko on the same line. I honestly believe we are risking losing Michkov at the end of next year by making bad moves like the Kuzmenko trade.
Tired of hearing we are building for the future by stock piling all these draft picks. You can’t predict how a late round draft pick or any draft pick for that matter will benefit the team. It’s a crap shot.
I agree should have held on to Kuzmenko. Seems like he added a bit of excitement and skill to a morally deflated team. I’m not around the team but I can see how the trades have impacted certain players and their performance.