With the NHL Expansion Draft Looming Who Might the Flyers’ Old Bench Boss Snag For Seattle?

Photo Credit: Ken Lambert/Associated Press

The NHL season is now complete and the off season is now here, starting with a deadline of July 17th when teams are to have their expansion draft protection list turned in to league headquarters. Then, Seattle will officially make their selections on July 21st at 8pm. With that being said, the Kraken’s expansion draft got a little more interesting recently because they just named the Flyers’ former bench boss Dave Hakstol as their new head coach on July 9th.

Most of us so called “experts” have speculated for some time now who the Flyers might name to their protection list and who they might be leaving off of it, with the hopes that the Kraken will select players who would relieve Philadelphia of quite a substantial financial burden; But, with Seattle’s surprise announcement of Dave Hakstol as their new coach, their team’s selection from the Flyers’ roster may have just become a little less of a shot in the dark and a step closer to a forgone conclusion.

During his three-and-a-half-year tenure as the Flyers’ head coach, Hakstol’s teams achieved a record of just 134 wins, 101 losses, and 42 overtime losses. Giving Dave the benefit of the doubt, those numbers might be a bit skewed: His teams at that time were undeniably offensively gifted for a roster that was filled with a revolving door of underachieving players during a full on rebuild- but they were lacking defensively. Let’s take a look at some players that Hax might be trying to convince the Kraken’s general manager Ron Francis to select from the Flyers.

First up: defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere. Better known as Ghost, he played in parts of four seasons under the direction of coach Hakstol. During that time, Shayne proved to be a very prolific scorer compiling 46 goals and 141 assists for 187 points. This even included a career best 65-point campaign during the 2017-2018 season. There’s no question that, since Dave’s sudden departure from Philly, Ghost’s once-great play has seemed to vanish without a trace. With the Flyers not as confident as they once were in this now-veteran defenseman, they are hoping that the Kraken may still be believers in the paranormal and be willing to take on the burden of the rest of Ghost’s $4.5 million annual salary that is due to him over the next two seasons.

Forced to try and construct a roster from a bunch of teams’ third- and fourth-line players, Ron Francis will find very few names available that will stand out like Jakub Voracek’s given his success in the league over the years and overall career stats. If Philadelphia does decide to leave him available to be selected his name will surely be hard to pass up. Why would the Flyers leave him available? Well, although productive over the years, Jake has been with the Flyers’ organization for over 10 years now and while he is paid like an elite level talent, neither him nor Giroux have been able to bring this team a cup. Flyers’ management has expressed interest in making some major changes this off season and what better way to do that than to gain $8.25 million dollars in extra cap space to spend this off season? Now, most Philadelphia fans may think the possibility of this coming to fruition is just a pipe dream, but the Kraken are going to need a couple of proven NHL veteran forwards to help lead their young franchise over the next couple of years, not to mention the fact that they need to hit the salary cap floor as well. The 31-year-old Voracek would certainly check off both boxes for the next three years for the Kraken. Over the course of the four seasons that Hakstol coached Jakub in Philly, Voracek tallied an impressive 71 goals and 196 assists for 267 points. He not only succeeded in reaching the 20-goal plateau three consecutive years in a row while playing in Hakstol’s system but also managed to attain his career best year of 85 points in the 2017-2018 season under Hakstol as well. Jakub maybe starting to wear out his welcome here in Philly but if taken by the Kraken he would instantaneously slot into Seattle’s top 6 and produce starting game one for the Kraken next year.

The next intriguing candidate that both the Flyers would like to get rid of and the Kraken might be willing to take is winger James van Riemsdyk (JVR). This is yet another aging veteran player with an inflated salary; but again, he has been pretty consistent over the years. Throughout the course of his career James has scored 264 goals and totaled 524 points. JVR has tried but simply does not fit into Flyers’ coach Alain Vigneault’s system and needs a change of scenery. Seattle might just be the place because while he only played in coach Hakstol’s system in part of one season, it was his best in a Flyers’ uniform to date- including the times before being traded to Toronto and once returning. In that season van Riemsdyk’s totals were as follows: in just 66 games played, he achieved 27 goals and 21 assists for 48 points in all. With that kind of goal production being hard to find on the free agent market, Seattle just might be willing to opt to select him in the coming weeks. $7 million dollars annually for next two seasons is but a small price to pay for a guy who the last time he played a full season of games way back in the ‘17- ‘18 season (thanks to the COVID pandemic, etc.) was able to score 36 goals!

The last player who has to be considered a serious option to be selected by the Kraken (mostly because of their newly named head coach’s former tendencies) is the Flyers’ Nicolas Aube-Kubel (NAK). It was well known that during his time here in Philadelphia coach Hakstol treasured his bottom six players a little too much, to the point that most people in the Delaware Valley would agree that his choice to overplay players like Chris VandeVelde, Jordan Weal, Matt Read, and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare in lieu of giving more ice time to players like the still-developing former 1st round pick Scott Laughton was the beginning of Dave Hakstol’s demise here in Philly. That’s why this 25-year-old gritty, underachieving, former second round pick (winger Aube-Kubel) (who scored just three goals this past season) might just have to be considered at least a wild card to be selected possibly even over the other previously mentioned Flyers because, knowing what we know about Dave Hakstol’s system and his biases, N.A.K. would then seem like the perfect fit to help implement Hax’s scheme in Seattle. Set to make just over $1 million dollars next season, Nicolas would provide the Kraken with some of that toughness they will need to survive their first long grueling Western Conference schedule.

While most teams around the NHL will be relieved to finally stop stressing about whom the Kraken might take from their roster in the coming weeks so they can then start to figure out who to replace them with and get ready for next season, the Flyers on the other hand will be busy wishing and hoping for Seattle to choose the right one. With cap space at a premium these days, the Flyers are hoping that one of their better, more expensive players will be taken so that they can then use that money to bring in someone better suited to play in coach Vigneault’s defensively responsible system. With so many questions and holes in the Flyers’ lineup currently, Philadelphia can only hope the Kraken doesn’t choose a young player like NAK instead. To negate that from even happening the team might be wise to offer up some high-end draft-pick compensation to Seattle, like teams did to Vegas (because the Kraken don’t have any prospects established yet), in order to sway their selection decision. For we all know that Philadelphia may not be the preferred destination for free agents compared to the night life of a major city like LA or New York, or for that matter the beaches of Tampa Bay, but if the Flyers had a few more dollars on the table than the rest it might be enough to persuade even the most vain of players to come to the City of Brotherly Love instead.