Rating Flyers players as assets in rebuild: They "Should be traded" tier

[pilldoc]

Ok .... Another wonderful article from Charlie O'Connor

 

Interim general manager Daniel Briere has acknowledged that the Philadelphia Flyers are now officially in a rebuild. Head coach John Tortorella repeatedly stated as the season came to a close that “subtraction” was needed in order for the team to move forward.

 

In other words: this summer, the Flyers will be open for business. They’ll be looking to sell.

 

But "who" should be traded?  

 

That said, if the Flyers are indeed going to rebuild, they need to evaluate every player on the roster with an eye toward whether he fits with the realities that come with it.

 

Which brings us to this week’s exercise.

 

The Flyers will have to make a decision on every slated-to-return roster player this summer. Can he be “part of the solution” heading into 2023-24 and even potentially a part of the next contending Flyers club, or does it make more sense to trade him for future assets?

 

To that end, he evaluated all 20 non-UFAs that ended the 2022-23 season on the NHL roster according to five separate categories, graded from 1-10.  You can do the same and  come up with your own conclusions....

 

The questions ....

• Are we selling high/maximizing trade value? (10 = selling at peak value)
• Does he actually have trade value? (10 = would bring back the best possible assets)
• Might he not fit the culture/what John Tortorella is trying to build? (10 = doesn’t fit at all)
• Does his contract situation fit the timeline for contention? (10 = doesn’t fit at all)
• Does his age fit our timeline for contention? (10 = doesn’t fit at all)

 

A player can make sense as a trade option for one reason (he’s too old to be part of the next good Flyers team) but be smart to keep through the summer for another reason (his value around the league is very low). These categories take all key factors into account, with the players with the most “points” (50 maximum) logically grading out as the ones who Briere should be shopping most heavily.

 

 Today we’ll evaluate the four players who cracked 30 points — the players who, according to this methodology, make the most sense for the Flyers to trade this summer. 

 

The ‘should be traded’ tier (30+ points) (Charlie's Opinion's Not mine)

 

Kevin Hayes:

Are we selling high/maximizing trade value? Factor: 7
Does he actually have trade value?” Factor: 4
Might he not fit the culture/what John Tortorella is trying to build? Factor: 10
Does his contract situation fit the timeline for contention? Factor: 10
Does his age fit our timeline for contention? Factor: 9

Total: 40

 

Hayes ends up at the top of our list for two main reasons: he’s on a contract that lasts until he’s nearly 34 and he hasn’t clicked with Tortorella.

 

The hard truth is that players tend to fall off quickly in their 30s; Hayes turns 31 next week. Keeping Hayes would mean allocating $7.14 million against the cap to a likely-to-decline player on a team for three more seasons — for a team that isn’t likely to make noise in the playoffs (or even make the playoffs) over that span. If there’s a market for him, he makes little sense to keep

 

Ivan Provorov:

Are we selling high/maximizing trade value? Factor: 3
Does he actually have trade value? Factor: 7
Might he not fit the culture/what John Tortorella is trying to build? Factor: 9
Does his contract situation fit the timeline for contention? Factor: 10
Does his age fit our timeline for contention? Factor: 7

Total: 36

 

With Provorov, we come to an interesting conundrum. What happens when you have a player who probably would welcome a change of scenery, but hasn’t been playing well enough in recent years to demand the kind of package that the team believes his talent warrants?

 

The Flyers likely know at this point that both sides in this situation would be better served with a divorce. Provorov didn’t exactly sound ecstatic on exit interview day about the idea of toiling through another rebuild, nor did he speak in glowing terms about his relationship with Tortorella. He’s long not been Mr. Popularity in the Flyers’ locker room. But the Flyers look at Provorov and see someone who should bring back a trade package on the level of Hampus Lindblom or Mattias Ekholm or Jakob Chychrun. As of yet, the market hasn’t deemed him worthy of such a return.

 

TK -- Travis Konecny:

Are we selling high/maximizing trade value? Factor: 10
Does he actually have trade value? Factor: 9
Might he not fit the culture/what John Tortorella is trying to build? Factor: 1
Does his contract situation fit the timeline for contention? Factor: 9
Does his age fit our timeline for contention? Factor: 6

Total: 36

 

Ah, the anti-Provorov. With Provorov, you’d be selling low on a player who doesn’t seem to want to be here. Konecny, on the other hand? Not only does he very much want to be here, Tortorella very much wants him to be here.

 

That said, Konecny stands as the ideal sell-high for a rebuilding club.

 

After two consecutive underwhelming campaigns, Konecny bounced back in a huge way in 2022-23, breaking out as a point-per-game player (61 points in 60 games) for the first time in his career. In addition, at $5.5 million for the next two seasons, he’s going to provide surplus value to his club (as long as 2022-23 is his new normal). His cap hit isn’t small, but for what he produced this season? It’s a bargain. Konecny would bring back prime assets.

 

The best argument against trading Konecny, therefore, is in service of team culture. Konecny, to his credit, has fully bought into the new coaching staff. He’s endeared himself to Tortorella. And he wants to be a Flyer; he wants to stay in Philadelphia and be a part of fixing this. It doesn’t exactly send the best message to the rest of the room to trade away the team’s most dynamic scorer as a reward for doing everything the coaches and organization asked him to do.

 

But purely from a strategic, team-building standpoint? It’s the right move to sell high on Konecny. He could always regress back to 2020-21/2021-22 levels of production next season, after all. This is their chance to cash in on him while he’s not yet a rental (a buyer would be getting two full years of Konecny) and remove the risk of overpaying him in dollars and (especially) years come 2025.

 

Nick Seeler:

Are we selling high/maximizing trade value? Factor: 9
Does he actually have trade value? Factor: 7
Might he not fit the culture/what John Tortorella is trying to build? Factor: 1
Does his contract situation fit the timeline for contention? Factor: 7
Does his age fit our timeline for contention? Factor: 8

Total: 32

 

He’s like Konecny, if Konecny was older, a defenseman and only going to bring back a mid-round pick in a trade.  So yeah. Not like Konecny at all.

 

But trading Seeler this offseason would also be the definition of selling high. Two years ago, Seeler was teetering on the edge of retirement. Now? He’s coming off a successful season as a legitimately above-average NHL third-pair defenseman who passed both the eye test and the stat test. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s on a league-minimum $775,000 cap hit for 2023-24. For contending teams slammed up against the cap and looking to add cheap grit to their lineup without throwing minutes into the garbage in the process? Seeler would be very attractive.

 

The best argument for keeping Seeler through the summer is that he’s a valuable glue guy on a team trying to instill a culture, and they can always just trade him as a rental at the 2024 deadline anyway. 

 

Seeler, as useful as he was in 2022-23, is still a soon-to-be-30-year-old who tops out as a solid depth player. He’s not going to be part of the next great Flyers team, and therefore, is exactly the type of piece a rebuilding team should be trying to turn into future assets.

 

Coming soon ....

 

The players in the middle ground, who should be on the table in moves but aren’t slam-dunk trade options given the Flyers’ current situation, and Thursday we’ll break down the players who should be safe from a trade — at least for now.

 

 

Who would you say is definitely a player you would trade falling within the questions as presented by Charlie .......

 

Edited May 3, 2023 by pilldoc

[flyercanuck]

Hayes should be traded no matter what. I don't mean even if we have to throw in our 1st, I mean I don't care what the return is, he's just bad for building a winner. Always has been

Provorov can go if the price is right. I'm not giving him away for peanuts to watch him resort to his pre-Fletcher rubbing off on him play.

Konecny can go if he returns a kings ransom.

Seeler can go because Fletcher called him an integral part of the Flyers. That's enough for me to know he isn't.

Edited May 3, 2023 by flyercanuck

[GrittyForever]

Really not fair that I can pick only 3.