Flyers Identitiy

[King Knut]

On 5/17/2017 at 0:40 PM, OccamsRazor said:

 

Myself i protect Laughton. I know some are down on him. I get it. But he has only played 105 AHL up to this point and he will be 23 later this month and i'm just not ready to give up on him. I think he would be further along in his development if he had been left in the AHL to play a big role like he had this past season. Sorry but Read and Raffl are the guys i expose along with Weise.

 

The counter argument of course is that there is simply no room in the lineup for Laughton at this point.  He could outplay Vecchione for the last C position, but there really isn't a whole lot of room for Vecchione this year either.  

 

They've been grooming Laughton for a long time and took all of last season basically to get his head on straight.  He's still got a ton of up-side... but I'm not sure he's got a roster spot here anymore.  

 

HOWEVER, if you sign him and protect him, you can then trade him and get a pick or two.  Win.

Also, if you protect him, you're basically giving Vegas a choice between:  Cousins, Read, Raffl, PEB, MacDonald and Neuvirth.   2 guys making over 3.5 million, 3 gus making over 2 million and a kid making under a million.  

 

If I'm Vegas I take Raffl in a heartbeat and hope I can find someone else who can score, but no matter who they take from that list, there's an upside roster wise and cap room wise for the Flyers.  

 

Sadly I think the Flyers will probably protect Raffl and Vegas will probably draft Laughton (though there's still something in my gut that says Neuvirth going to Vegas is a thing).  

 

The other option is for Hextall to trade Laughton's rights to someone else who can use him and protect him.  Not sure what you get for a former first round draft pick who hasn't worked out as a pro just yet though.  Still... it'd be better tan Vegas just taking him from us.