It’s not guaranteed that the Philadelphia Flyers are going to move on from any of their long-standing players like Scott Laughton and Rasmus Ristolainen before the March 7 trade deadline, but they could apparently ship out one of the newest members of their team.
The Flyers sent Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost to the Calgary Flames a couple weeks ago and in return they acquired a young player in Jakob Pelletier, a couple draft picks, and pending free agent winger Andrei Kuzmenko. According to a recent report, Kuzmenko might not be in Philadelphia for too long, as he is “likely” to be flipped before the trade deadline as a rental for an actual contender.
In Nick Kypreos’s most recent trade board for Sportsnet, the analyst that has connected dots before and was one of the first people to mention that the Avalanche would be open to dealing Mikko Rantanen, he listed Kuzmenko. And he sees the Russian winger as not a fit in Philadelphia so it would make sense to send him off.
The real prize for Philadelphia in their trade with Calgary last week were Jakob Pelletier and the two draft picks (a second and a seventh), but Andrei Kuzmenko is not the greatest fit for the team and it’s not likely they have a whole lot of use for him.
That 39-goal season is a distant memory now and the fact is the Flyers are likely to quickly flip Kuzmenko ahead of the trade deadline.
In a vacuum, it makes sense. Why would the Flyers willingly keep a 28-year-old winger who is going to hit the open market this summer, on their roster when they aren’t even coming close to the playoffs? Sure, Danny Briere himself said that they were supposedly interested in signing Kuzmenko as a free agent this summer anyways and that this is giving them an early look. That is certainly a reason why they would keep him around for the time being, but maybe they would rather have that ruthless asset management instead.
And it is true that the Flyers had to convince Kuzmenko to wave his no-trade clause to move to the Flyers. Initially, we all thought that it was Briere and Keith Jones confiding in the player that he would have a favorable role on this team and that he can show his talents. But, maybe that conversation was telling Kuzmenko that he should wave so that then the Flyers could move him to a contender and he could experience the playoffs before he heads to free agency. Of course, this is all speculative but multiple outcomes feel possible.
The Flyers don’t hit the ice until Feb. 22 due to the two-week break caused by the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament, so they will have just six games before the trade deadline. Could Kuzmenko play well enough in those games that a playoff team would give up a draft pick or prospect for the winger with half of his $5.5 million salary retained? Certainly feasible.