Yes, the Flyers will have to make a big trade. No, it doesn’t mean everyone is available – The Athletic

Thanks, Jim Rutherford. The Vancouver Canucks’ president of hockey operations kicked off trade-rumor season with some headline-worthy comments this week, making it known that his middling club is open to offers on veteran players in an attempt to get younger. A rebuild in British Columbia could be inevitable.

Consequently, that has led to questions about Canucks defenseman Quinn Hughes, who might not be interested in staying with the franchise through a rebuild. The 2023-24 Norris Trophy winner’s future in Vancouver was hazy when the season began, and it seems even more so now.

Will there be a bidding war for one of the NHL’s best defensemen, who, at age 26 is in the prime of his career? That’s something that would pique the interest of any hockey fan, particularly those of clubs that might be calling Rutherford and Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin to gauge the cost of acquiring Hughes.

Clubs such as the Philadelphia Flyers.

We’ve already broached that subject here, in fact. This year, when The Athletic’s NHL beat writers were each asked to make one bold prediction, I wrote that the Flyers, who already employ one of Hughes’ closest friends in center Trevor Zegras, as well as the former Canucks coach that Hughes loved playing for (Rick Tocchet), would trade for Hughes in January. Some readers — particularly those in Vancouver and New Jersey — were none too pleased with it. I even had a couple radio hits on Vancouver stations that were eager to discuss the matter.

To be clear, no one has ever told me that the Flyers would be interested in Hughes, were he to become available. But they don’t need to. We can safely assume that if the Flyers are going to move their rebuild forward, they need to do it with a big trade or two — whether that’s for a player like Hughes or anyone else who might be available.

It’s not an easy path. Flyers GM Daniel Briere will have to take some real risks at some point.

But that doesn’t mean just anyone on the Philadelphia roster or in their system will be up for discussion. There are some untouchable players who I can’t imagine Briere would ever seriously consider trading, even for a player as good as Hughes.

It’s a short list. But three players — Matvei Michkov, Porter Martone and Tyson Foerster — won’t be traded by the Flyers under any circumstances, in my mind.

To suggest otherwise, I’d argue, is to fundamentally misunderstand how this front office plans on executing this rebuild. Like just about everything else with Briere and Flyers president of hockey operations Keith Jones, it’s crucial to read between the lines of their public statements.

But before we get to that, let’s talk about the three aforementioned untouchable players.

Michkov is struggling. That much is evident. But certainly no one in the Flyers organization is going to give up on a 20-year-old in his second year of living and playing in North America, and who, as we saw late last season, possesses the skill set of a future star.

Martone, on the other hand, is not struggling. He already looks like he could develop into an elite NHL winger. He has posted 18 points (10 goals, 8 assists) in just 12 games at Michigan State, and we can probably already pencil him into the Flyers’ roster next season. It’s not outrageous to suggest that Martone would go No. 2 in a 2025 redraft, rather than No. 6, which is where the Flyers got him. That’s how much his stock has risen in two months.

As for Foerster, he’s already an invaluable piece of the current roster. The 23-year-old looks primed to take his offensive game to another level, and with his big frame and elite IQ, he’s the kind of player that thrives in the playoffs — and the kind of player that playoff teams need to have success.

It just doesn’t make sense to deal key players and prospects who seem destined to be part of the solution so the team can upgrade another position. That’s how franchises get perpetually stuck in the middle.

But the Flyers have potentially set themselves up to execute major trades without letting go of players like Michkov or Martone. Briere shared his thoughts on the matter prior to the most recent draft, when the GM was asked if he might be willing to dangle the bevy of picks Philadelphia had going into the draft, including three first-rounders and three second-rounders.

“The picks are just numbers, when you look at them,” Briere said on June 17. “But, eventually, there’s a name to it. The one thing I’ve realized is when you talk to teams, … those names become very powerful (after) you start developing them. It’s really tough to acquire the value that teams put on names (that) become stronger and stronger.”

True to his word, Briere had the Flyers select six players in the first two rounds. In three years, the Flyers have taken 12 total players in either the first or second round. Meanwhile, players picked later in the draft, such as Alex Bump (fifth round, 2022), Yegor Zavragin (third round, 2023) and Denver Barkey (third round, 2023) have all seen their stock rise. It will be up to Riley Armstrong and the Flyers’ player development staff — which was the first arm of the organization that Briere and Jones targeted for change when they took over — to develop the players they’ve already taken, either to make them NHLers for the Flyers or, as Briere mentioned, turn them into valuable assets that could be moved in the right deal.

Further, the Flyers still have four first-round picks over the next three years (including two in 2027), plus all of their second-round picks. They already have enough trade chips to be involved in trade discussions for players such as Hughes, without having to dangle players they believe will be here when the team is ready to make the leap to contender status.

Maybe a big trade happens soon. Maybe it doesn’t. But Briere will undoubtedly remain patient with what is still the fifth-youngest roster in the NHL, and that means not risking a deal that moves players who could become superstars somewhere else.