Philadelphia Flyers: 5 Trade Destinations for Morgan Frost

The Philadelphia Flyers are looking all but ready to kick off their 2023 training camp as they prepare for the upcoming season, but are still without key RFA Morgan Frost. The team hasn’t placed veteran defenseman Ryan Ellis on LTIR, but cap space doesn’t seem to be the reason why Frost is yet to extend. The 24 year old center finally had a productive season at the NHL level, and his next contract will be an important one.

46 points in 81 games is a good total for Frost, but he was also unable to crack the 20-goal plateau. Further complicating things is the pending return of longtime Flyers center Sean Couturier, meaning that Frost won’t receive the lion’s share of ice time in the middle of the ice again in 2023 as things stand. The Flyers’ decision comes down to A.) salary, based on how good they think Frost is/can be, and B.) a contract length that appropriately fits the conclusion they come to. Is the 27th overall pick in the 2017 NHL Draft worth all of that trouble, though?

#5. Buffalo Sabres

Making a move for Frost makes sense for a few teams, and the Buffalo Sabres are among them. The third-year Flyer probably won’t be a star, and in Buffalo he won’t have to be. In fact, he doesn’t even need to be a top-six center there. The Sabres can absolutely afford to pay him, and they have plenty of desirable assets for the Flyers to choose from, even though they won’t be offered many.

The Sabres already have two of the top young centers in the game – Dylan Cozens and Tage Thompson – locked into their top two lines. Aside from those two though, they only have the likes of Peyton Krebs, Zemgus Girgensons, and Tyson Jost, and the latter was on waivers during the 2022-23 season. If something happens to Cozens or Thompson, things will be looking very bad for the Sabres, and that’s not something they want as an aspiring playoff team.

Frost has already proven capable of producing in an expanded role, even if the point totals are ultimately average. On the Sabres, he would slot into the third line, which is mostly in line with his ceiling and abilities. From there, the team could move Krebs to Frost’s wing, move Jordan Greenway to the fourth line, shift Girgensons back to center, and have Jost serve as their 13th forward. The Sabres’ playoff hopes bode well with the increased depth and versatility.

#4. Edmonton Oilers

The Edmonton Oilers still, apparently, have $3.5 million in cap space, and they need to use it efficiently. As long as they have Connor McDavid (and Leon Draisaitl) they will always be in playoff contention, but their severe lack of depth has crippled their chances of reaching the finals, year in and year out.

To the Oilers’ credit, they were eliminated by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights, but the Golden Knights don’t have two of the greatest scorers of the 21st century on their roster. However, they have a lot of players that can do a lot of different things, and the Oilers don’t. There is not one player in the Oilers’ current bottom-six that scored 30 or more points last year, and that’s an issue.

Mattias Janmark, Ryan McLeod, and Warren Foegele are all great players in their own respects, but they’re also all one-dimensional players. Generally speaking, they play similar styles of hockey. McLeod and Foegele particularly excel off of the cycle, and have a decent track record of making plays for each other. Janmark, on the other hand, is black hole in all facets of the offence.

To get the third line going, the Oilers can seek out a trade for Frost, who is a better finisher and more skilled off the rush, to add an extra dimension. Frost’s underlying numbers suffered greatly in a big role on a bad Flyers team, but the production was still there. Playing with two analytics demons like McLeod and Foegele should help him refine his game and find his niche on a contender.

#2. Arizona Coyotes

The Arizona Coyotes are best known today for having an alienated fan base that has no arena to watch their team play in, and in order to fix that, they need to improve the on-ice product. The team already has a handful of really good players, like Lawson Crouse, J.J. Moser, and Karel Vejmelka. They have stars like Clayton Keller and Nick Schmaltz, and future stars like Logan Cooley and Matias Maccelli. Still, there’s just that little something still missing out in the desert.

As things stand, the Coyotes’ two top-six centers for 2023-24 appear to be Barrett Hayton and Logan Cooley. The former was the fifth overall pick in the 2018 NHL Draft, and finally had his first 40-point NHL campaign, which is both encouraging and frightening. The latter has never played in an NHL game. This means that a player like Frost would have been the Coyotes’ top-scoring center last year. If he ends up out west, he could do it again this year too.

More than anything, Arizona just needs depth. Hayton and Cooley will certainly have growing paints, but they need those reps as parts of the team’s future. Adding Frost will give them additional competition for minutes, which is also good. But most importantly, the two young forwards can also play on the wing, and that will be important for when Conor Geekie is ready to make the jump to the NHL. Maybe hometown hero Auston Matthews decides to come home as well.

Whatever the case may be, Frost would give the Yotes a much needed boost down the middle. At this point, he is a veteran compared to some of their other players, and the 24 year old won’t be commanding some extravagant eight-year contract either.

#1. New Jersey Devils

A trade between the Flyers and the New Jersey Devils sounds impossible, right? Think again. Last summer, the Devils traded Pavel Zacha, then an RFA, for Erik Haula. Zacha had a career-year with the Boston Bruins, and Haula was the stabilizing veteran force on a young, surging Devils team. The Devils went from zero to hero, and advanced farther in the playoffs than the Bruins, who were favored to contend from the get-go. That sounds pretty even, by the look of things.

With Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci now retired from the NHL, Zacha is now the Bruins’ number one center. If the Bs hadn’t made that trade, they would be rolling out Charlie Coyle as their top centreman this year. Of course, not every trade is going to go so well for both sides, but sometimes it’s just better to cut losses at the earliest opportunity.

The Devils’ lineup is virtually set for the upcoming season, but they still have some cap space to make some more moves if they would like. Haula split the year evenly as Jack Hughes’ left wing and faceoff taker, and as the third-line center. Haula is not particularly a facilitator of offense, though, and it’s also unclear what will happen to Michael McLeod in regards to the Hockey Canada sexual assault investigation. As a result, the Devils have already gone ahead and added players who can play center, like Curtis Lazar, Chris Tierney, and Tomas Nosek.

Offensively, Frost is better than all of those players, and could allow Haula to move up or down the Devils’ lineup to play wherever he is needed. Frost would more than likely see himself playing alongside the likes of Ondrej Palat, and potentially Alexander Holtz.

The Flyers can expect to receive some prospects or picks in return, but not necessarily a Simon Nemec kind of prospect. A trade between two archrivals is rare, but this is a case where teams at different ends of the seesaw can help each other out.