The Philadelphia Flyers are heading into the 2023-24 season still lacking high-end talent on their NHL roster, but they’ve now been given a pathway to consider should they wish to change that. Sportsnet’s Jeff Marek has heard that the Vancouver Canucks ‘haven’t exactly been the biggest fans’ of superstar center Elias Pettersson… now grab your popcorn.
Pettersson is coming off of a 2022-23 season where he scored a career-high 102 points, blowing his previous best of 68 from the year before out of the water. However, the 24-year-old only has one year remaining on his current contract with a cap hit of $7.35 million. Then, he’ll be an RFA this summer for the last time in his career.
The Canucks genuinely have no reason to move Pettersson unless he’s explicitly clear about leaving the organization, which would ultimately force their hand a la Matthew Tkachuk. So, if the Flyers wish to take advantage of this opportunity, they might want to do it while Vancouver is still thinking about it.
In terms of truly untouchable players, the Flyers don’t have many. 2023 draft pick Matvei Michkov would be the only one, and that’s partly because the Flyers were one of the only teams he was willing to be drafted by and play for, and that alone makes him too great a risk for Vancouver to consider anyway.
Almost any offer Philadelphia tables will be made via diminishing returns; they don’t have many players that can add up to the value of a top-10 player who excels at both ends of the ice. However, the Canucks have had a propensity to make poorly balanced trades in the past. Without further ado, here are three offers the Flyers could make for Pettersson.