Flyers: 3 trade proposals for Canucks' Elias Pettersson

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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.

Cam York on the ice for the Flyers in the 2023 preseason. (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images) /

#3. Flyers copy the Matthew Tkachuk model

When the older Tkachuk bro was traded, he had indicated to the Calgary Flames that he would not be re-signing with them. And, despite this, they were still able to fetch Jonathan Huberdeau (coming off of a 115-point season), MacKenzie Weegar, prospect Cole Schwindt, and a conditional 2025 first-round pick. Huberdeau only had a year left on his contract at that point, and then proceeded to swindle then-general manager Brad Treliving into giving him an eight-year, $84 million contract with a no-movement clause for the first six years. He’s signed until he’s 38 years old.

The Flyers have to give up a lot in this trade, but you have to give in order to get – that’s the cost of doing business. Travis Konecny is the team’s best offensive player, while Farabee is a 23-year-old winger who already has 250 NHL games under his belt but is yet to take that next step. Cam York can help the Canucks fill out their blueline, and has shown the capability of playing both the left and the right sides at the NHL level.

The Flyers can consider this a win by not having to give up Michkov or Cutter Gauthier, and one less defenseman means more playing time for their other young defensemen such as Emil Andrae, Yegor Zamula, and Adam Ginning. They still have 2023 draftee Oliver Bonk, so they aren’t completely blowing this thing up on the blueline.

Flyers prospect Cutter Gauthier in action for Boston College. (Photo by Richard T Gagnon/Getty Images) /

#2. Canucks raid the Flyers’ farm

In contrast to keeping all of their prospects and trading the foundation of their roster, the Flyers could do the exact opposite. Indeed, trading Michkov is as big a risk for the Flyers as it is to the Canucks for taking him on in the first place. Gauthier, however, is poised to turn pro at some point in the next year.

The Flyers currently do not have the cap space to facilitate such a deal, since defenseman Ryan Ellis hasn’t been placed on LTIR yet. The reason for that is Philadelphia can accrue $3.9 million in cap space through the trade deadline without Ellis, so they’ll only place him on LTIR when they need the space immediately instead of the slow burn of creating extra cash.

The Canucks don’t have the greatest prospect pool in the world outside of Jonathan Lekkerimaki and Tom Willander, and they should be careful not to waste the primes of players like Thatcher Demko and Quinn Hughes. By doing this, they now have two of the best prospects in the league to build around in addition to the draft capital they still have. By the time Michkov and Gauthier make it over, the new captain Hughes should still have more than plenty of gas left in the tank.

Travis Konecny embraces the crowd after scoring for the Flyers. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

#1. Flyers offer a mix of both

The Flyers should of course be careful of throwing the kitchen sink when they don’t need to, but perhaps they can reach compromise in terms of prospects and roster players. As long as GM Danny Briere continues to make the right choices, this is easy to navigate.

At the end of the day, the Flyers can live without all of these assets. As long as they hold on to Michkov, they have exactly what they need moving forward. The Canucks can fill out their roster while they wait for Gauthier, and they can use their two first-rounders on centers to replace Pettersson, or defense to help Hughes, Hronek, and York.

The Flyers will hold onto their own 2024 first, and they can draft a York replacement if they happen to pick near the top of the order again. The upcoming draft is loaded with top defense prospects like Sam Dickinson, Artem Levshunov, Henry Mews, Adam Jiricek, Aron Kiviharju, and Anton Silayev. Dickinson in particular has ties to fellow London Knights defenseman Oliver Bonk, as well as center Denver Barkey.

Next. Flyers prospect report: Gauthier scores OT winner and more. dark

Are the Canucks going to move Elias Pettersson? Probably not. Are these Flyers trade offers representative of Pettersson’s trade value? Also probably not. But with the Canucks recently, you just never know what to expect.

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