Flyers, Senators could swap Morgan Frost and Shane Pinto
The Philadelphia Flyers (3-1-1) surprisingly find themselves atop the Metropolitan Division after an offseason injection of youth and healthy veterans, but perhaps more surprising is that center Morgan Frost has played a very little part in that success.
After a very lengthy holdout that spanned nearly the entire summer, the 24-year-old inked a two-year, $4.2 million contract. At the time, neither the term nor the salary matched up to public expectations, with the deal swaying largely in the favor of the Flyers and not Frost. Just two games into the new contract, Frost is already losing leverage on a potential long-term deal after being benched for multiple games by head coach John Tortorella.
Less than two weeks after Frost signed his current contract, we found out that the Flyers and the Ottawa Senators had discussed a potential trade revolving around RFA center Shane Pinto. Pinto is a 10.2(c) RFA, which means that other NHL teams cannot offer sheet him. The 22-year-old’s holdout has continued through the second week of the 2023-24 season, and it doesn’t appear a Senators contract is on the horizon with the team harboring less than $1 million in cap space at the moment.
According to a previous report from The Fourth Period, the package the Flyers would have seen winger Mathieu Joseph arrive in Philadelphia, with a roster player heading to Ottawa in return. In Frost’s absence, players like Scott Laughton and Noah Cates have frequented the center positions in the middle-six. The addition of Pinto would take the burden off of those two defensively, whilst also providing a boost offensively; the Franklinville Square, N.Y. native scored 20 goals in his first full NHL season last year.
If the Flyers were to swap Frost with Pinto and take on Joseph, the Senators would create nearly $1 million in new cap space whilst acquiring a player – who was one of Philadelphia’s best down the stretch in 2022-23 – to help anchor their middle-six. Tortorella previously likened Frost to a ‘toilet seat’, and in the midst of a multi-game benching, it’s starting to become unclear whether or not things will work out for the Flyers’ 2017 first-round pick.
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The last we heard, the ball was in the Senators’ court regarding this potential Pinto-Flyers trade, but it’ll be interesting to see if things have changed based on how their seasons have started.