A few months ago, we took a look at the odds of the Flyers moving up in the 2023 entry draft. It was written before the lottery and long before the Flyers dealt away Ivan Provorov, opening the flood gates for the renewed rebuilding effort under new GM Danny Briere. It has rekindled the conversation on the Flyers potentially moving up from their current seventh overall selection, but can they… or will they… do it?
The Chicago Blackhawks won the lottery, pushing Anaheim and Columbus back a spot, but the rest of the order remained the same.
The Flyers don’t seem content to just select at seven and move on. Moving up appears to still be very much on their minds as Briere is on the hunt to expedite his new rebuild.
Chicago is unlikely to move their pick. Ditto for Anaheim. Columbus and San Jose would be the sweet spot to move up to if one of their picks is available via trade. But giving up a haul to only move up a spot or two with Montreal or Arizona may not make sense for the Flyers.
Right now, there seems to be two plausible ways for the Flyers to move up- They package their seventh overall along with their newly acquired 22nd overall pick they received in the Provorov trade, or they deal goalie Carter Hart to one of the six teams above them.
For argument’s sake, let’s say they’re trading up with San Jose and their fourth overall pick.
Packaging picks is hoping the quality versus quantity approach will pay off. Is the player they’d move up to take at fourth overall significantly better than the player available at seven; also taking the value at 22nd into consideration?
The answer is probably yes.
It’s likely going to be either Leo Carlsson or Matvei Michkov, depending on what Columbus does. Obviously there’s a huge risk to move up and select Michkov. It’s a whole different can of worms than it would be taking Carlsson. If all else was equal, Michkov would probably go second overall this season as his talent is second only to Connor Bedard. But the uncertainty with Russian players could cause his stock to fall out of the top three, it’s just a matter of which team is willing to sacrifice a top pick on a huge risk/reward gamble.
If Columbus is the one to take the Michkov risk and Carlsson is available at four and the Sharks are willing to wheel and deal, moving up for someone practically guaranteed to be in the NHL within the next year or two, especially a dynamic center, could very well be worth the cost of moving up.
As far as a Hart trade goes, if they leverage him to snag a top six pick, Montreal and Columbus seem like the only two potential suitors in the market for a 24-year-old goaltender to push them towards a competitive on-ice squad. Arizona isn’t going to want him, and San Jose and Anaheim probably aren’t ready for that level of addition yet.
The thing about dealing Hart is that it would assume the Flyers would retain the seventh overall pick. Moving Hart plus the 7OA to move up to fifth overall, or even third, doesn’t make any sense value wise. Maybe they’d have to throw in the 22nd overall, but the entirety of the trade would need to be seen before giving up a first round pick with Hart. They can’t overpay too severely.
That’d ultimately mean the Flyers would have two picks within the top seven selections, a mighty fine way to launch a rebuild. Having two picks, say, the fifth and seventh overall, may end up being more beneficial than moving up from seventh to fourth.
If Danny Briere is intent on making a splash and giving the organization the shot of star power it desperately needs, moving up and taking a player like Michkov or adding a second top five pick is definitely a way to do it. We’ll just have to see whether the trigger ultimately gets pulled or not, but it’s no surprise the Flyers are doing their due diligence here, it could be a franchise altering decision, and as Briere stated, all options need to be considered.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: nhl.com
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