The Flyers’ front office justified their questionable 2024 draft and offseason by hinting towards the light at the end of the tunnel in 2025. As of right now, they’ve got three first round picks- their own, Colorado’s and Edmonton’s plus three second round picks- their own, Anaheim’s and Columbus’. It’s quite the stash for what is considered a much deeper and well rounded draft compared to 2024.
But the stalling continues for an organization that has been stuck in the mud for a decade, bringing back bad memories from the Ron Hextall era where punting the ball down the road year after year without a payoff was the norm.
While three first round picks is sexy at face value, it’s not exactly the greatest situation when considering which teams those picks belong to. Both Edmonton and Colorado are the heavy hitters in the Western Conference these days. This year the Avalanche finished 24th and Edmonton finished 31st as the Stanley Cup runners-up.
And in the unlikely instance that one or both team’s spiral out of control, well, both picks are protected. Colorado’s is top 10 protected and Edmonton’s is top 12 protected, unless they trade their 2026 first, in which case 2025 is unprotected. Theoretically, the only reason Edmonton would be moving their 2026 first is to make an addition at the trade deadline, of which case they’re probably in the playoff hunt already, so it makes the protected/unprotected null anyway.
The Flyers’ own first round pick is anything but a given at this point too. There were rumors that Columbus asked for it, unprotected, in a potential move up to fourth overall this year which ultimately never went through.
If the Flyers don’t make any real progress on their main roster, even with Matvei Michkov joining the squad, it’s unlikely they make a real playoff run this year, but best case they squeak into the postseason and get crushed in the first round, and worst case they fall just short again and finish in the 12th overall range. They could always find themselves in a tailspin due to shoddy goaltending or a complete lack of offense, but if all stays the course, they’re at least going to be a bubble team if john Tortorella can keep the ship upright.
So that’s three picks of teams that could all make the playoffs, and two of them could conceivably make deep runs. Colorado and Edmonton is high on the odds list for a Western Conference Final showdown in 2024-25. Even running under the assumption that all three finish where they did this year, that’s 12, 24 and 31, that is once again not going to provide the Flyers with the high-end players they need to succeed and make moving up into the top 10, let alone the top five is still a nearly impossible task.
Now, there are more purposes for draft picks out there than selecting prospects, and that could be the form of trade deadline fodder. The Flyers ran back a nearly identical team as the 2023-24 group that failed to make the postseason, but they’re clearly hoping (even if they won’t say it out loud yet) that group, with the addition of Matvei Michkov, can cross the threshold and seal a playoff berth for the first time in five years. While that will be very “wait and see” theory, it opens the potential to trade picks, especially Colorado’s or Edmonton’s for main roster help. With any luck a younger roster player will be on the block and the Flyers can add a staple at the deadline, much like the New Jersey Devils did with Timo Meier a couple years ago.
The Flyers will have six picks in the first 50 or so selections of the 2025 NHL draft, a self-imposed deadline to take steps forward in their rebuild. It could even be more than that if they deal Travis Konecny, Scott Laughton or Joel Farabee sometime in the next 12 months. It should give them plenty of ammo to wheel and deal, or select all the players they want. But with those three first round picks not exactly in prime positioning, they serve as a nice consolation prize, but the footwork Briere is going to have to put in to make them truly useful is going to be intense and their operation for 2025 is just getting started.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: nhl.com
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