After a painfully dull 2024 offseason that led to another lackluster season in 2024-25, the pressure is on Danny Briere and the Flyers to make some forward progress during the 2025 summer. After trading away Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost in the name of opening cap space and some hints towards Briere going “big game hunting” in the near future, the front office may have finally gotten the message that it’s time to make some big changes in this summer.
Rolling with the assumption everyone under contract is healthy and ready to go on opening night in 2025, which is always a major question in and of itself, here’s what the roster could look like to start the season.
Matvei Michkov – Elias Pettersson – Mitch Marner
The Flyers finally provide Matvei Michkov the star power he deserves. Plus, the presence of Pettersson and Marner would go a long way to fixing the power play as well. They add Pettersson via trade and Marner via free agency.
Tyson Foerster – Jett Luchanko – Travis Konecny
For better or worse, it sure seems like the Flyers are going to make at-the-time-19-year-old Jett Luchanko a thing in the NHL. Pettersson will be handling the heaviest minutes and Couturier will still carry a bulk of the defensive side, so he may be able to fit in nicely in between them. He’s flanked by Konecny and Foerster in what could be a solid grimy trio.
Jakob Pelletier – Sean Couturier – Bobby Brink
The Flyers recently picked up Pelletier in the Frost/Farabee trade, and as a natural left winger whom the Flyers can re-sign cheap as a RFA in the 2025 offseason, he is a low-risk high-reward middle six forward. Couturier is still serving his life sentence, but at least they no longer have to pretend he’s still a top six forward. And Brink is back too.
Nic Deslauriers – Ryan Poehling – Garnet Hathaway
The PHD line rides again. If anything, it leaves Deslauriers’ spot as a revolving door for an extra body at forward if they want more skill in the lineup on any given night.
Travis Sanheim – Noah Dobson
Sanheim can move back to his natural left side and finally add a bonafide top righty that will be the answer to their PP QB problems as well.
Emil Andrae – Brandt Clarke
Andrae replaces Cam York on the left side of the defense, and they add one of the most intriguing young defensemen in the league in 22-year-old Brandt Clarke. This could very well be the top pair of the future for the Flyers.
Nick Seeler – Jamie Drysdale
The Seeler-Drysdale duo has worked well during the 2024-25 season, so there’s no reason to shake up the Flyers’ bottom pair.
John Gibson
The Flyers have little choice but to pay up for the top available goalie on the trade market. Having a proven starter, albeit a slightly older one, in place helps the team now and buys them a few years to figure out a longer term option down the road.
Samuel Ersson
Ersson has struggled to truly lock down the starting job in Philly, but has always looked decent when he was in the backup role. He’s a very strong 1B that can rise to the occasion, but adding Gibson takes the pressure off Ersson’s shoulders to be immaculate every night.
Notable Losses
Cam York– York is a pending restricted free agent and is having the greatest season during a contract year. His departure opens up a roster spot for Emil Andrae on the left side, and the Flyers don’t have to commit themselves into a long-term extension to a guy who hasn’t locked down the role. Theoretically, he’s part of the trade to secure Elias Pettersson.
Owen Tippett– The Flyers just re-signed with the Flyers in early 2024, but he has one year left on his contract before a 10-team no-trade list kicks in during the 2026-27 season. He remains a player with plenty of potential, but just hasn’t fully developed into the top winger the Flyers wanted him to be. At this point, Marner is a smarter investment. Tippett would be the other roster player involved in a Pettersson trade.
Rasmus Ristolainen– The Flyers should be dealing Ristolainen at the ’25 trade deadline, but if he somehow stays on the roster until the offseason then it’s imperative the move his cap during the summer. He’s no longer the scrub he once was, but he turns 31 this year, so the chance to get younger on the blue line has to be at the forefront of Briere’s mind.
Noah Cates– Noah Cates’ flashes of brilliance have just been too inconsistent to justify paying him a higher salary than his current $2.6 million cap hit. Selling him to a team that is more willing to gamble on his ceiling is the smart play for the Flyers either at the deadline or dealing his rights in the offseason.
Scott Laughton- Laughton should be a casualty of the 2025 trade deadline. He’s a great leader, but it’s beyond time to let him go. There’s far better ways to spend $3 million.
Ivan Fedotov– Fedotov has had his ups and downs during his first season in North America, but with a $3.3 million commitment to the guy next season, the Flyers could be doing significantly better in the crease for that kind of money. It’s unfortunate it didn’t work out, but his former pedigree should make him an option some team would consider via trade.
Egor Zamula– Zamula has gotten more opportunities than a vast majority of his peers when it comes to securing a main roster spot full-time and it just hasn’t been working. He’s got one year left at $1.7 million, so much like Deslauriers, whether it be via the extra body or just AHL demotion, he shouldn’t be on the main roster next season.
Alexei Kolosov- Kolosov probably gets dealt to the Ducks in the Gibson trade. If not, he spends the year in the AHL and they actually try to develop him instead of whatever it is they’re doing with him this season.
Notable Additions
Elias Pettersson– Essentially, the Flyers would trade York, Tippett and whatever cocktail of picks it would take to land Pettersson to be the new number one center in Philadelphia. It’s an $11.6 million gamble, but their options for a true number one center are limited at best otherwise.
Mitch Marner– Marner hits free agency if the Leafs don’t win the Cup and the Flyers spend a decent chunk of their new-found cash to bring in the 27-year-old. He’s well over a point-per-game player in his nine NHL seasons including a decent chunk of those coming on the powerplay. The Flyers don’t “need” another right winger, but this is the kind of player you don’t easily turn your nose up at when you’re as starved for offense as the Flyers are.
Jett Luchanko- The Flyers’ 13th overall pick in 2024 is clearly in the future plans, and with an improved roster around him he stands a much better chance of making the professional jump a year early, and succeeding this time.
Noah Dobson- 25-year-old pending RFA Noah Dobson has been one of the most intriguing names to hit the rumor mill ahead of the 2025 trade deadline. He’s a high-end offensive defenseman that would also give them a huge presence on the right side of the defense. He won’t come cheap via trade or a new contract, but this is the kind of player that doesn’t hit the market every day.
Brandt Clarke– Brandt Clarke, who is about to turn 22, has seen his ice time decline since the return of Drew Doughty in LA and there’s been some trade speculation since. The Flyers could use some young main roster reinforcements, and if he works out with Andrae, the duo could lead the team for the next decade.
John Gibson– Gibson will turn 32 this summer, and he’s easily the best available name on the goaltending market. He clocks in with a $6.4 million cap hit for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 season, but if he can finally sooth the Flyers struggles in net, it may be very well worth the investment.
Likeliness
The Flyers need to fix their center depth, offensive production in general (particularly on the power play), they need a sturdy goaltender, and to start transitioning their defense corps to a slightly younger and more mobile unit. This takes care of most of that. If they’re serious about going “big game hunting” and actually attempt to make the playoffs rather than just use it as a battle cry, this is the best way to go about it.
The forward group is a perfect mix of skill with enough grit that they’re not sacrificing scoring to play classic “Flyers” hockey. In a perfect world, Luchanko probably isn’t in the NHL yet, but the problem remains that the projected center market outside of Pettersson is still pretty bad, particularly players that have multiple strong seasons left in their careers. The Flyers showed some interest in dipping Luchanko’s feet in the NHL this season before Tortorella snuffed that out, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility they try and make it work again next season.
More importantly, this give Michkov some real weapons to ride with and the trio could very well salvage the team’s lackluster offense by themselves. a top scoring center and over-point-per-game playmaker joining the sophomore Russian is just what the doctor recommended.
The center depth still isn’t “fixed” but Pettersson goes a long way to addressing their problems. They’re just stuck with Couturier for four more seasons and Poehling has been a perfectly fine depth piece. Luchanko is hopefully a key player in the future, but this season it’s just about adapting to the professional level.
The defense is sexy. Dobson gives them a top righty and legit PP QB. An Andrae-Clarke duo gives them a young, modern, potentially franchise-pillar pair for the foreseeable future. And Drysdale-Seeler is a perfectly fine third pair, and the two RHD additions removes most of the stress from Drysdale to be the franchise guy.
The Flyers need to address the position of goalie with some kind of legitimacy. Ersson has shown flashes of potential, but between injury and some wildly inconsistent streaks, it’s hard to call him the bonafide starter at the moment. Fedotov has his moments, but doesn’t look like more than a backup, and Kolosov is a whole different problem with the threats of leaving the country and his vapid performances when he’s playing have dulled his once promising ceiling.
Theoretically, a Pettersson trade revolves around main roster players (York & Tippett). A Brandt Clarke trade around Oliver Bonk (which probably won’t be popular, but Clarke is the NHL-ready better player now and more than likely will be in the future as well). Dobson is interesting because he should be a big trade chip, but as a pending RFA in line for a huge payday, some teams may not pay the price to add and re-sign him. The Islanders are floundering in the NHL and their AHL team is dead last in the entire league. If they take Ristolainen for their main roster replacement plus a mix of picks and second tier prospects (Tuomaala, McDonald, etc) it could get it done. Gibson can probably be had for Kolosov and a draft pick. Lastly, the Flyers throw a big chunk of money at Marner in free agency, temporarily tying him for highest paid NHL player with Leon Draisaitl until McDavid cashes in next year in Edmonton.
Working the Cap
The cap taking a steep rise in 2025 (and for the next few years to come) along with a concerted effort to clear lingering bodies like Ristolainen and Laughton, make smarter investments like Marner over Tippett and resisting the urge to re-sign Cam York clears a ton of cap space.
They’ve only got Drysdale, Clarke, Andrae and Ersson are the notable internal names to re-sign in 2026. With an expected nearly $10 million rise in the cap to $104 million plus some expensive depth pieces like Deslauriers and Poehling up (and Hayes and Atkinson also off the books), there’s more than enough space to re-sign all four with enough left over assets that they could re-enter the free agent pool for more center help, especially if they would just bite the bullet on Couturier next year.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: ESPN.com
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