As the 2025 NHL offseason is finally breaking on the horizon, rumors are starting to heat up as fans get antsy waiting for their favorite teams to make moves. In Flyerland, the golden carrot of someone like Mitch Marner potentially making it all the way to free agency has opened the conversation about trading roster players to make it happen, and Owen Tippett has been caught in the crossfire.
Tippett, the 26-year-old winger, has spent 253 games with the Flyers over parts of the last four seasons. He’s scored 79 goals and 152 points and has seven years left on his contract that pays him $6.2 million a season.
So should the Flyers consider trading him this summer? Let’s weigh some pros and cons to find out.
Keep
He’s one of the team’s top scorers
What does that mean on a team that is consistently in the bottom-third of the league in scoring? Eh. It means that he be better than he is if he were ever given proper insulation. Which leads us to…
He probably has more to give
Tippett has oozed potential since he arrived in Philly, but has only half-heartedly followed through with actual results. He’s one of the players that would probably benefit most from a real center on the roster, but as long as he’s here it hampers their ability to add one.
Can they find a net-positive trade?
Seven more seasons at a $6.2 million cap hit for 50ish points for a 26-year-old. That’s not necessarily bad, but it really isn’t prime trade bait either. If they were to look to just flat out dump him for future assets, it would probably be a mediocre return. “This guy is too average to trade” isn’t a great reason to keep him, but that is the exact kind of logic I’d expect from Danny Briere based on his track record thus far.
Trade
Is he the highest priority winger?
The answer is simply no. Matvei Michkov and Travis Konecny take priority on the main roster right now, and guys like Alex Bump, Nikita Grebenkin and Denver Barkey (who could all push for main roster gigs in 2025-26) are far more important in the grand scheme of things. The Flyers’ overcrowding on the wings isn’t a new problem, but it’s going to get even worse this season and is going to put a significant amount of pressure on guys like Owen Tippett, Bobby Brink and Tyson Foerster that have all lingered in a similar good-not-great tier.
There are better options
The whole reason we’re talking about trading Tippett in the first place is that someone like Mitch Marner could make it to free agency and the star-power-starved Flyers should be throwing their hat in the ring, but their overabundance of high-paid wingers is going to keep them from going to the dance in the first place. They have to take risks and consider upgrades wherever they show themselves. The Flyers are just not in a position to turn their noses up at outside options in the name of running it back with Tippett.
Conclusion
Tippett is quickly falling into the classic cookie-cutter Flyer mold of being a decent player with some untapped potential, but at three-and-a-half years into his run with the team, he still hasn’t overcome the hump into a true breakout player. 20-30 goals and 40-50 points isn’t nothing, but when all of his peers fall in the same category, something has to change in order for everyone to take steps forward.
His modified no-trade clause (a 10-team no-trade list according to PuckPedia) kicks in during the 2026 offseason, so the Flyers don’t have to pull the trigger this season if they don’t want to, but they’ve tied their own hands so badly when it comes to both roster spots and a lack of free cap space that if they want to do a single thing of note this summer, they are going to have to consider trading someone.
$6.2 million a season is not an egregious aav by any means, and will be offset as the cap continues to rise, but it’s one of those scenarios where the Flyers probably gave him $500,000 to $1,000,000 more than they probably should’ve. It’s been a trend ever since the Chuck Fletcher days. You can make exceptions individually, but when most players on the roster are in the same boat, it’s a real pain in the ass to get stuck in.
If the Flyers are serious about putting a winning product on the ice (which, ya know, color us skeptical) then they need to be ready to do whatever it takes in order to make that happen, including trading roster players and replacing them with better options. If they have to trade Owen Tippett in order to sign Mitch Marner, they just have to do it.
Tippett could be a guy that gets swapped for a center of similar age and contract status. If the Flyers don’t make much progress in tracking down someone like Marner, or if they’re not even going to consider him in the first place, then moving Tippett opens the door for Alex Bump to walk onto the main roster out of the gate next season, who could be just as good, if not better, than Tippett in short order.
Owen Tippett is a fine player that could be even better on a real team. There’s no disputing that. But as things get more and more desperate in Philly and the Flyers need to find real ways to upgrade the product, nobody should be off limits when it comes to trading and achieving the end-goal of returning to the postseason. So whether it be for Marner, a center, or anything else, if the opportunity presents itself to move on from Tippett, Briere and the Flyers need to take a potential move seriously.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: Getty Images
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