The Philadelphia Flyers pulled off perhaps the biggest shocker of the draft, trading Brayden Schenn to the St. Louis Blues for Jori Lehtera, the 27th-overall pick and a conditional first-round pick next year. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports that if the 2018 pick happens to be in the top 10, St. Louis would have the option to push it to 2019. If they do so, Philadelphia would also gain a third-rounder in 2020.
The Flyers used the 27th pick to select Morgan Frost, son of former Maple Leafs in-house announcer Andy Frost and forward from the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhouds of the OHL. Frost put up 62 points in 68 games for the Greyhounds but is still very undersized and will need to develop his all-around game.
Lehtera is coming off an extremely disappointing season in St. Louis, in which he scored just 22 points. He’s heading into year two of a contract that pays him $4.7MM per season, a number that hopes he’s more of the 44-point player he showed in his first year. Philadelphia will hope they can turn him back into that, but with a system now flooded with centers after trading for Valtteri Filppula at the deadline and selecting Nolan Patrick tonight, it’s not clear what his role will be.
Schenn though is clearly the prize of the deal, as clearly the best player involved for the time being. Schenn scored 25 goals again last season and has developed into one of the more effective power forwards in the league. He was unstoppable with the man advantage, scoring 28 of his 55 points on the powerplay. Now traded twice before he turns 26, Schenn is locked up for three more seasons at $5.13MM and immediately fills some of the center concerns for the Blues. It was a hefty price to pay, with two firsts going the other way but he’ll help St. Louis in their quest for a Stanley Cup once again next year.
Having Schenn allows the Blues to move Patrik Berglund back down to a third-line center and keep both Vladimir Sobotka and Alex Steen on the wings. That upgrade will make their top-9 one of the best groups in the league.
Is Sam Hinkie the flyers new GM??
This trade doesn’t make sense to me. Why trade a budding, young player for a struggling vet and draft picks. They should be buying to win now and this isn’t winning now
Don’t think philly can win now.. maybe in 2-3 years when their younger guys are all coming up and some of there god awful contracts are up..also they can get a half decent goalie
Flyers should rebuild.they’ve had this core of G,Voracek,Simmonds,Schenn and Couts since trading Richards and Carter.and theyve made it out of the 1st rd of the playoffs once,in the 1st year.
The picks will help add to the collection of talent in Philly with guys like Gostisberre (idk if that’s how you spell it) and I think the rookie from Jersey, Stolarz, could be there long term answer in goal
The trade doesn’t make sense at all. I would get it if was a salary cap dump, but it isn’t. The Flyers only save $425,000 and get worse. Schenn had more goals than Lehtera did points. Lehtera is also 5 years older than Schenn. The only way this trade turns out well for the Flyers is if Frost & next year’s pick turn into very good players. Otherwise this trade is a bit baffling.
They do get out of Schenn’s 3rd season.same year Konecny and Provorov could see significant raises.
This is similar to Hartnell/Umberger,but with 2 1st rd picks attached.
The difference is Hartnell’s production was starting to take a dip. Schenn’s isn’t. He was their 2nd leading goal scorer & one of their top power play guys . Getting out from the the final two seasons of Schenn’s contact isn’t going to the Flyers any good this season when their goal scoring takes a dip and their power play suffers. Laughton isn’t going to pick up the slack. Neither is Courtier or Lehtera. Maybe Patrick or Lindblom can help make up for it. If their goal scoring goes down, it puts a lot of pressure on the team to give up fewer goals & I’m not sure the Flyers are equipped to do that.
And the other difference is Umberger came with a 4th rd’r,Lehtera is coming with 2 1st.
And for all of Schenns production,he scored 8 even strength goals in 79 games playing top line minutes.