The Flyers acquired forward Tucker Robertson from the Kraken for forward Jon-Randall Avon, the teams announced. The pair of prospects will now report to their new teams’ training camp in a couple of weeks.
It amounts to a swap of lower-tier prospects who haven’t quite panned out as their clubs hoped. They’re both entering their age-22 seasons, born just a handful of days apart in the summer of 2003.
It’s particularly unsurprising to see the Kraken move on from Robertson. He was a fourth-round pick in 2022 after going undrafted in 2021, a season he missed entirely due to the pandemic. But despite producing over a point per game for the OHL’s Peterborough Petes in 2021-22 and 2022-23, he hasn’t been able to find any sustained offensive success in the pros.
Robertson never graded out as a top-10 or even top-15 prospect in Seattle’s system. He split his first pro season in 2023-24 between AHL Coachella Valley and ECHL Kansas City but found himself on the AHL roster full-time in 2024-25. Unfortunately, that didn’t come with much playing time. He only got into around half of Coachella Valley’s games, recording a 4-5–9 scoring line in 38 games. The 5’10”, 190-lb center now has 10 goals and 19 points in 77 career AHL games over the last two years.
Avon, whom the Flyers signed as an undrafted free agent in 2021, has seen moderately more offensive success. He was teammates with Robertson in junior hockey with Peterborough and made the jump to the pros at the same time. The stepson of former Blackhawks star Steve Larmer has stuck around as a depth piece with Philly’s AHL affiliate in Lehigh Valley for the last two years, putting together a 16-19–35 scoring line with a -22 rating in 125 games. He’s taller but lankier than Robertson at 6’0″ and 174 lbs.
Since Avon’s ELC slid twice before going into effect, both he and Robertson are entering the final seasons of their contracts. They’ll be restricted free agents next summer with neither being eligible for arbitration.
But why?
“ born just a handful of days apart in the summer of 2023.”
These 2 year olds obviously weren’t playing up to potential.
See, I even wrote 2023, re-read it, said “that’s not right,” and re-typed it the same way.
Now Jessica can be his Avon Lady.
Both teams hope for change of scenery improvement .
This trade should set off a domino effect around the league. ;)
Easily the best move made by Briere in past two years. Which of course explains why they suck.
Ridiculous: Yeah, drafting Michkov was AWFUL! Getting a 1st plus a reasonable prospect for Laughton was AWFUL, too! Don’t forget the AWFULNESS of trading away a 2nd plus a 4th plus Ryan Poehling for Zegras! When will Briere ever make a good move?
Seattle’s new glow in the dark jerseys are a bigger story than the trade, Great to see the Kraken have outsourced all uniform decisions to a group of local 6th graders.
Whoa guys, the trades are heating up now. Karlsson is next haha. What a crappy off season