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In his three NHL drafts with the Flyers, general manager Chuck Fletcher has never ruled out trading his first-round pick. However, he always held the first round selection in high regard.
While Fletcher admitted he would be more willing to trade the Flyers’ first-round pick this offseason compared to the last two, he was adamant not to frivolously sell 13th overall.
“If you want to move the 13th pick overall, alone or as part of a package, you better have a really good player who can help you out for a few years,” Fletcher said this month.
This will inevitably be the big debate with the Flyers acquiring defender Rasmus Ristolainen. Fletcher offered the 2021 Flyers’ first-round pick to the Sabers in a package for Ristolainen about six hours before the draft started on Friday night. In the deal, the Flyers also sent Robert Hagg and a 2023 second-round pick to Buffalo.
Ristolainen, 26, is entering the final year of his contract with a cap of $ 5.4 million. After the 2021-22 season, the Flyers will need to make sure they’re in his place and can re-sign him. Fletcher said on Friday the club viewed Ristolainen as having “a very good chance” of being part of their future.
As for Ristolainen’s impact worth a first-round pick, it’s early enough to judge. This offseason, it looks like teams are willing to pay the price of trading due to the increased difficulty of adding free agency with the flat cap. Ristolainen is a towering 6-foot-4 defender with a mix of physique and underrated skill. He played big minutes at a young age on a struggling Sabers team that didn’t make the playoffs once in his eight seasons at Buffalo. So although he had four seasons of over 40 points and led the Sabers in minutes per game (23:53) during his tenure, his even-matched ice goal differential was less- 151 in his eight seasons.
“I think it all depends on the context in what he’s been asked to do,” Fletcher said on Friday. “I played a lot of minutes, I had a rotating team of partners, a rotating team of coaches. Buffalo is clearly a team that has grown and has seen a lot of turnover in the last few years. now have a really good mix of defenders, we have a good veteran squad and I think we have pretty good stability right now on our back end. I think every time the players are in the right role with the right mix of players around them, they have a much better chance to improve and look better.
“Obviously we’re banking on that and we love the skills that he brings. There is always a big role for size and physique in this game. He’s a guy who was able to score points, he can skate, he can skate. can move the puck. He’s still a pretty young man who, like any 25, 26, 27-year-old player, can still improve. It’s always a tough position to learn.
The Flyers said it was “extremely difficult” to decide whether to part ways with their first-round pick in 2021.
“The amateur guys work hard all year round to draft players,” said Fletcher. “I think for us right now look, we’re coming out of a tough season. We’ve spent many years racking up draft picks and signing a lot of young men and we still have a lot of good prospects in our system. , we haven’t traded any of our hopes, so we think it’s important to make our squad more competitive. To become more competitive, we thought we needed to add right-handed defenders to our club this year to complement [Ivan] Provorov and [Travis] Sanheim and to get everyone in the right place. We believe that if this group can improve, then our team will improve.
“We have a lot of young players who will be entering the NHL over the next one, two or three years. I think it’s exciting. We still have a lot of good kids, we still have choices, but every time you trade a first round pick it’s hard. “
The Flyers want to be tougher to face in 2021-22 after allowing more goals than anyone in hockey last season at 3.52 per game. Preventing goals and playing the right way can be as much of a mindset as it is a strategy. In eight games against the Flyers last season, Ristolainen played a team-high 22:03 minutes per game, posted a plus-three rating and hit 42 hits. The next closest Saber to hitting was Rasmus Dahlin with 15. But, Ristolainen’s goal prevention numbers weren’t good at Buffalo during his time there. Flyers will need to show that their frame and training can produce better results.
“I would say I’m a player the other team hates playing against and I’m trying to be a pain in the ass,” Ristolainen said on Friday. “I can sort of do it all – play on the penalty kill, on the power play, I can pass the puck, I can shoot the puck. I can play any type of role. Hard worker, I love to hit – do whatever it takes to win.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while the last few seasons because where I think I’m at my best is when I play meaningful games and see myself as a play-off type player. young, but still young. But I need to have meaningful games and try to make the playoffs. I think Philly, they’re very close, right there to fight those playoff spots.
Fletcher’s off-season maneuvers aren’t necessarily over.
“I still want to consider potentially adding players who can help with the penalty kill up front,” said Fletcher. “These are the types of discussions we are having now.”
The free agency opens next Wednesday, but Fletcher said he does not expect any more transactions over the weekend. The Flyers will make their first 2021 draft pick in the second round on Saturday (11 a.m. ET / NHL network). They have six choices, with one selection each round.
“It was important to me if I was going to give up a second round pick as a side play, that we didn’t do it this year,” Fletcher said of Ristolainen’s trade. “We think this draft in particular, due to the lack of viewing from some players, there might be an opportunity in the second round to land a player with potential who may not have been seen as much. strongly enough that the depth of this draft even goes through the third round, so we wanted to make sure we keep our second this year, which was very important if you were going to lose your first. handle this situation as we go along. “
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