The Sheet Blog: What’s the long-term plan at center for Flyers after trade?

Credit: Danny Briere (© Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports)

Grassy knoll or Occam’s Razor?

Do you side with conspiracy theories or do you believe the easiest, most obvious answer is the correct one?

When you look at the Philadelphia Flyers’ side of the Morgan Frost/ Joel Farabee for Andrei Kuzmenko/Jakob Pelletier/picks trade, you can let your mind run with both.

The Flyers have opened some cap space up along with, most importantly here, a center spot. Does that mean GM Daniel Briere is jumping into the high end of the trade market looking for a talented middle man to push the rebuild further along quicker? Eyes perhaps on the likes of Dylan Cozens, Elias Pettersson or Trevor Zegras?

As much as it’s fun to let those ideas dance around your head (and trust me I love indulging in those as well) I tend to fall into the simplest answer camp on this one. The Flyers have plenty of prospects they need to get playing at the pro level for their development, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the spot they just opened will be Jett Luchanko’s to lose. As you’ll recall, Luchanko played four games for the Flyers at the start of the season before being sent back to junior.

And if he does get that spot it will be sweet music to Luchanko’s ears but not his junior team in Guelph. The Storm engaged with the Brantford Bulldogs at OHL trade deadline on a deal that would have sent the Flyers first-rounder to the team now owned by the Hyman family, but the deal got killed with the Bulldogs refusing to send Caleb Malhotra (Manny’s son and a prospect for next year’s NHL Draft) to his father’s old team. Caleb currently plays with Chilliwack of the BCHL, but speculation is he’ll be heading to the OHL next season.

Guelph wasn’t exactly a motivated seller with Brantford figuring Luchanko could be back next season, but it now appears the chances of that are shrinking. We’ll see.

With Flames in hunt, Stars brought business to Sharks instead

As Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman mentioned Saturday, the Calgary Flames have told teams they will not be moving Rasmus Andersson, Nazem Kadri or MacKenzie Weegar. As we’ve discussed here and on my daily show, Flames GM Craig Conroy finds his team with a legitimate shot at making the playoffs, and with all those players under contract, he’s not losing an asset by keeping them. There’s always one team nobody saw coming who find themselves in the playoff hunt. Last season it was Philadelphia, this year it’s Calgary.

One of the teams affected by Calgary’s decision were the Dallas Stars, who upgraded at the two positions they’ve wanted to address all season, bringing in San Jose’s Mikael Granlund and Cody Ceci. I wonder how much last Thursday’s 6-2 loss to the Seattle Kraken motivated Sharks GM Mike Grier into making this move well in advance of Trade Deadline? It sounds like some in the San Jose organization weren’t exactly thrilled at how that game went and weren’t quiet about it.

This was clearly the right deal at the right price for the Stars, who got better but didn’t touch their lineup. We’ve wondered how Dallas GM Jim Nill was going to be able to pull this off without moving one of his young prospects.

I still don’t think Nill is done with this lineup, which will eventually include Tyler Seguin after he’s done rehabbing from hip surgery. Their cap space took a hit with these deals, but don’t forget, this is a “go for it” season for the Stars.

As an aside, as the price of high-end rentals seems to be a first-round pick, it also sounds like the price of high-end players with an extra year of term is a first plus a high-end prospect, so essentially two first-rounders. High prices with only a few sellers in the market so far.

USA hockey to level up its elite youth?

Interesting conversation on last Thursday’s edition of Morning Cuppa Hockey with USHL Commissioner Glenn Hefferan around USA Hockey’s plan to launch a new hockey development league for elite players.

It’s still in the beginning stages (I think they’ve only had one meeting) but, snooping around, it does seem there is some momentum gathering here and much is an outgrowth of multi-year discussions to address the American development model and revamp Tier 1 hockey.

First off, I was told this will not start next season. We’re still down the road on this one, but the plan is to eventually launch an elite level league for youth players leading up to playing in the USHL and eventually college hockey.

Expect the number of teams to be between 20-30 with age groups still to be determined. One source mentioned they were looking at coupling 14+15-year-olds as well as 16 + 17’s, but I’m told that’s still very much an ongoing discussion.

The working title of the enterprise is called the National Development League or the NDL. This name is not set in stone but could end up being what they go with. And finally, the plan as of now is this league will exist strictly for American youth hockey players, no imports.

Again, I don’t think anything is close to being announced, but by next winter’s meeting I’d imagine there will be a much sharper focus on what this will look like.

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The Sheet Blog: What’s the long-term plan at center for Flyers after trade?

With Flames in hunt, Stars brought business to Sharks instead

USA hockey to level up its elite youth?

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