What Andrei Kuzmenko, Jakob Pelletier bring to the Flyers

As the March 7 NHL trade deadline approaches, the Calgary Flames and Philadelphia Flyers got in on the action late Thursday, completing a four-player deal.

On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli discussed what the Flyers are receiving in forwards Andrei Kuzmenko and Jakob Pelletier.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Let’s talk about the flip side of this thing, Andrei Kuzmenko, basically one year to the day since he was traded to Calgary from Vancouver in that Elias Lindholm deal. The Russian forward is on the move. He’s a streaky goal scorer, and that’s basically what he was with Calgary. When he came over last year at the deadline, he popped 14 goals in his first 29 games with the Flames. He had Flames fans like, ‘Whoa, do you extend this guy? Do you keep him around for the long haul?’ This year, it has gone south. He has four goals in 37 games. For the Flyers, to sit here and take on Kuzmenko, a guy who was a distressed asset, as you said. Jakob Pelletier cleared waivers earlier in the season. They did get a second-round pick, but was this move basically all about getting out of Farabee?

Frank Seravalli: That was a big part of it, was definitely clearing the cap space to move off of Joel Farabee. But the other part of this is to see if this not only helps Andrei Kuzmenko come out of his shell again, but how might this help Matvei Michkov? These two guys were teammates in Russia and have a connection. You watch a game like last night for the Flyers, with fireworks on the bench again with John Tortorella and Michkov. Just having another guy who speaks the language, is able to maybe make this a little more comfortable for Michkov moving forward, does that help? It’s a shot in the dark. I think there is a 50-50 chance it’s a coin flip. Maybe Kuzmenko shows something. Maybe he shows nothing. Maybe it helps Michkov. Maybe it doesn’t. But it’s worth a try for a guy who was on the scrap heap. It’s an expiring contract. It’s really no harm, no foul. And Pelletier, I wonder, a guy who has definitely looked better since his call-up this year. He has played much closer to an everyday player. But at 5-foot-9 – generously listed at 5-foot-9 – do the Flyers maybe see something in Pelletier? Danny Briere, a smaller guy himself, he needed a little extra opportunity to get where he was going in his NHL career. Maybe they have something there. Look, Farabee is a few hundred games into his NHL career. He and Pelletier are essentially the same age, so the Flyers didn’t really get much younger here. Pelletier doesn’t even have a full NHL season under his belt. So I get the idea of trying to move the money around and making all that work, and I am curious to see what the Flyers have up their sleeve. But these are essentially, ‘Hey, we’re dumping some contracts here. We get a second-round pick in return that we like.’ They got the better of the two second-round picks that Calgary had because the other one was Colorado’s. We’ll see if something works out and, if not, let’s not forget the opportunity cost of the salary cap space that they get.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here: