Final podcast of the season. Elliotte ran through every team individually.
Philadelphia
Elliotte couldn’t confirm Friday’s reports about Giroux to Philadelphia. Edmonton and Toronto were in there (Toronto may have been the most money). Another team in the mix thinks Giroux wants to go to Philadelphia but is waiting to see if another team can change his mind
The #1 reason the Flyers signed the offer sheet was because they wanted Carlsson. The Gauthier subplot is an added bonus
Philly was like “We need a star. We need a difference maker”
Montreal realized how far away they are this year after losing to Carolina. Well Philly got swept by Carolina a round earlier, so imagine how Philly felt
They aren’t drafting high enough to get that player
If Kaprizov hit the market this year, Philly was going to drop bags of cash on Kaprizov’s house. And Minnesota knew that
This had been something brewing. The Flyers’ other contracts are manageable
Briere had a lot of his business lined up and now he’ll know he’ll be a target
Carolina has made sure they’re not vulnerable after the Kotkaniemi offer sheet and threatening offer sheets of Evan Bouchard and K’Andre Miller. Philly will have to do the same thing
Elliotte thinks Philly want back on forth on if they’d really get that player. And Elliotte is a little surprised they didn’t go even higher with money, but they obviously knew what Anaheim was willing to do ($12.5ish). The Flyers beat that by a third
He thinks deep down the Flyers expect the Ducks to match
Briere is really good at misdirection
If they don’t get Carlsson, what else do they consider?
This is the way the Ed Snider created the Flyers
Noel Acciari screams “Philadelphia Flyer”
Anaheim
Pat Verbeek and the Ducks recognized a threat, but they didn’t recognize how big it was
The Ducks were saying they’d match any offer sheet, but Elliotte doesn’t think they thought it would go to $18m
The Ducks and Carlsson’s representatives met Friday morning. The Ducks’ offer was around $12.5m, the counter was in the $15m area
The Flyers knew they had to blow the Ducks out was the water. And Verbeek did not see that coming
Every team is looking at this and saying “We can’t allow this to happen to us”
Elliotte thinks Anaheim has to match the offer sheet. They don’t have a choice
Elliotte is sure Verbeek is looking around with what he could do with the 4 1st round picks, but he'd have to show how it makes sense to give up on Carlsson
Carlsson is Verbeek’s guy, the linchpin to his rebuild
Anaheim kept their roster a little bare bones to protect from this, yet they still walked into a bad spot
Elliotte assumes it was Carolina considering an offer sheet for Mintyukov, but Anaheim had made the commitment to sign him
This is literally among the Flyers’ biggest transaction moments in franchise history, regardless of what happens. An offer sheet for a young star of Carlsson’s caliber is unprecedented.
Enjoy it. Recognize the historical significance. Hope for the best outcome (no match.) And assume Anaheim does match it until we find out otherwise.
Briere did the best he could trying on this. Still unlikely to work, but it’s worth a shot
Lowering the expectations after this season was the right thing for Briere to say today. This is a young team that got carried by an insane hot streak and a goalie's to-date outlier season into barely a playoff spot, and then the Flyers were lucky enough to play the only Eastern team worse than them.
But if we are going to spend another season with lowered expectations, we should spend that season a addressing why Briere couldn't take a step forward this summer.
> 1. Are we a destination for stars' trade requests? No
> 2. Will another low-expectation season make us a destination for trade requests? Probably not
> 3. Can we count on 2027 UFA being any better than 2026? No
> 4. Did we have enough assets this year to propose serious offers for the big fish? It seems very unlikely. (Robertson would have been traded for a top 10 pick, Tkachuk took a top 10 pick, Byram took a top 10 pick, McTavish took a top 20 pick, Werenski could have had Harley, etc.)
> 5. Is Briere accepting "low expectations" and selling off extra players to get more assets to help fix the #4 problem? It doesn't appear so
Running it back without addressing the flawed UFA plan, the flawed trade plan, and the lack of premium assets is asking to wind up in this same spot next year.
Maybe we'll get a 2027 1st round pick?
