The Flyers go to New York to face the Rangers, who have a. Things aren't about to get easier on them. "Right now if you just look at how we played the first 10 games versus the last 10 games, clearly one segment was way better than the other so we've shown the ability to play better than we are now." But we're always looking," Fletcher said. I don't feel I've been able to see that to this point in time. "I'd really like to see what we have before we start making changes. They started well enough, going 6-2-2 in their first 10 games, but have sagged to a 2-6-2 record in their most recent 10-game stretch.įletcher spoke to the media Tuesday for a quarter-mark discussion and he was asked about how aggressive he might be in making further changes to the roster. Interestingly, the Flyers have sort of shown two versions of themselves this season. Ellis has been injured and out of the lineup for the past two-plus weeks and Kevin Hayes, a key forward at both ends, is also out of the lineup and has only played two games this season. Now, after an 8-8-4 start, the Flyers haven't gotten the immediate pay off they would have liked from those moves. GM Chuck Fletcher followed through by trading for Ryan Ellis, Rasmus Ristolainen and Cam Atkinson, and giving a notable shakeup to the core. The Philadelphia Flyers were one of those teams to watch in the off-season because of the potential they had for some serious turnover. "I'm not necessarily saying a DeBrusk for Appleton necessarily makes a lot of sense, but that's the type of guy I could see Boston saying 'you know what he was a good player in Winnipeg last year and could make sense for us.' "įlyers GM Fletcher: "We're not where we want to be" "I have to think there's teams looking at Appleton," Friedman said. But in Seattle Appleton has just three points in 11 games. The Jets were too deep up front to keep Appleton from the Kraken. Following a 25-point season with the Winnipeg Jets, Appleton was squeezed out in the expansion draft not because he was underperforming, but because of the numbers game. One name Friedman floated to keep an eye on, for Boston or elsewhere, ("this is me spitballing") is Seattle's Mason Appleton. This is not a year where they're giving up on the season." "They're not going to do anything that's going to make them worse. "Boston's a team that's battling to stay in the playoff race right now," Friedman continued. DeBrusk returned to Boston's lineup Tuesday night on the fourth line, played the second-fewest 5-on-5 minutes and registered one shot on net.Īnd of course, the Bruins still have their eyes on contending, so they're not going to be eager to sell off NHL players for futures. So while the Bruins are open to finding a trade for DeBrusk, they also still need the player right now. So, as we begin to hear more in the rumour mill, here is some of the latest from around the league.
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Trade rumours give the most ardent of us armchair GMs something to debate and hypothetical deals to break down. It might take a little longer for the trade market to open up than normal." I'm assuming there are other teams doing the same thing. For us specifically it's been hard to identify what we actually need because we've had injured players out.we're still working out what are we identifying that we might need for the rest of the year. "You're starting to hear more names that might be available. "It might start to pick up now," Capitals GM Brian MacLellan said Tuesday on the Jeff Marek Show. Whether actual trades will begin to flow or not, Elliotte Friedman wrote in last week's 32 Thoughts, the trade rumours could start picking up steam now. Might be too early for anything that significant.īoth Boston and Philadelphia are on the outside looking in right now, but not by an insurmountable amount, so any big decisions they might face aren't necessarily imminent.
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Both have severely underperformed expectations.Īnd what of Seattle, one of the few teams with some cap space? Or Dallas, two years removed from a Stanley Cup Final appearance and now on a five-game winning streak and in a wild card spot after a bumpy start? Jeff Marek mentioned on Hockey Night in Canada that one of their defencemen, John Klingberg, was garnering interest. We're beyond the one-quarter mark of the season now and with American Thanksgiving in the rear view mirror ( an important milestone date in the big picture playoff chase) teams, for the most part, now have a better understanding of what they have, what they don't, and what it means for the rest of the season.Ī team like Arizona was always likely to sell pieces off and that remains so, but what about Montreal or Vancouver? One has undergone a big front office change, while the other is waiting on what seems like an inevitable move somewhere in the organization.