The moving parts of the Flyers/Flames trade were settled overnight, leaving us with a deal that looks like this:

Flyers fans were poking and prodding Danny Briere to do something, and he did. It’s not the blockbuster to end all blockbusters, but it’s a start.

Thoughts, in no particular order:

  • Were Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost going to be on a Flyers team that goes deep into the playoffs at some point? Probably not. You’re talking about two skilled guys who just weren’t productive enough on the ice. After a 50-point season last year, Farabee was on pace to do what he’d done in previous years. And Frost just never seemed to fit with this team. Didn’t seem like a Torts guy. So he goes.
  • They get off Farabee’s contract, which was $5 million a year for three more seasons after this one.
  • Frost was going to be an RFA anyway.
  • Andrei Kuzmenko is an unrestricted free agent after this season, so a rental, but a Russian with a few years of NHL experience who played with Matvei Michkov at SKA Saint Petersburg in the KHL.
  • Pelletier is a 23-year-old left winger who hasn’t gotten a ton of NHL run. He’s also set to become an RFA, so the Flyers can get a look at him over the next few months.

Basically the Flyers are unloading some guys they didn’t think had a future here in exchange for that 2nd rounder, a rental, and a young guy who might stick. They’re creating cap flexibility at the same time. It’s a salary-dumpish kind of trade. Flyers fans seemed to be mostly on the same page in thinking that the team needed to get off that Farabee contract. It’s not like either of those guys didn’t have enough time to prove themselves in Philadelphia. Beezer could use a change of scenery, and Frost, too. There was no reason to believe that they had not already reached their ceilings here, so they can try to get over the hump in Alberta now. Good luck to those guys.

Here’s the other thing – no one should care about the culture within the Flyers’ locker room. Farabee and Frost were apparently well-liked in there. That’s great. You need to have a healthy ecosystem, as opposed to everyone hating each other’s guts, but people take it to mean that bang-average players are untouchable because they’re nice guys. News flash – this is a rebuild. This isn’t some charity. We’re trying to win a Stanley Cup here, not the NHL award for the best locker room were everyone is all buddy-buddy. People need to think more like Peter Laviolette. “I wanna see people rip their heart out of their fucking chest this period.”