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The Philadelphia Wings Appear to be Blowing it Up (also – What’s this Montreal Relocation Rumor?)
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I’m no box lacrosse expert, but the Wings totally stink this season (3-10, tied for dead last) and it appears as though they’re blowing it up. They made a flurry of moves on Monday, trading one of their top players in Joe Resetarits:
Resetarits has been the team’s leading scorer in most of their recent seasons. He’s second on the club this season with 45 points but in every season since 2023 he’s either led in goals, assists, or points. They also shipped out Blaze Riorden, who was one of their better players during the early portion of their rebirth, and Phil Caputo, who is a forward with 17 points.
They got back two 2nd round draft picks, a 3rd rounder, and this Lukas Nielsen guy. Best comparison, I think, would be the Flyers deciding to move Rasmus Ristolainen, Travis Konecny, AND Bobby Brink at this most recent NHL trade deadline. This feels like a fire sale as the Wings look for some kind of juice here to get things turned around.
One thing that’s on my “to do” list is to dig in a little bit and see if Comcast-Spectacor actually gives a shit about the Wings moving forward. There are some VERY loose rumors linking the Wings to a Montreal relocation:
What’s curious is that when the Flyers and Sixers talk about the new South Philly arena, they mention the Flyers, the Sixers, and the WNBA expansion team. They never mention the Wings. Maybe that’s something to read into, maybe not, but it definitely doesn’t seem to be top of mind, the box lacrosse team. That new building can absolutely host four teams, because the current building hosts three and the WNBA season doesn’t overlap with the NLL season. Or – The Wings could conceivably continue to play at Xfinity Mobile Arena, since there’s been nothing official about how long that building will remain before it’s demolished. It’s so early in the process anyway. We don’t know what the Eagles are going to do, we don’t know what plot the new arena will be built on, etc. But I’ve heard this “Wings to Montreal” rumor more than once, and it’s interesting.
We’ll put it on the list of things to investigate. Maybe we’ll even do some responsible journalism and email the Spectacor PR folks.
For what it’s worth, the NLL is still headquartered in Philadelphia, even though half of the teams are in the U.S. and the other half are in Canada. That HQ shift took place when former Union CEO Nick Sakiewicz became league commissioner and supported the effort to bring back the Wings in the first place. But it really does seem like there’s zero energy for this team and they haven’t been very good since they came back to South Philly. Perhaps attitudes would change if they didn’t blow chunks.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com