PHILADELPHIA – Rumors, you gotta love them. Usually trade rumors aren’t a big deal in late October (Unless you run a website that does nothing but deal with trade rumors 24/7, but I digress). In South Philadelphia, any trade rumor is headline news in the hockey community. As of this article the Philadelphia Flyers are 25 games into the 2019-20 season and recently the media outlets, most notably in this case the Philadelphia Inquirer, brought up a trade possibility, not a trade rumor.
David Rittich #33 of the Calgary Flames makes a stick save against Claude Giroux #28 of the Philadelphia Flyers
That’s the key term here, the article was not about a trade rumor where sources around the NHL are confirming that two teams are in discussions about exchanging players and assets. The article simply a ‘What if’ scenario presented by the author. Still, thoughts of the “rumor” coming true had Flyers fans in a lather.
The idea was a simple trade scenario where the Philadelphia Flyers traded Jakub Voracek, who’s cap hit is $8.25 with four years left on this contract after this season, to the Calgary Flames for Salem, New Jersey native Johnny Gaudreau, who has a $6.75 cap hit with two years left after this season. Gaudreau is 26 years old, while Voracek is 30. Sounds like a simple one-for-one trade but that math, more importantly the money, currently does not fit, at least now anyway.
The Flyers General Manager Chuck Fletcher has spent his way up to the salary cap in the offseason, basically undoing everything his predecessor Ron Hextall did, which was to get the team out of salary cap hell. In Fletcher’s defense, which won’t occur normally on these pages, he was pressured by upper management to turn the team around on the ice. That said, neither team has the cap space to pull off this trade. The Flyers have only $57,336 left in cap space, where the Flames have only $19,117 according to capfriendly.com.
That’s not a good start for trade discussions. The truth of the matter is, this trade or any trade involving either player won’t happen anytime soon, but it could in the offseason either at the NHL Draft or once free agency begins and certain players come off each teams’ books. Let’s look at what might happen regarding this trade and any potential trade to come that might happen involving both key players.
As mentioned before, both teams are in salary cap hell. A simple one-for-one trade cannot happen which means at least one more player would have to be involved in order to stay under the cap. One glimpse at the NHL standings shows that both teams are still very much in the playoff hunt with well over half a season to go. Neither team is in a hurry to make a deal happen even if they wanted to.
That said, there are two very important things to consider. One of course is Voracek’s contract. Not only is the contract two years longer than Gaudreau’s, it is $1.5 more cap space which Calgary does not have. Age is another factor since Voracek is four years older that Gaudreau, which means the Flyers would have to give up some youth to the Flames in the return. Both are wingers and shoot left-handed but Gaudreau plays left wing where Voracek plays right.
The Flyers are fairly deep at left wing, as is Calgary, but the Flames are fairly week at right wing. Despite Voracek being a left-handed shot, he has been playing at right wing ever since he came into the NHL. The Flyers already have Claude Giroux who can play both center and wing and he is a right-handed shot so moving him to the right to replace Voracek wouldn’t be that big an issue. Having Gaudreau on left wing and Sean Couturier at center would make an already solid first line for the Flyers even better.
Matthew Tkachuk #19 of the Calgary Flames scores the winning goal in the shootout against the Philadelphia Flyers.
From Calgary’s perspective, Voracek would look great on right wing with Matthew Tkachuk at left wing and either Sean Monahan or Elias Lindholm at center. According to the NHL’s website, the Flames don’t have an RW with more than one goal this season. In fact, the Flames are 30th in goals scored per game in a 31-team league, so sending Voracek in a trade just wouldn’t cut it from Calgary’s perspective, unless the Flyers are willing to part with one of their top offensive prospects, especially considering how money is a major issue in this trade scenario.
Here is one major thing to consider. Being a New Jersey native Gaudreau grew up a Flyers fan. If your Calgary, you must start thinking down the road to when Gaudreau becomes a free agent. Trading him this year before the trade deadline might be a wise decision especially if the Flames start falling out of the playoff race in February. Doing a deal now rather than later when either players stock could potentially go downhill might not be the worst thing in the world for either team.
The truth is I don’t see this trade happening before the trade deadline. The Flyers are playing some of their best hockey in recent days and Voracek has been a part of it. As mentioned before, some money needs to come off the books and Calgary will have a few people that should come off that are currently make some coin. Michael Frolik ($4.3), T.J. Brodie ($4.65), and Travis Hamonic ($3.8+) are all Unrestricted Free Agents at the end of the season.
The Flyers have only Justin Braun ($3.8) coming off the books. Oh, I didn’t forget that Tyler Pitlick who is also an UFA, but he only makes $1 million on the cap and the way he is currently playing he’s not going anywhere.
It is possible the dominos could fall at the deadline should Calgary dump at least one of their UFA’s in a mini fire sale. That could propel the Gaudreau for Voracek talk again but until then, keep dreaming Flyers fans, this deals not going down anytime soon.
Brian Jennings covers the Philadelphia Flyers for prohockeynews.com and can be found on twitter at @Flyersfan22.
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