O’Connor: Flyers’ Ivan Provorov trade creative start to GM Daniel Briere’s rebuild

Sure, the Philadelphia Flyers said they were rebuilding.

John Tortorella and Chuck Fletcher all but admitted it prior to the trade deadline. Then Daniel Briere did say the word in his first news conference following Fletcher’s exit. New Comcast Spectacor chairman and CEO Dan Hilferty endorsed it a few weeks later. And the new brain trust — Hilferty, Tortorella, Briere, Keith Jones and Valerie Camillo — reiterated it at their big news conference last month to announce the GM and president of hockey operations hires.

Yes, one can say “rebuild.” But actions always speak louder than words.

Well, on Tuesday, Briere certainly spoke.

Ivan Provorov’s days in Philadelphia were numbered. He was highly unlikely to sign another extension with the Flyers when his contract (with two years left and a cap hit of $6.75 million) expired in the summer of 2025. Provorov’s play had dramatically declined since its peak in 2019-20. He was loath to suffer through a rebuild after toiling through the long Ron Hextall retool to begin his NHL career and was lukewarm at best on the idea of continuing to play for Tortorella. Still, Provorov remained the team’s No. 1 defenseman, and as recently as last summer, the organization wasn’t willing to trade him; jettisoning such a key piece in the lineup was too much for a leadership group still not committed to a rebuild. After all, who would replace his minutes? Who would be on the top pair?

The logical answer, for a team that no longer had any realistic designs on short-term Stanley Cup contention: who cares? The focus needed to be on the future, not the present.

That’s exactly why Briere traded Provorov (and contract dumps Hayden Hodgson and Kevin Connauton) to Columbus via Los Angeles, receiving three draft picks (a 2023 first, a 2024 second and a conditional second that will either be in 2024 or 2025), Kings defense prospect Helge Grans and two NHL veterans (goalie Cal Petersen and blueliner Sean Walker) in return.

“Well, part of it is that we are in a rebuilding stage,” Briere said in the wake of the trade. “We felt that, (given) the picks and the direction that we wanted to go in, it was really enticing. Very exciting. We have a chance to really kind of start building the team the way we want it, the right way that we’ve talked about. It kind of starts with that.”

With Tuesday’s trade, Briere proved that he fully grasps the reality of the team’s situation, and is indeed committed to embarking on a full-scale rebuild. But even more importantly, he also showed that he very well might have the negotiating chops and overall creativity necessary to actually pull it off.

Breaking down the return

Provorov hasn’t been the best version of himself for three seasons now. At first glance, a player coming off three consecutive down years — even one still just 26 — wouldn’t seem to have much in the way of trade value.

But in the current NHL, trades of big-minutes, top-four defensemen aren’t based on recent statistical results. They’re based on vibes. They center around whether enough GMs believe that a player with good physical tools and strong past performance — however long ago it might have been — can excel for them, not whether he’s thriving in his current environment.

Before Tuesday, it was unclear whether Provorov still had enough good vibes surrounding him to bring back an impressive return. Briere, to his credit, was able to corral more than enough.

In the end, Briere secured six assets for Provorov.

• A 2023 first-round pick (No. 22)
• A 2024 second-round pick (from Los Angeles)
• Another second-round pick in either 2024 or 2025 (Columbus must choose which year after the 2023 first round concludes)
• Kings prospect Helge Grans
• Kings defenseman Sean Walker
• Kings goalie Cal Petersen

For the Flyers, the value in the deal comes from the first four pieces — Walker and Petersen are, at heart, salary cap dumps. In comparison to recent deals involving top-four defensemen, it’s right in line with those returns. In fact, it’s the only one in which a club nabbed both another second-round pick and a viable prospect, in addition to the standard first-rounder and second-rounder return. Aside from the Seth Jones trade from 2021, one could make a case at first glance that the Flyers did the best of any selling club.

But in truth, it’s not quite fair to view the Provorov deal in such glowing terms. In order to maximize return and get the deal in this acceptable realm, Briere had to get creative.

Understanding all sides of the three-team deal

There’s a reason why this ended up being a three-team, relatively complicated trade, and not simply Briere selling Provorov to the highest bidder.

Columbus clearly liked Provorov, but not enough to relinquish Briere’s desired package (a first- and second-round pick) for Provorov at his $6.75 million cap hit. They wanted him cheaper for the next two years to justify the Flyers’ price tag. On the other side, Los Angeles was looking to clear out cap space in order to set up the rest of their offseason.

So what did Briere and the Flyers do? They took on two contracts — Walker at $2.65 million and Petersen at $5 million — from the Kings, while asking Los Angeles to retain $2.025 million of Provorov’s cap hit for the next two seasons to facilitate his move to Columbus. The Blue Jackets got their defenseman at a cheaper cap hit. The Kings cleared $5.625 million in cap space for 2023-24 and $2.975 million in 2024-25. The Flyers got their desired, market-value return for Provorov and assets from Los Angeles for taking on that cap space.

“I think it’s a deal that was that was helping all sides,” Briere said. “Columbus wanted their defenseman, we were looking to acquire young assets — either draft picks or young guys, and for L.A. it was a chance to create cap space for what they want to do.”

In reality, for the Flyers it was more two trades than one.

• A first-rounder (No. 22) and 2024 second-rounder for Provorov.
• A second-rounder and B- prospect for swallowing the Walker and Petersen contracts.

Suddenly, it makes more sense, and puts the Provorov return in isolation more in line with the Mattias Ekholm, Filip Hronek and Rasmus Ristolainen returns than the recent Jakob Chychrun and Hampus Lindholm ones. Provorov’s recent decline didn’t go fully unnoticed.

But the two trades are inextricably linked and can’t be viewed fully in isolation. On its own, a 2024 second and Grans would seem like a light return in a mostly flat-cap environment for taking on $7.65 million in contracts. But if that’s what had to be done in order to ensure a quality return — specifically, a first-round pick — for Provorov? It was the right move, and exactly the kind of creativity a GM shopping a flawed asset needs to possess.

In addition, it’s not like the two bad contracts are going to hamstring the Flyers. Walker is nothing special — more of a solid depth defenseman in the Nick Seeler vein in terms of value — but he has just one season left on his $2.65 million contract. That’s a very movable deal at the trade deadline, meaning that Walker very well could be turned into another draft pick in just a few months. As for Petersen, that’s a truly bad contract; he has struggled mightily since signing a three-year, $15 million extension in September 2021, even getting sent down to the minors last season by the Kings. But there might still be a solid goalie in there somewhere (he earned the contract via strong work in 2020-21 for Los Angeles at age 26) and he has only two more seasons left on the deal anyway — a period of time when the Flyers will still be in the heart of their rebuild. It does nothing to hinder future cap flexibility when the seasons start (hopefully) mattering again for Philadelphia.

Is it possible that the Flyers could have gotten more from Los Angeles (or another club) for taking on the two contracts? Sure. But they also needed to find a team willing to retain two years’ worth of cap on Provorov to lock down the deal with Columbus, especially if they wanted to avoid using up one of their own three retention spots — one of which they’ll almost certainly need for Kevin Hayes. If it took getting a bit less than ideal from Los Angeles to get more than Provorov really should be worth right now from Columbus, the trade-off was more than worth it.

Briere also was able to sure up a low-key organizational weakness in the process: right-side defense.

Prior to Tuesday’s trade, the Flyers had Ristolainen, Tony DeAngelo, prospects Ronnie Attard and Ethan Samson, and then … basically nothing on the right side of their blue line. Now, they have some flexibility. Walker is a viable third-pair defenseman, and Grans has three years of experience in professional leagues (SHL and AHL). By picking up both of them in the deal, they now have some roster cover in case they do ultimately decide to move on from DeAngelo this summer (which isn’t a foregone conclusion but is certainly a possibility), especially with York likely returning to his natural left side with Provorov gone.

Grans isn’t a blue-chip prospect; he was taken early in the second round in 2020 and finished with nine points in 59 games with the Kings’ AHL affiliate last season. But he has good size (6-foot-3), legitimate puck skills and is still just 21. Grans gives the Flyers a second viable close-to-NHL-ready RHD prospect to go along with Attard, and could be an intriguing project for Philadelphia assistant coach Brad Shaw, who just finished remaking Ristolainen into a useful defense-first blueliner last season. At least for now, Grans would likely rank right around the tail end of the Flyers’ top-10 prospects.

On Tuesday, Briere didn’t pretend like Grans was a major piece of the deal — he said that the 2023 first-rounder was the key, and Briere deferred to his scouts in their evaluation of Grans, who he’s yet to watch in detail. Briere didn’t even say Walker’s name in his post-trade availability. But their inclusions in the deal shouldn’t be ignored.

In the end, Briere traded Provorov without selling low. He weaponized his cap space to lock down his desired return rather than accept a middling package. And he addressed a low-key pressing organizational need in the process. That, in short, is creativity in action.

Final thoughts

It was important on multiple levels for the Flyers to secure a quality return for Provorov.

After all, Provorov at one time was viewed as a key piece of the future. It’s legitimately disappointing for the Flyers that Provorov ultimately didn’t work out in Philadelphia, given the excitement that accompanied his selection at No. 7 in 2015 and the undeniable promise of his early years. It would have been quite difficult for Briere to sell the fan base on an unimpressive return package for Provorov, who is still just 26.

He doesn’t have to worry about that, though. Instead, even setting aside the Kings’ part of the trade, it’s a legitimately strong package for a defenseman coming off three straight down seasons and who wasn’t fitting in anymore with his coach or many of his teammates. The Blue Jackets paid for what they think Provorov can be again, not what he is now. But rightfully, Briere and the Flyers came to the conclusion that — regardless of whether Provorov bounces back in Columbus or not — it wasn’t going to happen in Philadelphia.

“At this time, we felt it was in the best interest for everybody to make this trade,” Briere said after providing a telling “not going to get into the details of that” answer when asked if Provorov had expressed a desire for a change of scenery.

The more important takeaway, however, is what the trade says about Briere.

As a first-year GM with limited NHL front-office experience, there was good reason to be skeptical of Briere’s readiness for the job. Sure, he talked a big game when it came to rebuilding. But would he have the guts to trade top-of-the-lineup players? Could he actually negotiate strong returns for them? And would he have the natural creativity necessary to actually execute the big, franchise-shaping deals that a successful rebuild requires?

It’s still early. This is just Briere’s first trade. But with it, Briere provided an early “yes” answer to all three questions.

Briere didn’t necessarily need to hit a home run with his first trade, and this one doesn’t fully qualify as such. But that he met (and even exceeded) reasonable expectations for it given the challenging circumstances certainly bodes well for his NHL GM bona fides.

And what’s perhaps just as important is that the trade provides some long-awaited hope to Flyers fans that their team may have the right person for the job.

(Photo: Len Redkoles / NHLI via Getty Images)