The rumour mill is starting to heat up around the NHL with the Vegas Golden Knights on the cusp of winning their first Stanley Cup in franchise history.
But with all that on the go, NHL general managers have already begun their work on the offseason.
For the Edmonton Oilers, they’ve already been linked to Philadelphia Flyers winger Travis Konecny after they signalled their moving to a rebuild. Konecny, 26, was drafted by the Flyers in the first round of the 2015 draft and has scored 141 goals and 332 points over his 488-game career. He’s coming off his most productive season having scored 31 goals and 61 points in 60 games.
While The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun linked Konecny to the Oilers, another report surfaced on Monday another name could be involved: prospect Phillip Broberg.
This, at least, according to The Fourth Period’s Anthony Di Marco.
From the Oilers perspective, it makes sense that Broberg could be involved. It would take Ken Holland, in a sense, admitting a fault with the selection of Broberg solely due to the fact he’s been a lot slower in developing as a number of other players selected after him like Trevor Zegras, Matthew Boldy, Cole Caufield, Peyton Krebs, Alex Newhook and Thomas Harley — all of whom were taken in the 10 picks immediately following Broberg back in the 2019 draft.
And just ahead of that draft, The Athletic’s Corey Pronman — who is about as linked as they come to the draft and its prospects — opined in a mock draft he thought “Philly would love for Broberg to get to them to add a true top-tier defenseman to its farm system,” even though he correctly mocked the defenceman to the Oilers a few picks earlier.
Joakim Grundberg, who served as a European scout for the Flyers between 2014 and 2021 before being promoted to the organization’s director of European scouting, might still have his eye on the Swedish rearguard.
Whether or not this is the case, Broberg is a still-developing prospect who was, after all, considered one of the best defensive prospects in the class of 2019. He’s shown well in his limited time in the NHL, and getting a big puck-moving defenceman like him in the Flyers’ system would surely be appetizing.
Back to Konecny, however, as this is a player that is certainly of interest. He’s considered to be a strong two-way winger who can not only provide offence, but also provide some solid defensive play. At 5×5 last year, Konecny provided offence at a nine percent rate better than the league average and defence at a seven percent rate worse than the league average, according to HockeyViz. The best defensive impacts he had were considered league average between 2019-20 and 2021-22.
With two years left on a deal that pays him $5.5-million, the Oilers would undoubtedly need to get some cap gymnastics on the go. Kailer Yamamoto and his $3.1-million salary this off-season are good as gone, but would the Flyers consider taking his deal on and eating some of Konecny’s deal to make the money work? Them eating 28 percent of the contract would balance the books for both clubs.
Between a prospect in Broberg, a young forward who still has upside in Yamamoto and what would likely be the inclusion of one or more draft picks, there could be a solid framework for Holland and Flyers general manager Danny Briere to work around.
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