Sometimes, having a career-best season won’t clear your name from NHL trade rumors. And in some cases, that might make the trade rumors even worse. That seems to be the case for Philadelphia Flyers forward Morgan Frost, who has once again been pegged as a top NHL trade target.
NHL insider Frank Seravalli revealed a list of his top-25 trade targets on the market on Friday, and it was headlined by the usual suspects, such as Mitchell Marner, Martin Necas, Linus Ullmark, Jacob Markstrom, and others. Towards the bottom of Seravalli’s list were some younger, buy-low trade targets, including Frost, who checked in at No. 17.
Said Seravalli, “After a rocky year that saw Frost sit as a healthy scratch for a chunk of time, it sure ended well. Frost closed the campaign with 30 points in 44 games in the 2024 calendar year. One thing that doesn’t appear to be changing: John Tortorella as Flyers coach. While some pushback from Frost seemed to do him well in Tortorella’s books, it’s not entirely clear whether they’ll ever see eye-to-eye.”
Another critical piece of information is the fact that Frost, only recently turning 25 years old, was benched by Tortorella for nearly two full periods of the Flyers’ final game of the season. Recall that the Flyers were facing the Washington Capitals in a Game 82 that was ‘win-or-go-home’, and the playoff circumstances forced Tortorella to pull rookie goalie Sam Ersson for an extra attacker in a tied game because a regulation win was required.
In a game where the Flyers desperately needed goals and offense to break the tie and win in regulation, Frost played only 8:02. Bobby Brink and Cam Atkinson, who were also benched, were the only Flyers who played less in that game.
Seravalli concluded his addition of Frost by remarking that “The Flyers see plenty of upside on Frost and wouldn’t hesitate to keep him. They’re also interested in anything creative thrown their way, so they’d be open to moving Frost and Joel Farabee and others in the right deal. But there hasn’t been much action on that front yet.”
“Yet” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
Note that the 2024 NHL Draft is just under two weeks away, and once we get closer to the draft, we’ll have a better indication of where things are headed for both Frost and the Flyers.
Frost finished the 2023-24 season with 13 goals, a career-high 28 assists, and 41 points in 71 games after scoring 19 goals, 27 assists, and 46 points in 81 games in 2022-23. Frost’s 0.577 points per game in 2023-24 was slightly higher than the 0.567 points per game he averaged in 2022-23; he has one year remaining on his contract at a $2.1 million cap hit and will become a restricted free agent in 2025.
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