Former first round pick rumoured to be available in Philly; does he make sense as a Muzzin replacement?
For the 3rd consecutive season, the sky is falling in Philadelphia and with that brings intensifying trade rumours regarding Ivan Provorov. The former 7th overall selection from the loaded 2015 NHL Entry Draft has had a rough couple seasons after a very good 2019-20 campaign and has been on the trading block ever since.
Trade rumours sparked last year ahead of the trade deadline but nothing materialized. Then things picked up again in the off-season but the Flyers stood pat because they weren't interested in any offers being thrown their way. Here we are again, mid-season, and Elliotte Friedman has added fuel to the fire by saying the situation is close to reaching a boiling point.
The 25-year-old is having a down season offensively as he has only scored 2 goals and 14 points. He has hit the 30 point plateau 4 times in 7 years with a career high 17 goals and 41 points in 2017-18. The Flyers haven't been good for awhile and he's had to take on the bulk of the defensive duties as evidenced by his career ATOI of 24:11. He is also a very durable defenseman as he only has missed 3 games (due to COVID) out of a possible 494 over the last 7 seasons.
At the end of the season, he was very critical about the Philadelphia media and there were reports before the trade deadline that he was hard to coach, they couldn't take him off the power play because of how he would react, and he threw his teammates under the bus at times.
He has 2 more years remaining until unrestricted free agency with a cap hit of $6.75 million. The Flyers have tried to find Provorov the right dance partner but for one reason or another it hasn't worked out for him in Philly. Matt Niskanen suddenly retired, Ryan Ellis has been injured since the beginning of last year, and Tony DeAngelo is now playing with Travis Sanheim.
A trade of this magnitude would most likely occur during the off-season when more teams would be interested and there's more cap flexibility. Since his sophomore season he has never averaged anything under 24:09 a game until this season with his slightly lower 23:12 ATOI and would most likely fetch the Flyers the necessary pieces to finally get their rebuild rolling.
Provorov is a player that the Leafs could no doubt use, especially with Muzzin's playing future unsure. The question is, would the Flyers be willing to deal in-conference and do the Leafs have the pieces necessary for the Flyers to want to part with their top defenseman?
| POLL | ||
11 JANVIER | 178 ANSWERS Former first round pick rumoured to be available in Philly; does he make sense as a Muzzin replacement? From Leafs: Topi Niemela, Ty Voit, a 1st round pick in 2023From Flyers: Ivan Provorov, 4th round pick in 2023 (EDM)Who says no? | ||
| Leafs say no | 102 | 57.3 % |
| Flyers say no | 21 | 11.8 % |
| Both teams say no | 25 | 14 % |
| Done deal | 30 | 16.9 % |
| List of polls | ||
