Flyers Shouldn't Expect Much from Filppula Trade

So the Flyers finally made a trade on deadline day, but it's not what I expected. The Flyers traded aging, UFA Mark Streit for Valtteri Filppula and some late-round picks. This looks like a weak return.

First things first. The picks are not good. The scouts say this is not a good draft, and the Flyers already had 10 picks in this draft anyway. The Flyers now have THREE selections in both the 4th and 7th rounds this spring, and 12 overall. These new picks bring hardly any marginal value to the Flyers.

The real return for the Flyers in this deal is center Valtteri Filppula, and that may not prove to be much either. Currently Hextall is selling the deal as an acquisition of a defensively-responsible center who can create some offense. Hextall also went to lengths to say how Filppula was a great human being, which is practically damning with faint praise for a hockey trade.

The reality is that Filppula is a 32-year old player on the downside who doesn't add much. A look at the stats reveal a few takeaways of the player Filppula is today:

-Net shot creator and good assist man at 5v5
-His goal scoring and ability to get on the end of scoring chances is atrocious
-He's been a net negative player in possession percentage and scoring chance creation for the Lightning.
-He can do some penalty killing, and perhaps some power play too.

Here's a chart of how Filppula stacks up against all NHL forwards in various categories.

Long story short, Filppula is not much of a solution at center. He's a serviceable 2nd or 3rd line center, and nothing more. He will not make a significant difference for the Flyers or any other NHL team.

Yzerman has been looking to dump Filppula's contract for some time. It wasn't long ago that TB writers and bloggers wondered if Yzerman would be able to find any takers for his significant cap hit of $5 million coming off a 31-point season in 2015-16.

Apparently, Filppula did enough to bounce back this year to tempt the Flyers.  While Filppula's points and assists are solid this year, he still remains a below average NHL forward in terms of goal scoring, team chance creation, and possession.

It is telling that the Lightning immediately flipped Streit to Pittsburgh to get back a 4th round pick in the draft.  When all was said and done, the Lightning simply sacrificed a 7th round pick to be rid of Filppula and receive nothing back, satisfied with the cap space and extra protection slot in the expansion draft (due to Filppula's no-movement clause).

Filppula may in fact be a great human being and voice in "the room", but this does not make it a good trade. This trade is a head-scratcher, and is bringing back memories of the acquisition of RJ Umberger. Umberger was also a 32-year old forward that an NHL team was basically willing to give away at the time of the trade. Similarly, at the time the Flyers spun the deal as an acquisition of a solid, versatile veteran who can kill penalties.

Of course Umberger has been bought out by the Flyers in the meantime and is now out of the NHL.  There's already been some mention that Filppula could be a buy-out candidate this summer, but let's hope this trade isn't THAT much like the ill-fated Umberger deal. Filppula only needs to be "okay" for about 100 games before the deal starts actually hurting the Flyers.