Danny Briere Is Continuing His Quest To Get Everybody Out Of Philly, Trades Kevin Hayes To The Blues For Practically Nothing
When Danny Briere was hired to be the new general manager of the Flyers, he had two major jobs ahead of him. He needed to get rid of some awful contracts, and he needed to build up an arsenal of assets to start a total rebuild. The team is a disaster, the organization is a disaster, and they just need to start the whole damn thing over again.
Moving on from Kevin Hayes was a huge part of that plan. No offense to Hayes, but clearly it just wasn't going to work out here anymore. His relationship with Torts was fractured beyond repair, and he was a borderline bad NHL player from December through the end of last season. With 3-more years with a cap hit of over $7M, Danny Briere HAD to get him out of town this offseason.
And he almost packaged up a sick little deal for him if it weren't for that pesky Torey Krug. It sounds like it would have been Hayes and Sanheim going to St. Louis for Krug and a 1st round pick. Obviously there would have been a few more pieces to that trade, but those were the main parts. Getting a 1st round pick in 2023 AND getting some of Hayes' salary off the books? That would have been huge. But then Torey Krug decided to be a little shit head about the whole thing and refused to waive his NTC. So that ruined that whole deal, and all that was left was getting rid of Kevin Hayes.
Now I know there are plenty of Flyers fans out there who are extremely underwhelmed by the return on this trade for Hayes. And I'll admit that I would have hoped that retaining 50% of Hayes' salary would be able to squeeze a little more out of St. Louis than just a 6th round pick in 2024. But again, Kevin Hayes just wasn't very good last year after the all-star break. He was borderline bad. This deal just goes to show the market for Kevin Hayes was…well…sparse to say the least. Danny Briere either had to make this deal or they'd get nothing for him. And anybody who thinks that paying out that full contract for the next 3 years would be better than shedding half of it and at least picking up a draft pick is out of their mind. Do I think the Flyers will do anything spectacular with that 6th round pick? For sure not. But you never know. Mark Stone was a 6th round pick, just saying.
At the end of the day, it was time. Kevin Hayes needed to move on, and the Flyers needed to move on from Kevin Hayes. The final trade ended up being drastically underwhelming compared to what we were all expecting over the weekend. But at least Danny Briere is sticking to the game plan here. Shed salary, acquire assets, rinse & repeat. Maybe make one more final push to move up in the draft tomorrow night to lock up Michkov, and now we're cooking.