The Philadelphia Flyers didn’t do much this offseason in the way of moving players out. They did buy out Oskar Lindblom, which was a good move to free up a little cap space, but there are some other options that would benefit the team not only next season but in the years to come. There are three options that we will go through and look at who would benefit the team the most if they were traded.

Ryan Ellis

Starting with a player acquired in a trade that hasn’t gone anything like Chuck Fletcher and the Flyers had imagined, defenseman Ryan Ellis. He has dealt with some injuries and has missed big chunks of seasons before, but he was acquired anyway to try and mend the top pairing. He had missed 54 games over the previous two seasons before getting into just four games with the Flyers in his first season with the team.

Ellis looked strong, and from a very small sample size, appeared to help out Ivan Provorov on the top pairing. But things went downhill very quickly after he suffered a season-ending injury early into the 2021-22 campaign. Ellis is age 31 and the injuries have now piled up. The Flyers can’t feel confident that one of their top defenseman that would be key to winning games can stay healthy enough to actually impact the season as a whole. After suffering multiple injuries, he is just more vulnerable each time he is hurt and misses time. His age doesn’t help his case or the durability of his body either.

Not only is Ellis a health concern, but the Flyers must move a defenseman sooner than later. The team is paying five defensemen $4.675 million average annual value (AAV) or more, and even though he can end up on the long-term injured reserve (LTIR), it handcuffs the team to not utilize the cap space and commit to someone else to replace him. He makes the second-most of the team’s defenders and the Flyers currently have four right defensemen and seven who should be playing every night if healthy.