Anthony Di Marco of the Fourth Period joined Sirius XM NHL Network Radio on Saturday, TFP Hotstove with Dennis Bernstein, Dave Pagnotta, and Ryan Paton. There, he was asked what the Philadelphia Flyers’ biggest priority is this offseason.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Dennis Bernstein: “Let’s go to the offseason, the biggest need that Danny Briere has to fill, number one, center, top 4d or long-term goaltending clarity.”
Anthony Di Marco: “You know what? I think it’s a defenseman and a power play defenseman, like not even a top 4D, because I think all four of those defensemen have been phenomenal in the playoffs, especially with their offense being so inconsistent and downright anemic at times like (Cam) York, (Jamie) Drysdale, (Travis) Sanheim, (Rasmus) Ristolainen, they’ve all been fantastic.
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But there’s one thing they all lack, and that’s the ability to drive up the ice and contribute offensively, specifically on the power play, the worst power play left in the playoffs. (not in the playoffs anymore) operating at one percent. They need a quarterback on the power play, 100% because DB, the difference is with the forwards, is that, like, yeah, the offense has been struggling.
But you see the pieces in place that you could theoretically run it back. And you get some internal growth from a (Matvei) Michkov, (Porter) Martone, a healthy Owen Tippett, Tyson Foerster gets a full season to recover from injury. You’ve seen him kind of fighting it since maybe coming back a bit too soon.
Trevor Zegras, all these guys on the back end, I think they all kind of are what they are. And I love all of those defensemen. I think they’re all top four defensemen, but they’re missing that top dog. I kind of beat this point to death.
And I don’t think the Flyers are too thrilled with the idea of paying Bowen Byram $9 to $10 million a year. But I think that’s the guy that both would fit the need, given what he’s done in Buffalo, specifically during the playoffs and in terms of availability now, based on how good Buffalo has been.
I think that there wouldn’t be in a rush to trade Bo Byram, and Dave could speak to us better than me. But with a year left on his contract, do they want to commit nine, $10 million long-term to another left-shot defenseman? And he’s probably the best available guy, in theory, on the trade block because of the surplus that Buffalo has, specifically in that positional department.
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So I think a guy like Byram is the top of the priority for Danny Briere and Keith Jones, because, simply put, they don’t have much coming up the pipeline, and all their defensemen who are coming up are right-shot guys. So I mean, on the left side, they’re really lacking things behind Sandheim and Cam York.
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