Most of the best defensemen on the NHL trade deadline market have now moved. Braydon Coburn and Kimmo Timonen were both good prizes from the Flyers blueline, and you can add Zbynek Michalek, Andrej Sekera, Jeff Petry and Keith Yandle to the list as well.
It’s been a good deadline for the sellers, and that’s probably part of the reason why the Toronto Maple Leafs are trying to hard to unload their captain, defenseman Dion Phaneuf, by the 3 p.m. ET deadline. But after Phaneuf, there aren’t too many names left out there, and maybe that opens something up for Nicklas Grossmann to move on from the Flyers?
One would think that Grossmann would be off the table thanks to his possible concussion, but the Flyers have him listed as day-to-day and there’s actually precedent for trading a guy with a concussion. Michalek has one and the Coyotes sent him packing like an hour ago. So it’s still possible Grossmann could be moved.
Nick Grossmann is the next D name to watch after Zybnek Michalek is gone. List is dwindling.
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) March 2, 2015
In all honesty, if I’m an NHL general manager, I don’t want to touch Grossmann with a 10-foot-pole, because he’s uhhh … not all that good. But there is definitely interest in him around the league because NHL general managers love big defensemen who can hit, even though that’s not exactly the best way to evaluate defensemen in today’s NHL.
Ron Hextall should be happy to exploit it, and getting something — really, anything — in return for Grossmann would be a good thing. Dealing him would be addition by subtraction in a lot of ways, on the ice and on the salary cap. Most importantly, dishing him off rids the Flyers of yet another overpaid third-pairing defenseman, and opens up the door for young talent to step in next season.
Let’s see what happens between in this final hour before the 3 p.m. deadline.
