In case you live under a rock, the Philadelphia Flyers traded defenseman Ivan Provorov to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday in a large and complicated and large deal.
It is a monumental transaction that signals the Flyers – emboldened with their new front office featuring Danny Briere and Keith Jones – is no longer willing to wade in the middle of the NHL and they want progression. Progression will come in the form of regression for a couple seasons, but this is what they want and what they are clearly striving for by trading away the 26-year-old blueliner that outgrew his welcome and still had multiple years left on his contract.
But this is not why we are currently here. Provorov has left Philadelphia and we don’t really want to think about him for too much longer. Now, we’re going to get to focus on what the Flyers got in return for the defenseman – largely from the Los Angeles Kings – and what they might be able to bring to the Flyers, if they get on the ice this season.
Sean Walker
Certainly the headlining player in the trio of names that stumbled their way across the continent to Philadelphia, Sean Walker is a 28-year-old, left-handed defenseman that has carved out his own path in the NHL after going undrafted for multiple years.
Walker signed with the Kings’ AHL affiliate, the Ontario Reign, as a college free agent in 2017, after captaining Bowling Green State University for his junior and senior seasons. He played one full year in the AHL but was eventually able sign an NHL contract the following summer and made his NHL debut at the age of 24 during the 2018-19 season.
He impressed the Kings enough that after his two-year entry-level contract ran out in 2020, he was signed to a four-year, $10.6-million contract. And that is where we are now – he became a mainstay on the Los Angeles blue line and stayed consistently in their top-four until this past season, where his average time-on-ice slipped to 14:50.
So, with just one year left on his contract and pending unrestricted free agency next summer, the Kings shipped him out.
But what are the Flyers getting in Walker? Well, someone who is not really going to be making too much of a difference and might not be that noticeable.
The above-average offense that he drives is counteracted with the slightly below-average defense. He hardly contributes on special teams. And when it comes to shooting or passing, he’s just hovering around average. The one area that will be substantial in Philadelphia is his ability to take so many damn penalties compared to his peers.
His 36 penalty minutes in 70 games last season isn’t a whole lot, but it’s just way too much considering he was not on the ice a whole lot.
Either way, the Flyers are getting A Guy that could just waltz in on the top-four and not look out of place. He will get a big opportunity to show the NHL his worth with free agency coming up.
Cal Petersen
Cal Petersen’s inclusion in this trade can be seen a couple of different ways. For the pessimistic and grumpy, Petersen is simply a salary cap dump. His contract that carries a $5-million cap hit for the next two seasons was a detriment to Los Angeles trying to build a better hockey team and he has now been shipped to Philadelphia just as a way to clear cap space for them to sign Vladislav Gavrikov or whatever.
For the slightly more optimistic and hopeful, Petersen can be seen as a goaltender that could be rebuilt into something that he once was and the player that earned his contract in the first place. The 28-year-old netminder was good, once.
In the beginning of his NHL career and the first half of the 2020-21 season, Petersen was a very good goaltender. He was allowing substantially fewer goals than what was expected and even hit a peak where he was seemingly stopping everything; which was highlighted during a January game against the Colorado Avalanche where Petersen stopped 44 of the 45 shots one of the best teams (if not the best) during that season, laid on him.
Since then, he followed up with a stretch of play that could be just summed up as “average” and allowed almost the same number of goals as the expected goals he faced, but then recently he just rocketed into Terrible Goaltender status during the 10 games he managed to play for the Kings last season.
He could be something if he returns to his prior form, but could just be the third-string netminder that finds himself in the AHL. Either way he will not really fit his contract, but that’s not that important for the Flyers right now.
The last thing we’ll say is that Petersen did just finish playing a very good tournament for Team U.S.A. at the IIHF World Championships, where he managed to earn a .956 save percentage and a 0.72 goals against average in three appearances. Maybe that’s something good to bounce-back off of.
Helge Grans
Helge Grans is definitely the player you want to focus on all of this. The 21-year-old, right-handed defenseman is most likely the only player that will still be in the Flyers organization in a couple seasons and is certainly the least quantified player of the group.
Grans was drafted 35th overall in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft, but was slated by many prospect people and scouts to go much higher. He was ranked somewhere around the mid-to-late first round because of his relatively high floor compared to some of his other teenaged peers.
After playing one full season in the SHL, Grans made his way over to the AHL and managed to score seven goals and 24 points in 56 games for the Reign. Unfortunately he hit a little bit of a sophomore slump offensively in the minors and through 59 games last season, scored just nine points.
He’s not overly defensive or skilled offensively, but is just some sort of solid player where he can be something on the blue line. After all, he is 6-foot-3 and his skating isn’t bad at all, so with that foundation there is a lot to work with, especially considering he is still so young.
Grans might not be a difference maker but the Flyers’ prospect pool is so damn shallow when it comes to defensemen and especially ones that are right-handed. Grans might legitimately be the only one and could be seen as the second-best prospect on the blue line, behind Emil Andrae, if Cam York is considered graduated.
The Flyers got a nice little mix of players in return for Ivan Provorov, and that’s not even including the upcoming draft picks they snagged. Walker is someone to fill in and just be someone to play on the Flyers’ blue line all season long. Petersen is either sent down to the AHL or just given some sort of opportunity to re-find his game. And Grans is the prospect and the one with some potential that could be seen as something for the future.
