Toronto Outbid Flyers for Bernier
When push came to shove, the Philadelphia Flyers were not the right trade fit for the Los Angeles Kings to deal highly regarded young goaltender Jonathan Bernier. Although Matt Read is a skilled and versatile two-way player who could have provided comparable or superior value to Los Angeles as Matt Frattin, it was the weight of the entire package that the Toronto Maple Leafs offered that tilted the scales to the Toronto side.
The Maple Leafs sent Los Angeles two current NHL roster players, plus a 2014 or 2015 second-round pick, and agreed to free up $500,000 worth of salary cap space by taking it on their own cap (one of the features of the new CBA).
Apart from Frattin, the Leafs sent backup goaltender Ben Scrivens to Los Angeles. The Flyers do not have an NHL-ready backup netminder to offer.
The second-round pick is basically equal to the compensation the Kings would have gotten had Bernier not been traded and instead had signed an RFA offer sheet with Toronto; which Los Angeles would likely not have been able to match. Before the trade, Los Angeles had only 15 players under contract for next year and the team was rapidly running out of remaining cap space.
On top of adding two contracted NHL-level players, bringing their total to 17, the Kings also acquired a half-million dollars worth of additional cap space. Already struggling to get compliant with the cap ceiling, the Flyers were in no position to do that.
When you add up all of the elements Toronto provided plus the fact that Read can become an unrestricted free agent next summer, Toronto simply had more to offer Los Angeles without making a ridiculous overpayment on the still-unproven Bernier. It was a deal that made sense for both sides.
For the Flyers, getting involving in an outright bidding war for Bernier would not have made any sense. If LA did not want Read because of his uncertain contract status beyond next season, there is not another current NHL roster forward whom the Flyers could have offered in trade without demanding that Los Angeles be the team that included other assets coming back in the deal. In fact, the better option for the Flyers would have been to simply wait until July 5 and offer-sheet Bernier at the second-round-pick compensation cutoff level.
The Kings knew they HAD to trade Bernier, and all of their leverage lay in doing it ahead of July 5 with multiple teams putting in trade offers. The Flyers made their best offer. So did LA. The Kings' offer was the better one. So be it.
The failure to acquire Bernier isn't the end of the world for the Flyers. He's still got a high upside but he's probably not the second coming of Bernie Parent or Martin Brodeur, despite his strong pedigree. The bottom line on Bernier right now is that he's a soon-to-be 25-year-old goalie who has shown promise in very limited playing time at the NHL level behind a strong defensive team. He's done enough to suggest that he's capable of being a solid NHL starter, perhaps as soon as 2013-14, but there's still a leap of faith in suggesting he's ready to become a perennial Vezina candidate.
The fact that Bernier was Los Angeles' first-round pick seven years ago and entered the pro ranks with a lot of hype behind him is as meaningless at this point as the fact that fellow 2006 draftee Steve Mason won the Calder Trophy in the NHL the same year that Bernier was an AHL rookie with Manchester. Mason has had more downs than ups since then but retains a high upside of his own. For all the hype, Bernier was stuck behind Jonathan Quick for three-plus seasons, and has played in just 61 NHL games at age 24. Now Bernier will get his chance to start, and we'll see how he fares.
Losing out on Bernier also does not necessarily mean the Flyers are going to hitch their wagons to Ilya Bryzgalov for another season. There are still a variety of other viable young and veteran goaltending options out there on the trade and free agent market.
Regardless of whether the Flyers had acquired Bernier, keep the status quo or end up with a tandem of Mason and another goaltender, the team's number one priority is still to improve their team defense. If they don't do that, it won't matter very much who is between the pipes.
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Flyers Draft Demographics: 2003-2012
It is impossible to predict whom the Flyers will select in the first round of the 2013 NHL Draft, much less in the later rounds. However, it is useful to look at the team's drafting tendencies over the last decade. As with teams around the NHL, the Flyers have cast a wider drafting blanket over the hockey world than they did in years past.
There has been a leaguewide decrease since the early 2000s in the volume of players drafted from European teams. However, there has been an overlapping increase both in North American and European-born players selected from North American teams outside of the Canadian major junior leagues.
For record-keeping purposes, the NHL lists players both by the leagues from which they are drafted and by country of origin. For instance, Oliver Lauridsen and former Flyers forward Andreas Nödl would respectively be listed as NCAA and USHL draftees and separately listed as players from Denmark and Austria. Additionally, when a player is in his Draft-eligible season, Central Scouting places him on its North American or European list based on his then-current league, and not his country of origin.
For instance, spanning the period of 2003 to 2012, the Flyers selected 55 North Americans and 19 European-born players in the NHL Draft. Six of the European players were playing in North America in their Draft year, so they are counted among North American picks when the picks-by-league are tallied. Three others were already planning to play in North American leagues in the year following their Draft selection.
Working backwards from the Flyers' 2012 Draft crop, here's the draftee breakdown by league and by players' country of origin over the course of the Flyers' last 10 drafts. Note: players who entered the organization as undrafted rookie free agents -- for example, Matt Read (NCAA, Canada), Erik Gustafsson (NCAA, Sweden) and Sergei Bobrovsky (KHL, Russia) -- are not included here. These are only players whose names were called on Draft day.
Over the course of the last 10 NHL Drafts, the Flyers have used a total of 74 picks. Among these selections, 40 players were chosen out of one of the Canadian major junior leagues (11 from the OHL, 12 from the WHL, 17 from the QMJHL). Two were picked from Canadian Junior A leagues.
Among the 19 players selected from U.S.-based circuits, there were three players selected from the U.S. National Team Development Program, six from clubs in the USHL, and five who played their immediate pre-Draft season in the collegiate ranks. There were also three players from American high school/prep schools and two from the NAHL.
The remaining 13 picks the Flyers have made since 2003 have been players who suited up in European leagues in the season directly before their Draft selection. Four players have been chosen from Swedish leagues; three from the SuperElit junior league and just one who had seen time in the Elite League. Three players were chosen from Russian Leagues (two from junior league clubs, one from the RSL/KHL). There have been two players picked from Finnish-based junior teams (none with SM-liiga experience at the time of their Draft selection) and two from Slovakia (one Slovak Extraliga and one junior league). There was one apiece from Switzerland's top league (National League A) and the Czech Under-20 league.
In terms of the players' countries of origins, the Flyers have selected 40 Canadians and 15 players whose primary citizenship is based in the U.S. (not counting someone such as Phoenix-born Canadian citizen Sean Couturier). There have been 19 European-born players drafted by the Flyers since 2003: five originally from Sweden, three from Russia, two from Finland, two from Switzerland, two from Slovakia, two from the Czech Republic and one apiece from Denmark, Germany and Latvia.
Here's the year-by-year breakdown by league and country of origin:
2012: 7 total picks
CHL (2): Scott Laughton (OHL, Canada), Taylor Leier (WHL, Canada)
NAHL (1): Anthony Stolarz (USA)
NCAA (1): Shayne Gostisbehere (ECHL, USA)
Canadian Junior A (1): Reece Willcox (BCHL, Canada)
Sweden (1): Fredric Larsson (J20 SuperElit, Sweden)
Russian (1): Valeri Vasiliev (MHL, Russia)
2011: 6 total picks
CHL (5): Sean Couturier (QMJHL, Canada), Nick Cousins (OHL, Canada), Colin Suellentrop (OHL, USA), Marcel Noebels (WHL, Germany), Derek Mathers (OHL, Canada)
U.S. High School (1): Petr Placek (Connecticut, Czech Republic)
2010: 6 total picks
CHL (3): Michael Chaput (QMJHL, Canada), Tye McGinn (QMJHL, Canada), Brendan Ranford (WHL, Canada)
U.S. High School (1): Nick Luukko (Connecticut, USA)
USHL (1): Michael Parks (USA)
Sweden (1): Ricard Blidstrand (J20 SuperElit, Sweden)
2009: 6 total picks
CHL (4): Adam Morrison (WHL, Canada), Nicola Riopel (QMJHL, Canada), David Labrecque (QMJHL, Canada), Eric Wellwood (OHL, Canada)
NCAA (1): Oliver Lauridsen (WCHA, Denmark)
Sweden (1): Simon Bertilsson (Elitserien, Sweden)
2008: 5 total picks
CHL (4): Luca Sbisa (WHL, Switzerland), Marc-Andre Bourdon (QMJHL, Canada), Jacob DeSerres (WHL, Canada), Zac Rinaldo (OHL, Canada)
Sweden (1): Joacim Eriksson (J20 SuperElit, Sweden)
2007: 7 total picks
CHL (3): Kevin Marshall (QMJHL, Canada), Garrett Klotz (WHL, Canada), Mario Kempe (QMJHL, Sweden)
USNTDP (2): James van Riemsdyk (USA), Brad Phillips (USA)
NCAA (1): Jon Kalinski (WCHA, Canada)
NAHL (1): Patrick Maroon (USA)
2006: 10 total picks
CHL (2): Claude Giroux (QMJHL, Canada), Michael Dupont (QMJHL, Canada)
Russia (2): Denis Bodrov (RSL, Russia), Andrei Popov (U20, Russia)
NCAA (2): Jonathan Matsumoto (CCHA, Canada), Jon Rheault (Hockey East, USA)
USHL (1): Andreas Nödl (Austria)
USNTDP (1): Mike Ratchuk (USA)
Finland (1): Joonas Lehtivuori (J20, Finland)
Czech Republic (1): Jakub Kovar (J20, Czech Republic)
2005: 6 total picks
CHL(5): Steve Downie (OHL, Canada), Oskars Bartulis (QMJHL, Latvia), Jeremy Duchesne (QMJHL, USA), Josh Beaulieu (OHL, USA), John Flatters (WHL, Canada)
USHL (1): Matt Clackson (USA)
2004: 11 total picks
CHL (5): David Laliberte (QMJHL, Canada), Gino Pisellini (OHL, USA), Freddy Cabana (QMJHL, Canada), Martin Houle (QMJHL, Canada), Triston Grant (WHL, Canada)
USHL (2): Chris Zarb (USA), John Carter (USA)
U.S. High School (1): R.J. Anderson (Minnesota, USA)
EJHL (1): Rob Bellamy (New England Junior Coyotes, USA)
Canadian Junior A (1): Travis Gawryletz (BCHL, Canada)
Slovakia (1): Ladislav Scurko (U20, Slovakia)
2003: 11 total picks
CHL (7): Jeff Carter (OHL, Canada), Mike Richards (OHL, Canada), Colin Fraser (WHL, Canada), Alexandre Picard (QMJHL, Canada), Rick Kozak (WHL, Canada), David Tremblay (QMJHL, Canada), Rejean Beauchemin (WHL, Canada)
USHL (1): Ryan Potulny (USA)
Finland (1): Ville Hostikka (J20, Finland)
Slovakia (1): Stefan Ruzicka (Extraliga, Slovakia)
Switzerland (1): Kevin Romy (NLA, Switzerland)
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