Flyers: What's The Cost To Acquire Scott Laughton?

The Philadelphia Flyers have taken a step back from last season, but they also overachieved in 2023-24. That being said, they are still rebuilding, but are in the latter half of that rebuild. In doing so, they are likely looking to move assets to accelerate that rebuild. One player that has constantly come up for the Flyers is Scott Laughton.

His name has been mentioned for over a year now, but the price has always been high to acquire the versatile veteran with a good cap hit. According to David Pagnotta, the Flyers want a first round pick or a prospect of equal value in return for Laughton ahead of the trade deadline. Once again, if the Flyers don't get what they want, they can hold onto him, but the longer they do, the weaker the return will be and the likeliness of his production going down also increases.

Laughton has one more year left on his contract at $3 million AAV and the 30-year-old has no trade protection. He can play up and down the lineup at any forward position and plays a very physical game as well. Not only is he able to kill penalties, he also received some Selke Trophy votes last season and can produce offensively well enough.

Laughton gets time on the power play, but not as much this season. He has 11 goals and 26 points in 55 games, but is also logging his least amount of minutes per game since 2019-20 because the team is younger and there's more competition throughout the lineup. He could be a great third or fourth line player in the playoffs for a contender and while I think a later first round pick is fair for a contending team, I see why some teams haven't been willing to pay for that as well.