Yeah, the Philadelphia Flyers can't simply go out and trade for everyone they want, but the J.J. Peterka trade between the Buffalo Sabres and Utah Mammoth will leave many fans scratching their heads.
On Wednesday night, multiple reports indicated that the Mammoth and Sabres had agreed to a swap of players, with Peterka heading to Utah and forward Josh Doan and defenseman Michael Kesselring heading to Buffalo.
Immediately after, it was reported that Peterka agreed to a five-year contract with the Mammoth worth $7.7 million annually.
Peterka, 23, scored a career-high 68 points this season in addition to 27 goals. The young German isn't much of a power play producer and is equal parts defensive liability and speed demon.
All in all, Peterka is a buccaneering player with some warts, but also dynamite offensive potential that allows him to turn games on their heads in a flash – literally.
Peterka had previously been linked to Philadelphia in some very recent Flyers trade rumors, though the price was said to be too great.
Well, unless the Flyers were adamant about not giving up a specific player, the price really wasn't that great.
Doan will become a good middle-six winger at his peak, though his true ceiling in terms of production remains questionable. Kesselring is who he is: a big, 6-foot-5 right-shot defender, which the Sabres need, and a player with good underlying analytics at that.
After the Trevor Zegras trade, the Flyers didn't get greedy with Peterka, though the price, at least on the surface, appeared to be more than reasonable.
Hypothetically, if the Flyers traded for and signed Peterka in addition to Zegras, they'd still have roughly $7.3 million in remaining cap space to sign Cam York and Jakob Pelletier.
And that's with Ivan Fedotov still on the NHL roster and Ryan Ellis not on LTIR.
Given Peterka's player profile, it's likely the Flyers see Owen Tippett as their own version of him, and they've already invested in Tippett with an eight-year, $49.6 million deal.
The big difference is that Tippett, who is, in fairness, much more physical, has yet to flirt with 60 points, while the younger Peterka nearly reached 70 points playing on the disaster that was the Buffalo Sabres this season.
Regardless of if it's Tippett or Peterka, the Flyers, now led by a new voice in Rick Tocchet, still need to find ways to coax more consistency out of their rush-dependent forwards.
If they can't, it doesn't matter which players they trade for and how cheap they came on the NHL trade market.
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