Fantasy NHL Trade Impact: Will Petr Mrazek Keep the Flyers Rolling?

Fantasy NHL: DETROIT, MI – JANUARY 31: Petr Mrazek #34 of the Detroit Red Wings celebrates a 2-1 shootout win while playing the San Jose Sharks at Little Caesars Arena on January 31, 2018 in Detroit, Michigan. Detroit won the game 2-1 in a shootout. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) /

Fantasy NHL Trade Impact: Will Petr Mrazek Keep the Flyers Rolling?

Ron Hextall is a legendary figure in Philadelphia. The Flyers GM spent eleven of his 13 career NHL seasons with the Flyers as their top net-minder. Hextall’s legend goes well beyond his stats, as he had a modest career .895 save percentage and gave up 2.98 goals per game, not an ideal Fantasy NHL candidate.

But during the late 1980’s and 1990’s, Hextall was able to help the Flyers become consistent playoff contenders with improved play. So, we know Hextall understands the importance of the goaltending position in hockey, maybe better than other NHL General Managers.

After Hextall took over as the Flyers GM, re-building from the ground up has been his top priority. Quickly, the organization began to focus specifically on defense and goaltending, followed by young center and winger additions. Since then, the Flyers have acquired one of the leagues best young goaltenders, Carter Hart. Hart is now dominating the Western Hockey League, and he recently won a gold medal with Team Canada in the World Juniors Championship.

The Flyers also have some other great young goaltending talent like Felix Sandstrom and Kirill Ustimenko. But they also have more experienced talent like Alex Lyon, who was recently called up from the AHL, due to injuries at the position. Which is why they made a trade recently.

Last off-season, the Flyers decided to retain Michal Neuvirth, who arguably played better than Steve Mason last season, now with the Winnipeg Jets. Neuvirth is nearing the age when goalies often begin to peak in production. But Michal has been inconsistent throughout his career and is often injured.

So last off-season, the Flyers signed former Flames goaltender Brian Elliott to a two year deal. The Canadian goaltender is now 32 years-old, but likely has several years left of NHL level hockey. He and Neuvirth were both signed to two-year deals, likely in the hopes that they can help the team elevate to another level within the next two years, at which point they’ll hand over the crease-control to the younger group of goalies.

Unfortunately for the Flyers, Brian Elliott started to experience injury issues at the turn of the calendar year, and now is out for several weeks due to a surgery. Shortly after Elliott’s injury was announced, and while the Flyers began to emerge as a serious playoff contender, Neuvirth experienced an injury and is now also out for several weeks.

In between Elliott and Neuvirth’s injury, there were already rumors that Hextall was making phone calls to find an insurance goaltender. In the meantime, they had called up Alex Lyon, who was already impressing the organization at the NHL level. But with the Neuvirth injury, Hextall was hard-pressed to find a solution, and fast.

The answer was a deal with the Red Wings, sending a conditional 2018 fourth round pick and conditional 2019 third round pick to Detroit, in exchange for the Red Wings back up 26-year-old goalie Petr Mrazek.

Immediate Fantasy NHL Impact

The trade has already been hailed by many as a great move by Hextall, who was in a very tough situation. But time will tell as to whether this move plays out well for the Flyers. We still have to see how the Red Wings conditional draft picks flush out, in comparison to the former Red Wings backup net-minder.