Flying Forward: Pros & Cons to Matt Niskanen Trade

The Philadelphia Flyers were looking to acquired a veteran defenseman to help groom one of the young blue-liners. It looks like Chuck Fletcher and company have landed their man in Matt Niskanen. Niskanen was acquired from the Washington Capitals on June 14, 2019, in exchange for defenseman Radko Gudas. The Flyers will also retain 30% of Gudas’ salary, or a little over $1M will count towards their salary cap next season.

There are pros and cons to this specific trade, just like there are any trade in the NHL. I will wait until the season is over to reserve my final judgment on the trade, but when the new first broke I was not a big fan of it. Niskanen is older than Gudas and there are cap implications that I didn’t like. This is a big offseason for the Flyers, who have a decent amount of cap space to play with, and are looking to add pieces to win now.

1) Andrew MacDonald Contract Buy Out

Chuck Fletcher, the Flyers’ GM, announced Saturday that the Flyers were putting Andrew MacDonald on unconditional waivers for the purpose of a buy out. Having cleared waivers the Flyers are on the hook for about $2M next season, according to CapFriendly. MacDonald has underachieved since the team brought him over in a trade during the 2013-14 season. After just 19 games with the team, he was signed to a six-year, $30-million contract that had a cap hit of $5M per season. It wasn’t his fault that Flyers’ management completely over valued him at the time. He was only ever going to amount to a fifth or sixth defensemen, but management signed him like he could be a top four guy. 

He has been anything but good since coming over in the trade with the Islanders. Yes, he hasn’t played terrible but MacDonald also never played up to the value of his contract. His signing took playing time away from the kids like Shayne Gostisbehere and Travis Sanheim because the former coach liked to play washed up veterans over the young kids. In five plus seasons with the Flyers, he played in 291 games and had 11 goals, 61 assists and 72 points while averaging 19:33 of ice time per game. In his 11 year career, MacDonald has 28 goals, 133 assists and 161 points in 21:23 of ice time per game.

2) Bring Stability to the Defense Pairings

It seems as though the Flyers are willing to go with some youngsters on the blue line this season. Niskanen is expected to be a leader for them and his presence will also stabilize the back end. Gostisbehere has had an up-and-down start to his career and is looking to have a bounce back year. He hasn’t been able to find that one steady partner, but that could happen this season if the Flyers choose to put him with Niskanen. Gostisbehere could really benefit from playing with a veteran guy, who can play both ends of the ice and move the puck.

The other route could be to put Niskanen with Ivan Provorov, but that would mean logging top pairing minutes and at this stage of the game, I don’t know that Niskanen would be able to do that. Either way, the back end becomes stabilized somewhat with the addition of Niskanen because you have a defenseman that can play in all situations and log some big minutes. The veteran presence and knowing what it takes to make a Cup run will help this youthful blue line group immensely. 

3) Fits Alain Vigneault’s System

Niskanen may be getting older, but he can still skate and get the puck out of the defensive zone. Vigneualt’s teams are known for pushing the pace and the addition of Niskanen will help the team do exactly this. He can either skate the puck out of the zone or make the stretch pass to a forward in the neutral zone and the team can be off to the races. The 32-year-old defenseman can also get through the neutral zone and the Flyers had trouble doing just that at times last season. 

Niskanen can get the team set up faster in the offensive zone and get them some chances in transition with his puck movement and skating ability. He also has a decent point shot so he could be used on the second power play unit, which really struggled to get shots through last season. The Flyers also don’t have to worry about one wrong move and Niskanen being suspended for multiple games.

Here are three things that I don’t like about the trade, which I am willing to give a chance since all of this is being based off of previous seasons.

1) Niskanen on the Decline

Niskanen has been on the decline for the past few seasons. In 2017-18, he only played 68 games amounting in seven goals, 22 assists and 29 points while averaging 22:36 of ice time per game. During the 2018-19 season, he played in 80 games, scoring eight goals, 17 assists and 25 points in 21:56 of ice time per game. It doesn’t look like much of a decline, but he is getting older and with age comes decreased minutes and injuries.

The defenseman has logged over 20 minutes per game during the course of his career, and he will be counted on for at least top four minutes in Philly, maybe even top pairing minutes. The more minutes he plays during the regular season could mean, the more fatigued he could get during certain points of the season. The Flyers will have to manage his ice time and his play. If his play starts to decrease at any point in the season then his minutes may need to be brought down or even sat a game or two.

2) Loss of Physicality on Team

Gudas was one of the defensemen with the most hits in the League last season, and they’ll be losing that from the back end with traded away. Niskanen isn’t the most physical guy on the blue line. Yes, the Flyers will likely still have Robert Hagg back there, who likes to throw hits, but Gudas also had an intimidation factor when he was on the ice. Gudas would stand up for his teammates and drop the gloves, if necessary.

The addition of Niskanen and loss of Gudas means the Flyers may not be as physical on the back end, and that could either help or hurt them. Niskanen is a better skater than Gudas so that should help to push the pace, but the Flyers really don’t have that one guy that is going to stand up for a teammate or finish a check. There isn’t that factor to make team intimidated to go through the middle of the ice against the Flyers anymore, and who knows what will happen with big Samuel Morin, who has not had any luck staying healthy the past two years.

3) Helping Out a Division Rival 

The Flyers retained a little over $1M of cap space of Gudas’ contract and took on the $5.75M salary of Niskanen. In total, the Flyers helped to clear about $4 million in cap space. The Capitals are still trying to re-sign Carl Hagelin, who was added around the trade deadline last season and helped to improve the penalty kill immensely. This could very well lead to nothing since the Capitals will still need to find a way to clear more cap space and sign their own restricted free agents. However if they do, then the Flyers could have handed them some of that cap space with this trade.