Flyers With a Busy Draft Night for a Change

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It's been a while since the Flyers gave us a first round pick to pore over (2008, Luca Sbisa), but one of the pieces they received in return for sending Jeff Carter to Columbus was the #8 overall pick in this year's NHL entry draft, so we can once again feel slightly normal on a draft night. So far anyway.

After that, they were scheduled to have a pair of picks in the third round (68 and 84), with the former also coming in the Carter deal and the latter coming from Pittsburgh for the rights to get blown off by Dan Hamhuis. Here's hoping pick 84 turns into a megastar.
The 84th pick was flipped to Phoenix as a condition of Bryzgalov's signing just before the draft.

There's talk the Flyers will try to move up in the first round, possibly as high as the third pick, and also that they're looking for a defenseman. With the age of their blue line compared to the rest of their ranks, that'd be a wise area to target.

Bill Meltzer raises the possibility of D Ryan Murphy if they stay at 8, which is right around where Murphy slots in TSN's rankings. I'm by no means an expert on players who haven't been drafted yet, but a quick look at his vitals shows he's slightly bigger than me and posted 79 points (26 goals) in 63 games for Kitchener of the OHL last season. So, quite the offensively skilled defenseman.

We'll hold off on any further speculation, as we'd only be wading out of our comfort zone further. The Flyers have made some splashes on draft day in previous seasons, but after yesterday, today they could just take their picks as slotted, with only a bit of wheeling and dealing of picks. Ed Snider told Tim Panaccio the team isn't looking to make any more major moves at this point.

But, it's the Flyers, a team with little moss on them at any given time, so who knows. 

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