Could Nic Hague be a good fit for the Flyers?

The Philadelphia Flyers are looking to add on the margins this summer and defense appears to be one of the areas they’ll target.

According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman during a radio appearance last week, the Flyers have been linked to Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Nic Hague. Checking in with Flyers team sources, I have been able to corroborate said reports. 

The 26-year-old Hague is an RFA, and with the Golden Knights already having significant dollars committed to their back end, rumors have been swirling of the player’s availability. While there have been talks between Vegas and the Flyers (along with other teams interested in the hulking blueliner), I’ve been told that Golden Knights GM Kelly McCrimmon is in no rush to decide on his player. According to one person I spoke with, the media chatter has been driven by Hague’s agent, Murray Koontz, to generate interest in his player. 

For the Flyers, adding a player like Hague to their back end would help reinforce their desire to strengthen their defense corps. At 6-foot-6, 245 pounds, Hague would become the Flyers’ largest defenseman; with Rasmus Ristolainen recovering from triceps surgery and slated to potentially miss some time, Hague’s size would be welcomed on the back end. 

The Flyers’ defense isn’t necessarily small. But beyond Ristolainen, Travis Sanheim (who isn’t physical despite his size) and Nick Seeler, there is a lack of consistent size in the lineup on defense. Egor Zamula, though lanky and not overly physical, is a good size, but he has yet to prove being a consistent top-six defenseman; speaking with one person, Zamula could be the club’s seventh rearguard to start the season. 

Speaking with a Flyers’ source, the internal belief is that you can only have one undersized defenseman with aspirations of making a deep run – a thought that was echoed to me by a Western Conference GM last season. Jamie Drysdale, whose game trended upwards late last season, is that guy on their blueline at the moment and would stand to be a direct beneficiary of the arrival of a player like Hague. From a stylistic perspective, Hague would (theoretically) be a perfect partner for Drysdale. Seeler was Drysdale’s partner for the lion’s share of last season, but the former would potentially be best served in playing in a bottom pair role in the long term given his capabilities. 

In theory, Seeler could bump down to the third pairing to play with a younger defenseman like right-shot Helge Grans or Zamula (though he would have to play on his off side) while Ristolainen is out with injury. This could set up a top four of Hague playing with Drysdale, along with maintaining the long-standing top-pair of Sanheim and Cam York – a group that could be intact for the long haul given all of their ages and capabilities. 

Emil Andrae is a name who had a decent stretch in the NHL last season, but it doesn’t sound like the club is overly high on him at the moment. After being shot out of a cannon upon his arrival last season in the NHL, Andrae finished the year in disappointing fashion – even in the AHL. Being undersized in his own right, I wonder if the potential acquisition of a guy like Hague could directly impact Andrae’s future with the Flyers, though that is purely speculative on my part and potentially premature to draw such a conclusion. 

One player who I thought could be impacted by acquiring a guy like Hague is York, who is still a pending RFA. The 24-year-old, 2019 first-round pick is due a new contract. As of last week, I was told he had made no progress in hammering out a new deal.

Checking in with a source yesterday, I was told that acquiring Hague would have no bearing on York’s next contract or his future with the club. I have wondered about York’s availability via trade should the Flyers look to explore the trade market for a center, but I haven’t been able to get a read on where things stand on that front. 

The chatter has been that the Knights would want a cheaper winger in exchange for Hague should they elect to trade him; according to a Flyers source, one of their “many wingers” would be in play in a theoretical deal for the Vegas defenseman. The low-hanging fruit is to look directly at Bobby Brink, who is under contract for one more season at a $1.5 million AAV. Given the Flyers’ abundance of right wingers and his place on the depth chart, Brink would make sense (at least on paper) as the guy to go the other way in a potential Hague deal. 

All this being said, a source with knowledge of the situation told me last night that a “bunch of teams” were told Brink was not available when they had spoken with the Flyers recently. Take that for what it’s worth, but it doesn’t sound like the Flyers are shopping Brink by any stretch. At the same time, is he really an untouchable asset? That I would find hard to believe. 

As for a potential contract for Hague, Will Borgen’s five-year contract with a $4.1 million average annual value (AAV) with the New York Rangers was one that stood out to me as a good fit. Given Borgen is a similar age and style to Hague, the deal is one that could be viewed as a comparable. A source close to the Flyers viewed it as a fair comparable as of Monday evening. There are still reservations about how Hague would perform in a top-four capacity, given his bottom pair utilization with Vegas to this point. However, with the salary cap set to skyrocket in the coming years, $4.1 million per year would be a fair gamble to take on Hague.

I don’t believe that the chatter surrounding the Flyers and the Golden Knights regarding Hague is as intense as it has been portrayed in the media to this point. However, there is some validity to it. Although the Knights have yet to make a decision on where they want to go with Hague in the long term, the Flyers will be one of the teams keeping tabs on the situation as the process moves along.