It felt inevitable, didn’t it?
Ever since the whispers started making their way around the league as far back as last year, the Philadelphia Flyers and Trevor Zegras felt like a match that could be a mere phone call away from happening. And this morning, it finally came together.
Flyers GM Danny Briere pulled back the curtain on his biggest move of the offseason (so far), shedding light on the long, winding road that brought the 24‑year‑old center to Philadelphia.
“You don’t really decide when a trade happens until both teams agree,” Briere said. “There’s times where we’ve had some discussions on Trevor in the past. There were times where it wasn’t feasible on our end, and sometimes—most of the time—it was Anaheim not willing to let go of him. We got to a point where the timing was right for both teams, and it made sense to do it this morning.”
It’s rare in this league for a player with as much highlight‑reel flair as Zegras to come available, and Briere didn’t shy away from the fact that the Flyers had kept an eye on him for a long time. Now that he’s in the fold, a lot of the questions revolve around where he’ll slot into the lineup. Will he be used down the middle—an area where the Flyers have been scarce—or shift out to the wing?
“That’s more of a question for Rick Tocchet,” Briere said. “But we hope he can help in the center position because that’s obviously an area where we can improve. At the same time, if [Tocchet] decides he’s better suited on the wing and there are guys who are better in the middle, he’s going to decide. But we hope that he can help fill the void in the middle.”
With any high‑profile trade, questions about a player’s medical status inevitably arise. Zegras has unfortunately struggled with injuries throughout his time in Anaheim, and Briere addressed those concerns head‑on.
“Everything was cleared,” he emphasized. “Nothing to worry about, nothing that could be an issue moving forward. There’s no issue on that part.”
For the Flyers front office, making a blockbuster trade doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Briere spoke openly about how the team constantly taps into its internal network, relying on its own locker room to get the pulse on prospective additions.
In this case, that meant checking in with Jamie Drysdale and Cam York, both of whom have close connections with Zegras.
“We’re very close to our players,” Briere said. “We talk to them constantly. We always try to get news about players they know around the league. That’s any of us downstairs — sometimes it’s [Keith Jones], sometimes it’s the coaches. We just check in about guys around the league, get their thoughts, and get how they feel about certain guys.
"It’s always helpful to get info from the players because they play against each other… We’re constantly asking our players about other players around the league. We knew that Jamie and Cam York were close [with Trevor], but we never directly asked them about him, like if their friend was available or anything like that!”
The trade marks another bold step for the Flyers, a franchise making a concerted effort to evolve, to find the right pieces that can carry the torch as the team reshapes itself. In acquiring Zegras, Briere didn’t just land a dynamic forward in a masterful demonstration of trade business—he landed a player that can help define this next chapter of Flyers hockey.
