THU JUN 20, 2019 9:56 PM PDT (12:56 AM EDT)
The 2019 National Hockey League Draft weekend in Vancouver has arrived. If there are any trades made by the Flyers this weekend, they will be reported here in a daily running blog format. Otherwise, there will be an end-of-night blog on Friday night discussing the Flyers' first-round selection in the Draft and then a Draft weekend wrapup blog on Saturday night.
My
first-round mock draft is available on the Flyers' official website. I will post the link when it goes live. We will also be doing a running blog, updated after each pick is made by the Flyers., Links to any Flyers Radio 24/7 coverage will also be shared both in this blog space and via Twitter.
The Flyers currently hold the following picks in this year's Draft:
1st round: 11th overall
2nd round: none (Justin Braun trade with San Jose)
3rd round: 65th (New Jersey's pick, via Edmonton), 72nd
4th round: 103rd
5th round: none (Kevin Hayes rights trade with Winnipeg)
6th round: 165th, 169th (Arizona, acquired in Jordan Weal trade)
7th round: 196th, 201st (Montreal pick)
Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher said on Wednesday that he planned to continue to speak to teams about potential trades while in Vancouver, however his primary focus has shifted to the Draft itself and to meeting with the agents of the Flyers' restricted free agents -- Ivan Provorov, Travis Sanheim, Travis Konecny, Scott Laughton and Ryan Hartman -- to try to get the ball rolling on the negotiation process.
In recent weeks, Fletcher has said that the RFA market leaguewide this year is quite "aggressively priced" on long-term deals. He said that many agents and GMs are playing a waiting game to see which team makes the first move on a comparable player, thereby setting the market value that triggers earnest negotiations. Until then, no one wants to tip their hand so huge gaps in initial asks compared to the required qualifying offers are quite common in the early phase.
Fletcher has said that he would not be surprised if the negotiations with the Flyers' RFAs took some time beyond the start of free agency season on July 1. However, the GM also said it's pretty much par for the course and he believes that all of the deals will get done over the course of the summer ahead of training camp. Of the various deals that need to get done, the negotiations with Provorov could have the widest price-point discrepancies between shorter-term ("bridge") deals that lead into a latter RFA negotiation or potential future arbitration case and longer-term deals. Fletcher has said he's open to going either route with his key RFAs, and it will depend on the mutual comfort level with the price.
In regards to the Draft, over on the Flyers' official website, we did a Draft 411 series that previews: 1)
the bumper crop of USNTDP players eligible for the 2019 Draft, 2)
the depth and top ends of the WHL, OHL, and QMJHL Draft-eligible groups, and 3)
European-based prospects from Russia, Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere.
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Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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