The Philadelphia Flyers have acquired forward Carl Grundström and defenseman Artem Guryev from the San Jose Sharks in exchange for a conditional 2026 sixth-round pick and the contract of Ryan Ellis. The condition on the sixth-rounder is that the Sharks will receive either the Flyers’ sixth-round pick or the Columbus Blue Jackets’ – whichever is higher in the 2026 NHL Entry Draft order.

The Flyers appear to have made this trade for multiple reasons. First and foremost, trading away Ellis’ contract (runs through next season at $6.25MM AAV with $10MM in actual cash still to be paid out) not only saves the Flyers quite a bit of money, it also allows the team to avoid utilizing long-term injured reserve (LTIR) in order to gain cap relief.

Since Ellis’ injuries will keep him from ever playing again, the Flyers have, for almost all of Ellis’ tenure with the team, utilized LTIR to work around the defenseman’s $6.25MM cap hit. They’ll no longer need to do so, which will allow them to accumulate cap space over the course of the season. Since LTIR provides an allowance for a team to exceed the salary cap’s upper limit (rather than, say, a player on LTIR’s cap hit simply “no longer counting”) a team utilizing LTIR for relief cannot bank away cap space over the course of the season. Should the Flyers find themselves in position to potentially make additions at the trade deadline, this additional flexibility will come in handy.

Beyond just the financial motivations behind the trade, the Flyers also have an on-ice motivation to acquire a player like Grundström. The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz reported yesterday that the performance of a few of the Flyers’ younger forwards in training camp and the preseason was “underwhelming,” specifically naming two roster hopefuls (Alex Bump and Jett Luchanko) as players who did not meet expectations.

If the Flyers indeed believe their younger forwards who they may have expected to claim NHL jobs aren’t quite ready yet, it is understandable that they would seek outside reinforcement. The 27-year-old Grundström is a winger with nearly 300 games of NHL regular-season experience, who also brings 17 games of playoff experience. He was a steady bottom-six winger for the Los Angeles Kings from late 2020 through early 2024, before he was traded to the Sharks in June of that year.

Grundström’s season in San Jose was one he’d like to forget, though, as he scored just nine points in 56 games and averaged just 9:35 time-on-ice per game. He did not reach the standard of performance in San Jose that he set in Los Angeles, and as a result the Sharks have moved on. It’s an extremely important season for Grundstrom, whose two-year, $1.85MM AAV is set to expire in June. He’ll now look to carve out a role in the Flyers’ bottom-six to maintain his status as a full-time NHL player. (Update: The Flyers placed Grundström on waivers Sunday, indicating that he’s ticketed for the AHL, rather than fourth-line duty in Philadelphia.)

The other player the Flyers acquired in this trade is Guryev, a big 6’4 Russian blueliner. Guryev was a fifth-round pick of the Sharks at the 2021 draft and has spent the last two seasons with the Sharks’ minor-league affiliates. He played in 31 AHL games in his debut professional campaign in 2023-24 but spent all of 2024-25 in the ECHL. His entry-level contract expires after this season.

From the Sharks’ perspective, this deal accomplishes multiple things. Firstly, the team has cleared $1.85MM off its books by trading away Grundström, and while the winger is an experienced veteran, he never earned head coach Ryan Warsofsky’s trust, and the team has other players it can utilize in Grundström’s vacated fourth-line role.

The deal also adds another draft pick for San Jose, and those two goals come at a relatively limited cost. While the actual cash cost of Ellis’ contract is somewhat steep, there have been some (unconfirmed) reports that Ellis’ contract is insured, in which case the actual expenditure on the part of the Sharks’ organization would be limited.

From a cap hit perspective, this is more a matter of the Sharks trying to maximize the position they have found themselves in, rather than an attempt to materially alter their salary cap circumstances. Because of Logan Couture’s early retirement due to injury, the Sharks were already expected to utilize LTIR for the next two seasons. That the team acquired Carey Price’s contract from the Montreal Canadiens was reflective of their reality – they expect to be in LTIR, and as a result have sought opportunities to maximize their position.

This trade is another effort by the Sharks to do so, and while the return is somewhat limited, it’s still Grier executing on an opportunity to add assets to the organization. And with the Sharks still rebuilding (and prized young centers Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith still two years away from RFA status) the Sharks won’t be pressed to accumulate cap space and walk the salary cap tightrope the way other clubs have had to.

While this is hardly an Earth-shattering trade for either club, it is an example of each team working to maximize its respective positions. In a world where fans seek to assign a “winner” and “loser” to every transaction, this trade looks unlikely to have either, it’s simply two teams working together to make a deal that is likely to pay (likely marginal) dividends to each side.

Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images