Will Flyers start cleaning up messes at trade deadline, or make more mistakes?

It would be foolish to believe that the Flyers — or any other NHL team — could solve all of their problems at the trade deadline, or in free agency. The Flyers sure could make a bad situation worse, though.

With the NHL trade deadline less than a month away (March 21), and the Flyers season profoundly lost, it’s crucial for them to make the right calls, especially with Claude Giroux and Rasmus Ristolainen.

But what about the larger vision? Can the Flyers — seemingly still under GM Chuck Fletcher — fix their problems? Or will they merely pile on more sunk costs? At the moment, things look bleak. Let’s explore ways where the Flyers can improve, and ask tough questions about what needs to change.

Truly, it can be a dangerous game to try to parse when a GM is playing coy or actually being honest. Merely recall Marc Bergevin trading P.K. Subban almost in the same breath as denying his intention to move him.

So, it’s possible that the Flyers have every intention to trade Rasmus Ristolainen. They also might realize that trading Claude Giroux figures to be a delicate process — for the player, and Flyers fans.

We can only speculate as far as how much the Flyers want to keep Ristolainen and Giroux, versus how much this is a delicate dance to placate egos and (ideally) maximize trade returns. Still, note that the Flyers at least broached the subject of a contract extension with Ristolainen’s reps. And, in part respecting his no-trade clause, a lot of the language around the Flyers and Giroux leaves the ball in their captain’s court.

Read through this thorough breakdown of comparable NHL trade deadline situations from Charlie O’Connor (Athletic sub required), and you may agree with the following.

For a Flyers franchise in at least