Flyers Likely to Trade Dale Weise

(Photo: Kate Frese)

By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 

Friday’s practice featured a notable absence for the Flyers. Dale Weise was not on the ice.

Weise was placed on waivers on Tuesday and cleared on Wednesday, but is still listed on the active roster. By virtue of simply being on the active roster, Weise should have been on the ice.

The situation got worse when interim head coach Scott Gordon said that Weise would also not be traveling with the team to Montreal for Saturday night’s game. Weise has apparently been told to stay home as the Flyers try to work out a trade for the veteran forward, a report confirmed by NBC Sports Philadelphia’s John Boruk.

Weise signed with the Flyers in 2016, one of the first long-term free-agency deals made by then GM Ron Hextall. Weise’s contract was a four-year, $9.4 million deal with an average annual value of $2.35 million.

Weise made his second trip through waivers this week, the first coming at the beginning of the season. It ended with the same result. No team claimed Weise, which means moving him via trade is going to require some effort on the Flyers part. No team is willing to take on the contract, so the Flyers would almost definitely be retaining salary and they may have to include something else like a draft pick just to sweeten the deal.

Weise has typically been a good teammate and locker room presence for the Flyers over his time in Philadelphia. He’s had an honest assessment of this season all the way through and Nolan Patrick called him “the best teammate I ever had.”

Those words aren’t exactly ringing through of late. Weise was not sitting among the scratches in the press box on Monday or Wednesday, despite being on the active roster both nights and his absence from practice is another blemish.

Ultimately, the relationship between Weise and the Flyers was marred from the beginning. At the time of his signing, Hextall viewed Weise as a key addition to the lineup. He was coming off a season where he scored 14 goals in 56 games with Montreal before being traded to Chicago, where he finished the season with one assist in the final 15 games. In his time with the Flyers, his career-best marks were eight goals and 15 points in 64 games in his first season with the team in 2016-17. In total, he scored just 17 goals and had 34 points in 152 games with the Flyers.

So it appears that Weise has worn the Orange and Black for the final time, and it’s just a matter of time before he’s the next one shipped out as Chuck Fletcher works to shape the roster his way.