Looking at Ron Hextall’s Wish List for This Off Season

VOORHEES – Take a look at the Flyers’ roster on paper and both the money and terms associated with the names.

Sure seems like general manager Ron Hextall has his hands tied if he wants to make any serious changes to the team that will suit up for opening night in October.

He doesn’t have a whole lot of salary-cap space to work with if he wants to re-sign defenseman Michael Del Zotto, which he is very confident he can do, and also plug a few more holes.

If he wants to check off all those boxes on his summer wish list he’ll have to make a trade or two.

“You never know because you don’t know who else is going to want to do something,” Hextall said Wednesday. “It’s all hypothetical.”

(Listen to Ron Hextall on the Sports Bash with Mike Gill)

It’s true that the trade market is unpredictable. Heading into last year’s draft, not many would have thought that Hextall would have come close to landing the first-overall pick and thus defenseman Aaron Ekblad, but he was close.

Few thought at the trade deadline the Flyers had assets that would garner a big return, but they got a first-round pick and roster player from the Tampa Bay Lightning for Braydon Coburn and Kimmo Timonen, who hadn’t played all season, reaped two picks, including a second rounder in the 2015 draft, from the Chicago Blackhawks.

While Hextall may drum up some interest in Sunrise, Fla., at June’s draft, there aren’t many more players that seem like they’d both be attractive to other teams and could clear significant cap space. The best shot at that seems to be if the Flyers can trade Vinny Lecavalier and his $4.5 million cap hit, a contract Hextall said he would not buy out.

“We are not going to trade top young players for 29 or 30 year olds to try to take a one-year run at the Cup,” Hextall said. “That is not going to happen.”

One thing he’ll have to do is find a backup goaltender.