The Philadelphia Flyers lost in heartbreaking fashion to the San Jose Sharks last night, allowing a game-winning goal in the waning seconds of regulation to send them to their fifth straight defeat.
The Edmonton Oilers, after dropping their game Monday night to the Arizona Coyotes, have now lost 10 in a row.
Each team is teetering precariously on the edge of disaster. Each franchise is desperately in need of a change, some change, any change, aimed at reversing their fortunes and righting the ship on a once hope-filled season.
But there is a small, and somewhat bittersweet, glimmer of hope.
The joint air of dysfunction currently permeating each franchise could, in fact, make them perfect partners in trade.
There have already been a number of scenarios discussed about and between the franchises, and according to Eklund of Hockeybuzz.com, the two teams got to a point recently where Edmonton actually offered a fairly decent prize-- but it apparently didn't appear that way to the Flyers and general manager Ron Hextall.
"A source has informed me the Flyers and Oilers continue to talk, but as of last week the Flyers were not interested in a Nail Yakupov trade offer that was presented to them...that could change however..." Eklund wrote.
Yakupov is a young and immensely talented player who would fit well on a Flyers team seemingly bereft of scoring beyond the top line of Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek - the 21-year-old has three goals and four assists thus far this season. Whatever the remainder of the deal was must have been seriously lacking for Hextall to turn it down.
The good news for each franchise, as Eklund notes, is that they continue to have conversations aimed at getting a deal done.
There will, no doubt, be more to come on this situation as the two team's continue their plunge to the bottom of the standings.
