Although the Philadelphia Flyers may have missed out on Leo Carlsson and numerous other external targets throughout the start of the offseason, plenty of worthwhile players are still available for the taking.

The Flyers, of course, led with their biggest need, aiming to acquire a top-six center with trade interest in Mavrik Bourque and the attempted offer sheet on Carlsson.

They still have options, like Elias Pettersson, Shane Wright, and Adam Fantilli, but those players do not present as realistic or reasonable options at this point in time.

So where do we go from here? Well, the Flyers still need to re-sign Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale, who have filed for and seem to be heading towards arbitration, as well as Nikita Grebenkin.

The forward position is already a pretty full group in the absence of a true top-tier upgrade, but the defense is an area where the Flyers can still make significant strides without aiming to steal the moon.

Among the remaining restricted free agents, Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Alexander Nikishin is one of the best out there, still just 24 years old, and now comes with Stanley Cup-winning experience after just one year in the NHL.

The 6-foot-3 Russian had been a KHL regular since the 2019-20 season, when he was still a teenager. Making the jump from the KHL to the NHL at the end of last season, Nikishin played in four playoff games for the Hurricanes and recorded one assist.

This season, Nikishin featured in 81 games for Rod Brind'Amour's group, scoring 11 goals, 22 assists, and 33 points in a depth role, occasionally filling in higher when needed due to injuries.

Brind'Amour, of course, reduced Nikishin's role further and leaned on his more experienced, developed players down the Hurricanes' Cup-winning stretch, and as a result, Nikishin registered only one assist and one point in his 17 playoff appearances.

Quietly, though, the 24-year-old has already played in 21 Stanley Cup playoff games, and his first NHL season was very prolific for the role he was given.

Nikishin, a 10.2.c restricted free agent, is not eligible to sign and receive an offer sheet, so the only way he plays for a team other than the Hurricanes next season is if a trade comes to fruition.

That's where the Flyers should come in.

How Nikishin fits with the Flyers

Behind Travis Sanheim and Cam York, the Flyers have a need for an upgrade on defense with age beginning to catch up to Nick Seeler. And, on top of that, Seeler was never especially great with the puck on his stick, which limits how Rick Tocchet's Flyers can attack in transition.

Emil Andrae, arguably the Flyers' best breakout artist, was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs earlier in the offseason in the Joseph Woll deal, and even he couldn't feature regularly enough due to his diminutive 5-foot-9 stature.

Andrae has been replaced on the roster by Simon Benoit, who plays a different brand of hockey and doesn't have that same level of skill.

Nikishin, however, does, and he can play the role of a physical thumper if and when needed, too.

If and when the Flyers trade Rasmus Ristolainen, that presence will be needed on the blue line, and even then, we can easily argue that Nikishin has better puck skills and a higher offensive upside.

And if the Flyers manage to land Nikishin, the offensive upside of the defense would suddenly look quite promising, between him, Sanheim, York, Drysdale, David Jiricek, and/or Oliver Bonk.

Just one ambitious move could change the entire outlook of this team going forward.

That all said, one of the bigger obstacles of this whole idea is what Nikishin will want in regards to money and term on his next contract.

TSN NHL insider Darren Dreger believes that the former third-round pick's contractual demands are a "major factor" in any trade getting over the line.

Few teams are capable of paying the Hurricanes' trade price before offering a prolific contract, but the Flyers are one of them.

After all, the Flyers were prepared to sign Leo Carlsson for $18 million a year on top of paying up four first-round picks as compensation.

But if Nikishin wants $8 million or so on his next contract, the Flyers can do that. In fact, they probably should.

Sanheim still makes a modest $6.25 million against the cap, and it's possible Drysdale gets even more than that on his next deal.

Nikishin has a higher upside than both, provided he continues to develop and improve as he further adapts to the North American game with a full year of NHL experience under his belt.

Even if Nikishin's offense plateaus at 10 goals and 30 points, that's what Cam York did at his best in 2023-24. And after a 17-point 2024-25, York got $5.15 million annually from the Flyers.

As long as Nikishin's defense comes along, the Flyers could, at worst, be paying about $3 million more for a bigger York, who is also a much better shooting threat.

Honestly, it's hard to see the financial risk here from the Flyers' perspective.

Is this a trap set by the Hurricanes?

The common social media argument against trading for Nikishin is, why would the Flyers target a defenseman in Nikishin that a Stanley Cup-winning team is willing to trade away?

But the answer is more simple than that.

As long as Jaccob Slavin, K'Andre Miller, and Shayne Gostisbehere are healthy, Nikishin will be stuck behind them on the depth chart.

The Hurricanes can instead cash in on a young player that they would be otherwise paying money that far exceeds his role on the team, and get assets in return that they can use to bolster the roster in other ways.

Yes, Slavin, Sean Walker, Gostisbehere, and Jalen Chatfield are all 30 or older, but the Hurricanes just won the Cup. Their window is open now, as we have seen.

And if those players age out and the Hurricanes need to replace Nikishin, they can leverage their prospects and/or draft assets to get it done, as they already did once with Miller last offseason.

Carolina also just drafted a very safe, solid defense prospect in William Hakansson during the 2026 NHL Draft last month.

Entertaining a Nikishin trade is just smart GM'ing by Eric Tulsky; he isn't unnecessarily backing himself into corners and has all of his outs and options mapped out in advance.

The Michkov factor

And then there's the Matvei Michkov connection, which is arguably the Flyers' biggest wildcard in this whole thing.

Michkov and Nikishin were once KHL teammates on powerhouse club SKA St. Petersburg, for whom Nikishin served as captain in 2023-24 and 2024-25.

The Russian duo will be teammates again in the upcoming Match of the Year across the pond in Russia

Artemi Panarin, one of the two captains (Mikhail Sergachev) drafting the all-star teams, drafted both Michkov and Nikishin to his squad, reuniting them for the star-studded charity contest set to be played in St. Petersburg on July 25.

Kirill Kaprizov is also on Panarin's team, but that possibility is long gone. So is Pavel Mintyukov, who recently re-upped with Anaheim.

Naturally, the Flyers can instead hope (or ask) Michkov to recruit Nikishin to Philadelphia, where the team has a big need for his talents and services.

The Athletic's Kevin Kurz recently wrote in a mailbag, "My impression is that the organization, particularly the coaching staff, knows that everyone will have to do more to ensure Michkov is more integrated next season into what has become a tight-knit dressing room. Ultimately, it’s going to be up to Michkov — something that Briere seemed to reinforce at the end of the 2025-26 season — but I would expect a more proactive approach."

In recent seasons, the Flyers have had an exodus, of sorts, of players who were close to Michkov on and off the ice.

Ryan Poehling, who was once Michkov's locker room stall-mate that would trade Russian and English phrases with him, was dealt away in the Zegras trade.

Goalie Ivan Fedotov was traded last offseason, and not long after that, Egor Zamula shared the same fate.

The Flyers do have unsigned free agent Nikita Grebenkin as a fellow countryman for Michkov, but he's as young and inexperienced as his phenom teammate.

Over the course of this past season, the integration of youngsters Alex Bump, Denver Barkey, and Porter Martone helped some, as they are all of similar age, but it's not quite the same when you can't communicate in English the same way you can in Russian.

So, there's that aspect, too, where adding Nikishin would give Michkov another buddy he can really relate to and associate with, and one that the Flyers would presumably have a similar level of long-term investment in, in contrast to Fedotov and Zamula.

It was declared that the Flyers are now swashbuckling risk-takers, pirates who will bowl over anyone in their way, after the Carlsson debacle, but there was little risk involved there. The Flyers were giving away what would have been four late first-round picks for a 21-year-old, point-per-game center whose large contract would have just paid him in advance for what he was on track to become.

Trading for a less proven but talented Nikishin, who plays for a division rival? Now that's a real risk. And the coming months will prove how far the Flyers are willing to go, what bumps and bruises they are willing to accept, and how badly they are willing to be burned, on the road to building a winner.