If the Philadelphia Flyers were hoping to come away from Friday's NHL trade deadline with a haul, the latest Edmonton Oilers trade poured some cold water on that.
On Monday, the Oilers swung an important trade for their Stanley Cup contention hopes, sending a 2028 second-round pick to the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for defenseman Connor Murphy at 50% salary retention.
Murphy, 32, has one year remaining on his contract at a $4.4 million cap hit, so he's a pure rental for the Oilers for the cost of just $2.2 million after Chicago's retention.
For the Flyers, that doesn't bode well for Rasmus Ristolainen's trade value coming into Friday.
Ristolainen, 31, has two years remaining, including this one, on his contract at a $5.5 million cap hit, so his extra year of term won't offer contending teams the flexibility they might need, like Edmonton did.
And, while both Murphy and Ristolainen are 6-foot-4 right-handers, Murphy has not suffered a season-ending injury two years in a row.
Despite not having those question marks, carrying a cheaper salary, and coming with no strings attached, Murphy's value was still just a second-round pick two drafts away.
It's been long said that the Flyers desire a first-round pick or player/prospect equivalent in exchange for their defenseman, but the current market now indicates this won't be the case.
And, it was only last week that Brett Kulak fetched Sam Girard and a second-round pick.
Based on Edmonton's trade for Murphy, Colorado sending Girard to Pittsburgh for Kulak was more or less a throw-in to make the deal work.
The Flyers, winners of three straight at the time of this writing, may just opt to keep Ristolainen if this is the market for him and re-assess once again in the offseason, much to the chagrin of fans eagerly awaiting a true rebuild.
Aside from Owen Tippett, who has historically generated a good amount of trade buzz himself, the Flyers don't have much to sell ahead of the trade deadline this year.
Christian Dvorak was tied down and rewarded with a five-year contract, and depth forwards like Nick Deslauriers, Garnet Hathaway, and Carl Grundstrom more than likely won't be worth the squeeze for contenders.
That could leave the Flyers in a bind over the course of the next three days.