The Flyers needed to trade Wayne Simmonds. Turns out, they needed to do it sooner. | Mike Sielski

It was a scene that probably shouldn’t have played out as it did, that probably shouldn’t have played out at all. In a Lincoln Financial Field locker room late Saturday night, a thrilling Stadium Series victory just behind them, the Flyers gathered to say goodbye to Wayne Simmonds. Jake Voracek made a speech, then hugged Simmonds, who made a speech, too. He had not yet been traded, but he would be, to the Nashville Predators in the final few minutes before Monday’s 3 p.m. deadline, lest the Flyers lose him for nothing to free agency this offseason. The timing of the transaction didn’t matter. Everyone knew it was coming. It probably should have come about two years earlier.

That’s the sort of assertion that one can make only in the oft-unfair and illuminating light of retrospect, but it doesn’t make it any less true. The modest return that Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher got for Simmonds – forward Ryan Hartman and a conditional fourth-round draft pick – reaffirmed the opportunity that the franchise and its former GM, Ron Hextall, missed during the summer of 2017. If the Flyers were ever to receive maximum value for Simmonds, that was the time to do it. That was the time to trade him.

The idea of trading Simmonds at the time would have been heresy, of course. The bond among him and the Flyers and their fan base lasted eight years, and it was real and strong. More than any player over that period, Simmonds embodied the kind of player Flyers fans fall for and love forever. Hell, he was the prototype. Simmonds averaged 29.9 goals per 82 games for a six-year stretch mostly by entering the most dangerous areas of the ice and refusing to vacate them. He would root himself in front of the net like an oak, unyielding and immovable, and lash at loose pucks and rebounds and tight cross-crease passes. Then, he might deliver a bone-rattling body check or fight an opponent’s toughest player, just to keep things honest. “He’s a true Flyer,” Fletcher said.

But when such a bond is so strong, it can blind the very people it binds together. Hextall should have given the idea of trading Simmonds serious thought then, and the subsequent two seasons have shown that, for all the criticism Hextall would have had to endure for even contemplating such a move, let alone pulling it off, the Flyers would likely have been better off in the long term if he had.

Let’s set the context: Simmonds scored 31 goals for the Flyers in the 2016-17 season; at the time, he was still one of the NHL’s best power forwards. He was vital to their power play. He was a respected team leader. He brought edginess and toughness to a team that otherwise lacked it. He was also turning 29 that offseason, and he had two years remaining on a six-year contract that, relative to what he provided the Flyers, made him one of the best bargains in hockey. The contract’s average annual value against the salary cap was just $3.975 million, which meant Simmonds was making less per year than Sean Couturier and Brayden Schenn, each of whom was at least three years younger. And while Simmonds’ contract reportedly had a modified no-trade clause that would have made it challenging for Hextall to move him, it wouldn’t have made it impossible.

Had the Flyers been Stanley Cup contenders, or if they had progressed further in their makeover, it wouldn’t have made sense for them to trade Simmonds. But they had failed to qualify for the playoffs in 2016-17 and had not won a postseason series since 2012, and they had to start asking themselves, if they hadn’t already: When are we going to be ready to compete for a championship, and what will our team look like once we are? They had to weigh whether Simmonds – nearing 30, with so physically demanding a style of play – would remain so valuable to them in the years to come, or whether he would prove more valuable for what he could bring back in a trade before he might begin to decline. Which he has. He scored 24 goals in 75 games last season, playing through several injuries, and he has 16 goals in 62 games this season, including just one in his last 16.

Hextall did not respond to a text message Monday night requesting comment on this subject, but based on his actions as GM that offseason, he apparently considered those broader questions. On June 23, 2017, he traded Schenn to the St. Louis Blues for a package that included a first-round draft pick – a pick that became center Morgan Frost, who is now arguably the best prospect in the Flyers system. On the same day, the New York Rangers acquired the No. 7 overall pick in that year’s draft from the Arizona Coyotes for Derek Stepan, and the Columbus Blue Jackets traded Brandon Saad back to the Chicago Blackhawks in a deal for Artemi Panarin. Neither Stepan nor Saad was as accomplished then as Simmonds was, so it’s reasonable to think that the Flyers might have been offered, and been able to accept, a similar package of players and picks for Simmonds.

Perhaps trading Simmonds would have been too bold or too impulsive for Hextall, who was famously methodical in his decision-making. And it’s a safe bet that neither the Flyers’ businesspeople nor their fans, many of whom already were growing impatient with the lengthy rebuild, would have … let’s say … reacted positively to the departure of so popular a player. Such are the difficult choices that can make or break a franchise’s fortunes, though. A quick postseason exit last year, a playoff berth unlikely this year, and Wayne Simmonds ended up leaving anyway, for less than he had once been worth, amid hugs and handshakes nearly two years too late.