The Flyers Should Trade For Ryan Suter

..okay, not actually. Because he's on my list of players that I don't think we could acquire without trading the captain, and that's not something we should even consider doing. Sorry for the clickbait.

But there was a post this afternoon on SB Nation about Ryan Suter not being happy with his situation in Minnesota. Basically, Suter is a left-handed shot. He's been paired Jonas Brodin recently, and his issue is that Brodin is also a left-handed shot.

That apparently causes issues for Suter (even though he just signed a contract that pays him $98 million), because his partner is thus playing on the weak side. It's easiest to see when you think of a team set up in the offensive zone, or preparing for a breakout from the defensive zone. You always want both defenseman to have their forehand toward the boards, but it's impossible to set up a roster that can always make that happen.

Flyers reference - here are our current pairs:

• Del Zotto (lefty) and Gudas (righty)
• Schultz (lefty) and Schenn (righty)
• Gostisbehere (lefty) and Medvedev/Manning (both lefty)
• PP1: Gostisbehere (lefty) and Voracek (lefty)
• PP2: Del Zotto (lefty) and Medvedev/Manning (both lefty)

The first impulse move I'm making right now if I'm Dave Hakstol is swapping Schultz and Ghost, and then immediately looking to trade Schultz for a right-handed shot (or waiving him and sending him to Lehigh Valley in favor of Mark Alt). 

Maybe we should just let it be, though. We have too many left handed shots, and Mark Streit's return won't help because he's a lefty too. Maybe we can swap him for a young right-handed defenseman at the deadline, because it's not something that will be alleviated when Sanheim and Provorov - both also lefties - join the big club. It's only going to get more crowded on that side. 

The Ghost/Manning and Ghost/Meddy lines prove that it's not absolutely necessary to play on your strong side, but that definitely benefits the DZ/Gudas and Sch/Sch pairings. 

This situation also underlines just how much of a baby Ryan Suter is. I mean he's complaining about playing with a Twenty-Two Year Old Future Star Defenseman. Brodin would immediately be our top d-man, or would at least challenge MDZ for the honor. Let Suter trade places with Del Zotto and see if he can carry Gudas around for 25 minutes per game. 

Perhaps Suter is a little disgruntled that he's on a team paying 31, 32, and 33 year old forwards and a 30 year old defensemen (all with No Movement Clauses) a combined $26.4 million per year for this year and next year and that team is just 11-7-4 (12 points behind in their division) and on a three game losing streak. That take could be a little hot, but it's a small reminded that things could always be worse than Philadelphia.