Flyers looking at 2 big potential waiver pickups.

The Philadelphia Flyers are coming into this season with a number of injuries to their roster and perhaps even more importantly with a mandate to drastically change the culture within the organization, and by extension the locker room. The biggest move the Flyers made in that direction during the offseason was of course the acquisition of head coach John Tortorella, but it sounds like the Flyers may now be trying to bring in a veteran leader to help assist in driving that culture change.

Although not official, a recent report from Flyers beat reporter Anthony Di Marco has revealed that the Flyers are currently looking at a number of players on the waiver wire. Specifically, Di Marco named veteran forward Nick Foligno of the Boston Bruins, and veteran forward Wayne Simmonds of the Toronto Maple Leafs as potential targets for the Flyers.

Simmonds is of course a beloved former Flyer in his own right and spent the majority of his career in the National Hockey League wearing the Flyers jersey. It seems like it would be a great time to bring him back as well,. given that the Maple Leafs have reportedly informed teams that they are looking to make a trade to ship Simmonds out of Toronto.

The situation surrounding veteran forward Nick Foligno is rather similar to the one involving Simmonds, with the Bruins electing to put Foligno on waivers to start the season. It seems likely that the Bruins would also be open to trading the 34 year old winger, which once again could open the door here for the Flyers.

Although the Flyers could in theory submit a claim for either player, I suspect it is more likely that they opt to go the trade route once both players have cleared the waiver process. A trade would allow the Flyers to send a player back the other way to even out the cap hit, or number of contracts, or possibly even recoup an additional asset given that both the Bruins and the Leafs seem ready to move on.