Flyers deny report that tiff arose between team and Claude Giroux in negotiations

Before he was traded Saturday to Florida, Claude Giroux asked Philadelphia Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher for assurances he would be able to re-sign with the club during the free-agency period this summer. When Fletcher declined, Giroux would only agree to waive his no-movement clause for the Florida Panthers.

That’s the report on the podcast Snow the Goalie.

A Flyers executive denied it.

“That’s funny. There’s absolutely no truth to that,” said Danny Briere, special assistant to Fletcher.

The Flyers sent Giroux, and underachieving prospects German Rubtsov and Connor Bunnaman to Florida for right winger Owen Tippett, a first-round pick in 2024, and a third-rounder in a deep 2023 draft. Florida also received a fifth-round draft selection in 2024, and it got the Flyers to retain half of Giroux’s salary/cap hit.

“This falls on Claude Giroux that the Flyers couldn’t get more,” said Anthony SanFilippo, one of the hosts on the podcast. When Fletcher was not willing to give Giroux a guarantee he would return, “Giroux was not as wiling to help them out by giving them other destinations,” SanFilippo said.

Before (last month) and after (today). Giroux imagery coming down at the Flyers' practice facility. pic.twitter.com/kIki8CAdZ4

— Olivia Reiner (@ReinerOlivia) March 21, 2022

He said when Fletcher wouldn’t give him assurances that he would return as a free agent in the summer, Giroux then said Florida would be the only team on his trade list.

That, in effect, crippled Fletcher’s leverage in the trade market because he didn’t have teams bidding against one another.

But Briere said Florida was the only team Giroux ever considered.

“That was his decision all along,” he said.

On the podcast, SanFilippo said Briere was put into the middle of the situation “to try to convince Claude to consider other options. It just never happened.”

“I was never put in the middle,” Briere said.

SanFilippo said he stands by his information, and that it “came from the Giroux side”

PHN: Fans pay tribute to Claude Giroux … one even named his dog after him.

Did ⁦@28CGiroux⁩ leave the door open to return to #Flyers in summer? Fletcher’s response: pic.twitter.com/fzMroIdMPD

— Sam Carchidi (@BroadStBull) March 20, 2022