The Philadelphia Flyers capped off their Monday night by making a trade with the Tampa Bay Lightning and it featured two young AHL defensemen moving around the Eastern Conference.

Announced by the team, the Flyers have traded 22-year-old defenseman Ethan Samson to the Lightning for also 22-year-old defenseman Roman Schmidt. Both defensemen are right handed but bring a whole lot of different energy to the ice.

TRADE ALERT: We have acquired defenseman Roman Schmidt from Tampa Bay in exchange for defenseman Ethan Samson. Schmidt has been assigned to the @LVPhantoms (AHL). https://t.co/lezlUVnYv8

— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) December 9, 2025

Samson has been with the Flyers organization since he was drafted 174th overall in the sixth round of the 2021 NHL Draft. The Delta, BC native was seen as a more high-energy type of defenseman and at 6-foot-1 wasn’t going to be just some poor little blueliner with zero physical tools. Samson developed through the years with the WHL’s Prince George Cougars and finished his junior career with a point-per-game season before he turned pro and joined the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms for the 2023-24 season. His production has seen rapid growth — 12 points his rookie year, 24 the next, and in 10 games this season he has just four assists but he had to recover from an early-season injury.

Well, and now he’s heading off to the Syracuse Crunch to most definitely turn into someone the Lightning would be happy to use on their bottom pairing in a few years. And people would ask just how they managed to steal him away.

Meanwhile, the Flyers got bigger. Roman Schmidt, also drafted in 2021 but in the third round by Tampa, is a 6-foot-5, 281-pound behemoth on the blue line who has regularly earned roughly several times more penalties than points or even shots on goal.

But why did the Flyers make this move — this swap of minor-league blueliners? We have a guess.

Why we think the Flyers made this trade with the Lightning

In plainest English, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms’ blue line is stuffed. It’s jam-packed. Prospect Oliver Bonk recovered from his training camp injury and was able to make his professional hockey debut last weekend and then other transactions like the Samu Tuomaala-for-Christian Kyrou deal furthered the jam-packedness.

Schmidt is another defenseman and doesn’t really solve that problem, especially when you consider both him and Samson play the same side of the blue line. But, it’s about styles. With Kyrou, Bonk, Samson, and newcomer Maxence Guenette, the Phantoms’ blue line was tilting towards the more offensive side of the game. To balance it out — and to make Helge Grans, Hunter McDonald, and Adam Ginning feel slightly more welcome, they have now added Schmidt.

And with someone like Kyrou popping off offensively down there, Samson suddenly became a little bit more tradeable. So, general manager Danny Briere made a move that ups the physicality on the AHL blue line — and maybe just, provides the Flyers organization with someone who they could have on their own bottom pairing in a few years, since the likes of McDonald and Ginning and Grans have somewhat failed that test to be a physical long-term replacement for someone like Rasmus Ristolainen, for example.

Schmidt is somewhat of a project but we at least see the thinking why the Flyers would want to make this move and add some real grit to their defensive future.

Or, it doesn’t really mean anything and it’s just letting Samson have a better opportunity to play more minutes at a pivotal time of his career.