2022 3rd overall pick Logan Cooley reveals that another team almost traded up for him at 3

A juicy rumour that never really got picked up or gained traction was that allegedly the Philadelphia Flyers were interested in trading up during the 2022 NHL Entry Draft to select Logan Cooley at 3rd overall. This was coming straight from the horse's mouth in Cooley, who recently sat down with Spittin' Chiclets. When asked about what the draft was like, how it went, and what he expected:

"I had a lot of great meetings with Arizona so I thought, if I would get down to 3, I'd have a good chance of going there but I met with the Flyers, I think it was like 20 minutes before the draft, I think they were trying to trade up so I didn't know exactly what was going to happen."

The Coyotes selected Cooley 3rd overall with Juraj Slafkovsky going 1st to Monteal and Simon Nemec going 2nd to New Jersey. Philadelphia was slated to pick 5th that year and ended up drafting Cutter Gauthier - a prospect who has really risen since being drafted.

The Flyers were certainly interested in the Pennsylvanian native before the draft but would have been hard pressed to get a deal done with how coveted Cooley was entering that night. Former General Manager Chuck Fletcher wasn't necessarily a wizard when it came to trades either so it would have been interesting to see what that trade could have entailed.


Cooley ended up scoring 22 goals and 60 points in just 39 games for the University of Minnesota last season and currently has 6 assists in 8 games for the Coyotes in his rookie season. As a consolation prize, the Flyers got Gauthier who scored 16 goals and 37 points in 32 games last year for Boston College and currently has 6 goals and 7 points in 6 games this season.