VOORHEES, N.J. — It remains one of their more regrettable trades of the past quarter-century. Philadelphia Flyers fans of a certain age are permitted to shake their heads and crinkle their noses when they’re reminded of the details.
On Dec. 5, 2005, Patrick Sharp was dealt to the Chicago Blackhawks (with forward Eric Meloche) for a third-round pick in the 2006 draft and mostly-minor league forward Matt Ellison. A decent depth winger at the time but someone who had yet to really pop, Sharp was sacrificed at a time when the Flyers were a veteran team still hoping for and pushing for a Stanley Cup. One year later, they had the worst record in the league.
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Sharp, meanwhile, proved to be a late bloomer after being a third-round pick in 2001. He didn’t have his first 30-goal season until age 26, when he posted 36 goals in 2007-08 for Chicago. He developed into a key cog on a championship team — three of them, in fact, with the Blackhawks, the first of which came in 2010 on the Wells Fargo Center ice. Sharp added an Olympic gold medal for Team Canada in 2014. In 939 career NHL games, Sharp totaled 287 goals and 333 assists.
Nearly two decades later, Sharp is back where he took the first steps of his professional career. It’s been just more than a year since the former winger was hired as a special advisor to hockey operations.
The title is ambiguous. The role, evolving. But one of the key reasons Sharp was brought on board by president of hockey operations Keith Jones and general manager Daniel Briere is to, well, ensure that the Flyers don’t end up trading any more Patrick Sharps.
“Being the 95th pick overall and turning into the type of player that he did is huge, but what I really focused on was the fact that he was with an organization, and they didn’t see it, and they traded him,” Jones said. “It happened to be us.”
Jones continued: “You never want to give up on a player too soon. So having that perspective, I think, is a good reminder to all of us that some of these kids may not be great today, but there may be signals that they’re going to be great in the future that we want to be careful not to miss.”
Sharp lends his eye in that regard, and he was on the ice daily with the Flyers’ prospects at last week’s development camp. He’s only 42 years old, having retired after his age-36 season in 2017-18, and he certainly still looks to be in his element on skates and holding a stick.
“It’s really cool to see him out here,” Flyers 2024 first round pick Jett Luchanko said. “Looks like he could still be playing. You can tell he just loves the game.”
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Sharp does seem to enjoy working with the youngsters, in particular, getting to know them both on and off the ice. One of his duties in his first season in management was visiting with or watching the various Flyers’ draft picks at different levels. Now residing in Connecticut, it’s easy for him to bounce around New England, in particular. (He saw former prospect Cutter Gauthier play more than a half dozen times at Boston College, but never actually met him. Like the rest of the Flyers staff, he still isn’t sure what went wrong there.)
“Being around the team, being around the players, being around our younger players. Working with Nick Schultz and Riley Armstrong on the development staff,” Sharp said, when asked to explain his job. “Doing what you (saw last week), being out there laughing, joking and being a hockey player again. I missed that part of it in the six years of retiring from the game.I missed thinking and talking hockey.”
Relating to kids half his age doesn’t seem even the least bit awkward for him. He got a brief taste of it while helping the coaching staff of his alma mater, the University of Vermont, in 2021.
“It feels normal to talk to a Denver Barkey — a kid, a teenager. It feels normal to talk to these players about their sticks and their equipment and situations that they’re in on the ice,” Sharp said. “I feel like that’s why I’m here, to relate to the kids. I have a story to tell. My journey was an interesting one. I wasn’t a top pick that was put right in the NHL right away.”
Something else that makes Sharp’s situation particularly unique is what he gave up. Specifically, a burgeoning career in television.
Sharp frequently contributed to Blackhawks broadcasts after retirement, but was also a regular on the NBC national panel when that network had rights to the league. In fact, Sharp was filling in for Jones on the TNT broadcast as recently as the 2023 playoffs, after Jones had been named to his new role with the Flyers.
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Considering Sharp’s smooth delivery and unique perspective (and what some might describe as movie-star good looks) it seemed inevitable that he would catch on full-time with either TNT or ESPN when the NHL’s broadcast landscape shifted.
But after a few years of being in front of the camera, it grew a bit stale. And, he’s at a time in his life when he would like to be at home as much as possible with his wife and two daughters, ages 10 and 12, in Connecticut, where they relocated from the Chicago area during the pandemic. Flying to Chicago for Blackhawks broadcasts, for example, was going to result in too much time away (conversely, the drive from his home to the Flyers’ training facility in Voorhees, N.J., is approximately three hours, if he times it right).
“I think (television) was great for me the first three or four years after retiring. It kept me in the game, fed my ego, got a lot of face time,” Sharp said. “But as the years went on, it became less enjoyable. I loved the people I worked with, both with the Hawks and at NBC. It felt like they were a part of a team. But I missed actually wearing a team logo and working with players and being a part of something.”
Still, transitioning into a front office role has its challenges, even though he and Jones are still very tight from their many hours spent together at NBC. Sharp admitted that coming back to the Flyers felt “weird, I won’t lie about that,” after becoming so ingrained with the Blackhawks — first as a core player, and later in the years immediately following his retirement in television and at various sponsor events.
One former teammate he leaned on for advice was Brian Campbell, who overlapped with Sharp in Chicago for four seasons. Campbell is now an advisor to hockey operations for the Blackhawks, part of general manager Kyle Davidson’s staff. And, like Sharp, he didn’t really have a breakout NHL season until his mid-20s, as a defenseman with the Sabres. They have much in common.
Getting into management helped to feed Campbell’s competitive nature again. He had an idea that Sharp missed that part of the game, too.
“He was doing the TV and I just kind of explained to him how much I’m enjoying being a part of a team now,” Campbell said. “That’s why we kept talking about it. … I know him inside, and what fuels him and what makes him tick and gets the adrenaline going. I felt that was a natural fit for him to move forward, in the right situation, and doing it the right way.”
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Where Sharp goes from here isn’t something he’s spent much time on. He knows, from his path as a player, that not everything comes right away, or all that easily.
“I’m really happy doing what I’m doing right now and I have a lot to learn in a ton of different areas,” he said. “But I do know that I love being a part of a team. I think I have a lot to offer, and I feel like the more comfortable I get with the coaching staff, the Flyers, with (coach Ian Laperriere’s) staff in Lehigh Valley, I can elevate my game, too. Every year that I’m here, I’m just going to figure things out and try to add whatever I can in a positive way.”
And this time, it sounds as if the Flyers will be keeping Sharp around for awhile.
“I think when we eventually are getting closer to our goal (of winning), he will have played a big role in it behind the scenes,” Jones sad, “and he seems to really enjoy that part of it.”
(Top photo of Patrick Sharp courtesy of Philadelphia Flyers)
