Flyers acquire defenseman Maxence Guenette in trade with Ottawa Senators

The team acquired Maxence Guenette, an offensive defenseman who mainly played in the AHL and tallied nine goals and 23 points in 58 games last season.

Maxence Guenette has been a productive offensive defenseman at the AHL level. Can he be more than that with a change of scenery?Read moreGetty Images

by Gustav Elvin

Published Nov. 17, 2025, 4:51 p.m. ET

Trader Danny is at it again.

On Monday, Flyers general manager Danny Brière pulled off yet another deal, shipping veteran defenseman Dennis Gilbert to Ottawa for defenseman Maxence Guenette. Both players were playing in the American Hockey League.

The move sees Gilbert, 29, return to Ottawa, where he finished up last season after being dealt by Buffalo at the deadline in the Dylan Cozens-Josh Norris trade. The Flyers signed the rugged blueliner to a one-year, $875,000 contract on July 1 to provide defensive depth, especially given that Rasmus Ristolainen was expected to miss the first few months of the season while recovering from triceps surgery. Gilbert had one assist and six penalty minutes in six games for AHL Lehigh Valley.

In Guenette, the Flyers are getting back a 24-year-old defenseman with good size (6-foot-2, 209 pounds) and mobility. Ottawa’s 2019 seventh-rounder, who has played eight career NHL games, has spent the majority of the last four seasons playing for the Belleville Senators in the AHL.

An offensive defenseman, Guenette tallied nine goals and 23 points last season in 58 games. In 236 career AHL games, he has 27 goals and 116 points, twice leading Belleville’s defensemen in scoring, He had a career-high 40 points in 2022-23.

Guenette, a restricted free agent, has not played yet this season and signed a one-year, two-way contract with the Flyers following the completion of the trade. PuckPedia says that the contract is worth $775,000.

Monday’s trade is the fifth deal — most of them minor league transactions — executed by Brière since September. Last month, the Flyers traded Samu Tuomaala for Christian Kyrou. Kyrou has brought instant offense to the Phantoms’ blue line with a goal and nine points in seven games. Carl Grundström and Tucker Robertson, two other players acquired in recent deals, are also contributing regularly with the Phantoms.

Brière also has pulled off bigger deals in his two-plus years as Flyers general manager, including a shrewd move for Trevor Zegras in June and previous subtractions and future-centric moves involving Ivan Provorov, Scott Laughton, Cutter Gauthier, Jamie Drysdale, Sean Walker, Morgan Frost, Joel Farabee, and Kevin Hayes.

Don’t be surprised if Brière has a few more trades up his sleeve ahead of next offseason, as a once-promising free-agent class has all but evaporated and made a trade the most likely route if the Flyers are ready to try and acquire a star or bolster their options down the middle or on the blue line.