The Flyers traded away Brayden Schenn to the Blues. He’s making them regret it.

It’s been a tale of two cities for Brayden Schenn since his move to St. Louis in the offseason. The 26-year-old forward was acquired by the Blues from the Flyers at this year’s draft to help Philadelphia move back into the first round.

In his first year with the Blues, Schenn has been an extraordinary asset to the team, as alongside Jaden Schwartz and Vladimir Tarasenko, he’s carved up defenses for 30 points in 22 games. Thanks to the efforts of the Blues’ first line, St. Louis has a comfortable lead at the top of the Central Division with a 16-5-1 record.

Meanwhile, the Flyers lost their fifth straight game on Tuesday as they’ve fallen to 8-9-4 on the season. The team has also gotten incredible scoring from their top line of Claude Giroux, Jakub Voracek, and Sean Couturier, but the remainder of the team has struggled to put together much of anything offensively.

It’s hard, then, for the Flyers to not look a few divisions over and see the success Schenn is having on a different team while their struggles continue. Plus, Philadelphia’s other acquisition in the Schenn trade — Jori Lehtera — has 14 games played and has two assists with eight shots on goal.

In the short-term, it’s clear the Flyers handily lost this trade in terms of pure point value. Schenn is tied with Schwartz as the NHL’s fourth overall scorer on the year, and he’s just the fifth player to hit the 30 point barrier this season. Meanwhile, the Flyers’ middle six has floundered even though the names are there to make it work in Wayne Simmonds, Nolan Patrick, Jordan Weal, and Travis Konecny.

On the flip side, it’s hard to say if Schenn would have produced at the same clip if he was still in Philadelphia this season. Schwartz and Tarasenko are a formidable duo to center, and Schenn in the previous few seasons was notorious for producing primarily on the power play. This season, Schenn has scored 22 of his 30 points at even strength. Last year? Schenn had a career-high 17 power play goals with 11 power play assists where exactly half of his points came on the man advantage.

Power play points are all well and good, but while Schenn was at his most productive with the Flyers in his last two seasons, the forward was the most movable of the team’s offense at the end of the day.

Plus, it’s hard to write off the trade as a bust considering the Flyers got two first rounders out of the trade. They already used one to draft forward Morgan Frost at 27th overall, and will have the Blues’ first rounder next season. Ultimately, the Flyers could come away with two major pieces to the puzzle that value more than Schenn in the long run.

Much like our Flyers friends over at Broad Street Hockey put it after the draft, this was a trade likely made with the future in mind.

The heart of this deal is an assumption from Hextall that the short term downgrade from Schenn to Lehtera is outweighed by the long-term value of two additional first round picks. If the Flyers were in the hunt for a Stanley Cup title, this wouldn’t be a smart move to make, as maximizing on-ice value in the here and now wins out in those situations. But no one is realistically expecting a team that missed the playoffs last season and will be breaking in between three and six rookies to be a title contender in 2017-18.

Still, the short-term optics of the trade are hard to swallow given the Flyers struggles and Schenn’s success. The Flyers were projected to be a borderline playoff team this season, but so far this year they’ve been at the back of the pack instead of keeping pace.

At the end of the day, the trade in the long-term may ultimately be what leads to the Flyers’ building a championship team, but the team no doubt misses a 30-point scorer in Schenn right now.