The Ended Flyers Thread

Unless they can get a top defensman in a trade, Karlsson is the only free agent I would be interested in, and reports are he wants to stay on the West coast. Otherwise, I'm okay with Sanheim, Provorov, Ghost, Myers, Hagg and Morin. At this point Provorov and Ghostisbehere are veterans. Frost makes the team next year, Farabee and Ratcliffe the year after. Rubstov only played 14 games (he looked really good) with the Phantoms before season ending shoulder surgery. I imagine he will start next year with the Phantoms, but could be with the Flyers by mid-season.

Again, unless they get a top d-man, I'd go after a top line forward as a free agent, Panarin in particular. Stanley Cups are usually won by teams with a superstar player (Caps, Penguins, Blackhawks). The Flyers won't have any superstars, so they will need to win with depth of talent and great goaltending (like the Kings).

2019-2020 roster projection:

Forwards: Giroux, Voracek, JVR, Couturier, Konecny, Frost, Lindblom, Patrick, Laughton, Hartman, Vorobyov, Free Agent

Defense: Provorov, Sanheim, Ghostisbehere, Myers, Morin, Hagg, Gudas (trade McDonald if possible, or send him to the Phantoms to take his 5 Mil salary off the books). Morin probably needs to play a bit in the AHL and see if he can stay healthy and if he proves he is worthy of the call up, they can probably trade Gudas. Schlemko is probably the 7th defenseman in the interim.

Goalies: Hart, Talbot or Elliot

This team is too slow and lacks the players with skills that can compete with the speed teams in the league. On the other side, it doesn't have the strength/grit to out muscle teams like Caps and Bs that play that type of game. The organization needs to choose its personality and then make the appropriate moves to create it. Fletcher has a lot of work to do both on the ice and behind the bench.

Flyers don't have any superstars, hmm, just a center scoring a ppg and a top Selke candidate.
Another forward who is one of the top five scorers this decade.

Morin can't go back to the AHL without going through waivers, so that's a nonstarter.
On defense, I think they really want a veteran who can stabilize the "kiddie core" and shut opposing teams down in the D-zone, a Kimmo type, they have plenty of offense from their defense but need someone who plays defense.

I don't think they have much of a shot at landing EK or Panarin, my suspicion is they pick up a veteran for depth on the bottom six then make a trade of one of their top 7 forwards for a better top 6 guy who's a better fit.

They're gonna have a loaded LHV team next year, which means depth won't be an issue in 2020-21.

The difference between the Flyers and last year's Phillies is the Flyers have a loaded "farm system", for example Ersson was the best goalie in the Swedish version of juniors and is continuing his dominance in the playoffs - he'll be starting in the SHL next year while Sandstrom comes to LHV. The Russian UDFA they signed was one of the top defensemen in junior hockey, and so on.

I stand by the statement that the Flyers do not have a superstar. Giroux and Couts are excellent, but no one of the ilk of McDavid, Matthews, Crosby, Malkin, Kucherov, Ovechkin, etc... Look at the last 10 cup winners:

2018 Washington - Ovechkin
2017/2016/2009 Pittsburgh - Crosby/Malkin
2015/2013/2010 Chicago - Kane/Toews

Only the Kings and Bruins have also won cups in the last 10 years with teams that were solid all the way around, and all I'm saying is that is the only way the Flyers are going to win it all, they have to be solid top to bottom and Hart has to be our Brodeur. If Hart does become the bellwether goalie he is expected to be, the Flyers are not far away from being cup contenders. The question will be if they can cash in before the play of the current group of vets fade.

The current vets are going to be support players in 3 years.
Couts, Patrick, Lindblom, TK, Frost, Farabee, Ratcliffe,
and behind them Rubtsov, Kase, Laczynski, Allison, Strome, Cates . . .
Ghost, Provorov, Myers, Sanheim, behind them Hogberg, Zamula, . . .
Hart with Sandstrom, Ersson, Ustimenko and Fedotov.

The organization has tremendous depth, it comes down to Fletcher making the right moves, not getting impatient and trying to force them to win now. Done right, this team is set up to be a cup contender for a decade.

If Giroux and Couts aren't superstars, neither are Kane and Toews.
Chicago won because of great depth, Hossa, Sharp, Keith, etc.

Flyers extend Michael Raffl for two more years. If you are scratching your head wondering why, they brought him back at a huge discount (1.6 mil per season, an over 30% pay cut from this season). I'm fine with him if he is exclusively a 4th liner.

Depth.

We started the season with Vorobyev, Knight, Lehtera and Weise as the 11th to 14th forwards.
JVR and Knight got injured.

So someone like Raffl as your 12th forward is an upgrade, and if the kids step up he's the 13th/14th forward.
$1.6M is only 900K over the minimum, and you are going to be paying 14 forwards.

With the Raffl extension, the Flyers have 14 players under contact and about 31 million in cap space. MacDonald is one of those 14, they need to get his 5 mil salary off the books either by trade or waive, which would get them to 36 million.

They have several restricted free agents, but only Hartman and Laughton are arbitration eligible, so figure 8 to 10 million, unless they want to lock up Provorov, Sanheim and Konecny to cost certain long term deals.

I would figure they will be about 20 mil under the cap when free agency starts. That should be enough to fill the roster with some good talent.

You're not moving MacDonald in a trade without retaining half his salary, and waiving him saves nothing, you either buy him out or stash him in the AHL (saving $1M).

Top free agents get 5-7 year deals, so the $20M cap room isn't available for big names, maybe $10M or one signing.

Where the short-term cap room comes in handy is picking up the last couple years on a contract or sweetening a trade by taking on a bad contract (Lehtera got us the 2018 1st rd pick which got us Farabee).

Salary Cap is year by year, so if the Flyers have 20 mil available for next season they could easily sign a big name free agent to a long term deal that averages 9 mil a year, which would be a huge contract and still have 11 mil to fill out the rest of the roster. The largest salaries in 2018-2019 were Kane and Toews each getting 10.5mil and Kopitar made 10mil. The highest paid Flyer is Giroux at 8,275.000.

Huh? You sign a 7 year deal, it's guaranteed money over the life of the contract, and so is the cap hit.
$9M a deal won't land you EK or Panarin, they're looking at $11M a year or so.
It might get you Duchene, but he's not worth it, neither is Skinner.

That was just an example of course, why are you nitpicking a theoretical scenario? Of course the could spend 11 mil on one player and the other 9 on the rest of the roster in that theoretical example as well.

You're missing the point, it's like baseball, I can spend up to the cap the first year, but I'm stuck with the entire contract.
So give $20M in two long-term contracts, where is the cap room to extend all my RFAs?
Toronto is facing this issue this offseason.

The Phillies, now that they've signed Harper, are probably out of the FA business for years, other than short-term deals that replace expiring short-term deals, especially if they extend Realmoto and down the road, Hoskins and the young SPs. Same principle, just because you have short-term cap room, doesn't mean you can spend up to it on long-term deals without sabotaging the future.

This statement is false...the phillies have promised Harper they would be in the top 5 in payroll and will have money to burn if they are winning. You have a philosophy that basically says get to .500 and hope you can get lucky. This franchise and its ownership doesn't share your viewpoint.

Anyway, this is the Flyers thread and the NHL has a hard cap. The 2021 Phillies could and possibly should be in the tax. It's safe to say the Flyers will sign another $7-9 million FA this off-season but who knows what trading they have in mind.

it's going to definitely be interesting to see how they will balance a large number of very good young prospects with the need to have above average veteran players.

So one of my pet peeves in Hockey came up last night, and it cost the Flyers (although they went on to win).

One of the stupidest rules in sport (but below Soccer's inability to keep time) is that Hockey stops when the referee blows his whistle because he has lost sight of the puck (presumably a goalie has frozen it). Problem is that the ref's all do this differently, some are slow with the whistle, some blow it while the puck is not at all frozen (like last night, this putz intended to blow his whistle but the goalie did not have control of the puck, infact by the time he blew his whistle the puck was already in the net and back out).

Change the freaking rule. If the goalie wants to freeze the puck he must hold it IN HIS GLOVE above his head. If it is under him, well, he doesnt have control of it. If he can't figure out where it is the referee can blow the play dead after a second or two. If the Goalie is not in the crease it should be a penalty (maybe an area slightly bigger than the crease since being a little outside of the crease seems reasonable to still freeze it). If he is behind the goal it should be a penalty shot (currently it is just a penalty).

And the referees from last night should be either fired or removed for the rest of the season. To actually disallow a clearly clean goal because you intended to blow the whistle because you thought the puck was frozen (it was not) shows a lack of awareness on 2 levels, first you didnt make the call correctly, then, with a moment to reflect, you screwed up what should have been true.

I have personally never had a problem with the rule, though it is obviously meant to favor/protect goalies. The rule is that the play is dead when the ref loses sight of the puck, regardless of how long it takes him to blow the whistle. There is nothing in the rule that requires the goalie to have control or says the puck should actually be frozen (i realize you are suggesting this should change). "Intent to blow" is a ridiculous phrase but I have never found it illogical that the play is dead the moment the ref, in his brain, has decided it was dead. There is a gap between that moment and the actual whistle. No different from off-sides really (when play often continues after the infraction, even up to and including a goal in some cases).

Of course there are refs who lose sight of the puck when they shouldn't, but that is a problem with their positioning and/or ability as refs, not the rule. As the rules are written they made the correct call, which still doesn't mean they did a good job.

The officiating in the NHL has always left a lot to be desired. However over this season the amount of questionable calls has reached a higher level of occurrence. The League needs to tighten up its definition on some rules. It also needs to upgrade the officiating in its contests. With the League getting involved more and more with gambling, missed calls are going to raise suspicious eyebrows. The NBA already has had to deal with referees influencing the outcomes of games to satisfy bettors. The NHL doesn't need to get involved with that type of suspicion.