We’ve got some late [early] breaking news for you on this fine [rainy] Sunday, folks! We all may have been sleeping in, but Ron Hextall wasn’t. He’s evidently been busy wrapping up some of his last bit of offseason business and the Flyers have announced that they’ve resigned forwards Taylor Leier (avoiding the arbitration hearing) and Tyrell Goulbourne, and Danick Martel has accepted his qualifying offer. These aren’t the biggest pieces of news of the summer, but there’s still something here. Let’s break it down.
What we know
With these three signings complete, Hextall’s moving closer to wrapping up his must-do pieces of business. And it’s all more or less what we might have expected.
Per the Flyers, each of these are a one-year deal, and this lines up with what Hextalls’ been stressing throughout the whole of the summer—term the key, here. They’re not looking to lock anyone up long term for the sake of it, so keeping most of the RFAs to one year deals makes sense.
Additionally, per Capfriendly, Leier ‘s contract will run a $720,000 AAV, and Martel’s an AAV of $715,000 at the NHL level, and $65.000 in the minors. We’re still waiting on confirmation on the value of Goulbourne’s contract, but might reasonably expect it to be at least in the ballpark of his last contract, which fetched him $773,333 at the NHL level, and $70,000 in the minors.
And that brings us to the big question…
So what’s left?
As we mentioned earlier, locking up these three guys puts Hextall close to wrapping up his to-do list, but not quite. What’s left? Re-signing Anthony Stolarz and Robert Hagg. And they’ll have some space to do it,
As it stands, the Flyers figure to have $13,220,833 (minus Goulbourne’s cap hit, which isn’t currently accounted for) of projected cap space left to work with. And while they won’t use all of this, or likely even a substantial chunk of it, they’ve got the room and can feel comfortable in not being slammed up against the cap…
So they’re going to use that cap space to trade for Karlsson. They’re saving room for Karlsson, right? Like, that’s for sure what they’re doing, right?
Man, we are really going to die on this hill, aren’t we? Sure, I guess they could do that, in theory. I don’t think they will, but we can agree to disagree. I won’t ruin your Sunday.
But, like I was saying, if they want to make some more moves, they have the space to do it. And we’re ou drawing closer to the time when they can focus on doing that sort of thing, should they so desire.
And, as always, we’ll keep you updated with any further developments.
