Dale Weise, who signed with the Flyers on July 1, gave an interview to Montreal’s Hockey Inside/Out this week in which he detailed the interest NHL teams had in him during the first day of free agency.
In short, Weise says that “quite a few teams” were interested in him and that “all the money was pretty much the same from everybody.” Weise signed with the Flyers for four years and $2.35 million per year.
Here’s the money quote from Weise:
“All the money was pretty much the same from everybody … it was pretty close. It was just kind of about finding what worked best for me. (Flyers GM) Ron Hextall reached out right away … he was the first team that I talked to. It kind of stood out in my mind, just the things that he said. A lot of teams were talking to me and they try to sell you on their team. But at the end of the day, I could kind of tell they were working their way down the list and it was kind of a staged act and they were saying certain things to probably about 15 guys.
And where does Weise see himself fitting into the Flyers lineup?
With Philly, it was pretty direct, it was pretty honest. They said: ‘Here’s how much money we have, we’re not trying to sign anybody else. You’re the guy we want. Here’s what we can offer, here’s where we see it.’ That was a big thing for me. And then you look at their depth chart and their lineup and I think I fit in pretty well. Anywhere on their second or third line, I think I’m going to get an opportunity to play a lot, play on the power play, play everywhere. So I’m excited.”
“Anywhere on their second or third line.”
Hmm. Third line I could see. But up into the top six? That seems like a bit of a stretch. Weise is a decent bottom-six player — better than the Flyers had in somebody like Ryan White. But he’s not going to get the ice time of a second line player here, unless you think he’s better than Claude Giroux, Wayne Simmonds, Jakub Voracek, Brayden Schenn, Sean Couturier, Michael Raffl, Matt Read, Nick Cousins … etc.
Weise will probably move around a bit, particularly if Dave Hakstol is trying to spread out his big guns across the lineup. But at the end of the day he probably won’t be playing a top-six role with any sort of regularity.
The power play thing is real, though. Weise will probably find time on the Flyers’ second power play unit, as he did in Montreal consistently during his time there. Ryan White had played the net-front role on that unit, and we could easily see Weise stepping in and doing the same. He’ll at least get a chance to win the job.
