In trading Jeff Carter and Mike Richards, the Flyers suddenly have cap space to spend. The problem is, they really don’t. Sure, they have over $7.5 million to sign four players, even more when you waive Michael Leighton and put Ian Laperriere on LTIR. Still, the club then has roughly $10.25 million to sign six players, or a little over $1.7 million per player.
Now, this probably won’t be a problem, but after Eric showed us that a reasonable expectation for Ville Leino‘s cap hit is $3.5 million, that drops the amount down to $1.35 million per player. And when you have to re-sign young, highly touted RFAs like Jakub Voracek and Wayne Simmonds, that amount will be even less.
So who are Voracek and Simmonds’ doppelgangers? Thanks to Hockey-Reference.com’s amazing Play Index, this process is made rather simple. The method: search for players who were either 21 or 22 in each of the last two seasons, who scored at least 10 goals and between 25 and 50 points. It’s very crude, but it gives us a rough idea of what Wayne Simmonds should be worth.
| Season | Age | GP | G | A | Pts | Pts/G | |
| Wayne Simmonds | 2010-11 | 22 | 81 | 14 | 16 | 30 | 0.38 |
| Martin Hanzal | 2009-10 | 22 | 80 | 11 | 22 | 33 | 0.41 |
| Patrick Berglund | 2009-10 | 21 | 71 | 13 | 13 | 26 | 0.37 |
Berglund signed a two-year, $4.5 million contract with St. Louis ($2.25 mil per year) while Hanzal signed a two-year, $3.6 million contract with Phoenix ($1.8 mil per year). Both look quite reasonable and affordable.
But what about Jakub Voracek?
| Season | Age | GP | G | A | Pts | Pts/G | |
| Jakub Voracek | 2010-11 | 21 | 80 | 14 | 32 | 46 | 0.58 |
| David Perron | 2009-10 | 21 | 82 | 20 | 27 | 47 | 0.57 |
| Kyle Okposo | 2009-10 | 21 | 80 | 19 | 33 | 52 | 0.65 |
Perron signed a two-year, $4.3 million contract with St. Louis ($2.15 mil per year) while Okposo signed a five-year, $14 million contract with NY Islanders ($2.8 mil per year). Voracek is a lot different than Okposo – he had another year on his ELC after 09-10 – but he’s pretty close to David Perron.
So what does this mean? I think it is safe to say both players will get short-term contracts, with Simmonds getting around $2 million per year and Voracek getting around $2.25 million per year. Add that onto the Flyers roster, and you have $6 million left to sign Ville Leino and three others.
Add up Eric’s guess for Leino, and that’s $2.5 million (or $833k per player) for the remaining three players. Doable? Absolutely. Pressed right up against the salary cap? Yet again.
