The rumors were fun while they lasted, but Jamie Langenbrunner will not be a Philadelphia Flyer this season. H’s heading back to Dallas in exchange for a conditional second or third round pick. According to Tom Gulitti of the Bergen Record, the Flyers made an offer to Lou Lamoriello last night but it wasn’t enough to seal the deal.
Although Philadelphia reportedly made an offer of two draft picks, it apparently wasn’t good enough for the team to bring it to Langenbrunner to request if he’d waive his no-trade clause to go there (or that Lamoriello wasn’t interested in trading him to an Atlantic Division rival).
We should probably lean to the latter as an explanation for why the deal didn’t go through with the Flyers. The Stars will give up a second round pick if they re-sign Langenbrunner or if they advance beyond the first round of the 2011 playoffs. If Langenbrunner re-signs after July 1, New Jersey will ship a third round pick to Dallas in exchange for that second rounder. If none of those things happen, the Devils will get a third round pick.
In any event, it’s probably good that the Flyers won’t be getting Langenbrunner. His daily cap hit is just 358 dollars under the Flyers maximum LTIR exemption, meaning that if reports were true that only draft picks would’ve gone in the other direction, the Flyers would have been essentially screwed in terms of the salary cap from this deal.
Langenbrunner earns $15,054 per day this season. The Flyers’ maximum exemption with Ian Laperriere and Matt Walker on LTIR is $15,412.
In other words, the Flyers would’ve been able to afford Langenbrunner, but when Walker comes off LTIR as expected in a few weeks, they literally would have had to waive him immediately, re: the same day, just to avoid breaking the NHL’s cap rules.
Remember how the Flyers actually put themselves on pace to be under the cap with the waiving of Michael Leighton earlier this week? Yeah, that quickly would’ve been a thing of the past, and we would’ve been out a few draft picks, too. All for a 35-year-old likely rental that the Flyers don’t even really need. Enjoy Dallas, man.
