Back when the Flyers hired Dave Hakstol to be their new head coach, few people were likely as excited as Chris VandeVelde, a former University of North Dakota product who’d finally spent an entire season at the NHL level this past year. What was already a likelihood that he’d return seemed like a near-lock at that point.
Today, the Flyers announced that VandeVelde will, indeed, be back with the team for the next two seasons.
The #Flyers have re-signed forward Chris VandeVelde to a multi-year contract extension → http://t.co/jjMHlFdGsM
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) June 29, 2015
Frank Seravalli of TSN (we know you can’t let us go, Frank, it’s OK) has the terms:
It’s $700,000 in Year 1 and $725,000 in Year 2 for VandeVelde. #Flyers
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) June 29, 2015
That’s an average annual value of $712,500, exactly the same as fellow fourth-liner Pierre-Edouard Bellemare’s.
VandeVelde entered this past season with just 46 NHL games to his name, but he played in 72 contests this year for the NHL team. His 15 points (nine goals, six assists) were easily a career-high, and while it’s unlikely he ever beats those numbers in a full season, he’s a perfectly adequate fourth-line player.
He also provided a boon to the team’s penalty kill earlier in the year, as our own Charlie O’Connor pointed out back in February. Maybe it’s an underwhelming follow-up to trading Nick Grossmann, Chris Pronger, and Zac Rinaldo, but it’s a perfectly reasonable contract by Ron Hextall.
In fact, it’s actually worth less than the Rinaldo contract that was shipped out today. As Charlie put it on Twitter:
Yeah, I’m cool with that AAV. Seems like Hexy picked CVV over Rinaldo and added a mid-round pick to boot. No argument there.
— Charlie O’Connor (@BSH_THG_Charlie) June 29, 2015
What a week, man.
