Ron Hextall has proven to be an excellent NHL general manager in his drafting abilities and his well-devised ways of trying to free up cap space. All of the magic in the world wasn't going to give the Flyers the room to show Hextall's ability to bring in additions through free agency the way fans would like.
When free agency opened, Hextall made two deals, signing Dale Weise to a four-year, $9.4 million deal and Boyd Gordon to a one-year, $950,000 deal.
The Flyers were hoping to potentially find a scorer. The two players they signed on Friday combined for 16 goals last season.
Hextall had admitted before free agency that while the Flyers hoped to get the scoring forward they need, they wouldn't do it at the wrong cost.
"I’d like to upgrade our top six, but I would certainly upgrade our top nine," Hextall said to CSN Philly last week. "We’re not going to do something that ties our hands next summer. There’s not going to be any short-term vision that doesn’t play out long term.
"I don’t want to get into a spot here where it costs us a young player and we’re forced into a deal."
The Flyers entered the day with approximately $12 million in cap space, but some of that is already compromised. With offers extended to restricted free agents Brayden Schenn, Nick Cousins and Brandon Manning, the Flyers had maybe $4 million to play with at best.
Essentially, from last season to this upcoming season, the Flyers replaced Sam Gagner and R.J. Umberger, who came at an $8 million cap hit combined and scored 10 goals and had 27 points combined, with Weise, who comes at a $2.35 million cap hit and scored 14 goals and had 27 points last season. They replaced Ryan White with Gordon, who comes at almost the exact same price as White did a season ago, $950,000.
So the Flyers upgraded the third line, found a more-capable faceoff man and penalty killer for the fourth line and shed enough cap space to give Schenn an expected raise while leaving space open for either a last-minute low-risk signing — see Michael Del Zotto's one-year, $1.3 million deal from 2014 — or to add prospects such as Ivan Provorov or Travis Konecny if they should make the team out of camp.
Which brings us to Konecny. The Flyers had a need for a scoring forward and not enough money to sign one. As free agency unfolded, that was apparent, as the top scorers in the league got deals ranging in the $5-6 million per year range.
The Flyers may need more goals, but do they need another scorer? Not that way.
The reason the Flyers don't need to sign another scorer through free agency is because that is exactly why his hands were tied this offseason. The last thing the Flyers need to do is get infatuated with the potential of a big-name free agent and not get results only to be stuck with an albatross contract. It's the same vicious cycle Hextall is working to clean up right now.
And while the Flyers didn't get the high-scoring talents of a Kieffer Bellows or Julien Gauthier at the NHL Draft, they focused on two-way talent with some good scorers already a step further in the development process.
Konecny is one of those players, having scored 30 goals and had 101 points last season in the OHL. He had 29 goals the season before that, right before he was drafted by the Flyers with the 24th overall pick. In his rookie year in the OHL, he scored 26 goals.
Another such player is Nicolas Aube-Kubel. The second-round pick from 2014 played alongside Gauthier with Val d'Or and scored 38 goals, three fewer than Gauthier, and had 84 points. The year before, he scored 38 goals as well with just four fewer points, 80. In a brief stint with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, Aube-Kubel scored two goals and had one assist in six games, the first pro action of his career.
As these players start to make their way to the NHL ranks, the Flyers will be shedding more cap space, and as they do, they will be in position to make that one big splash signing when the time is right.
So it may have been a quiet day, seemingly an underwhelming day for the Flyers, but it opened the door to the start of the next step, which will be getting the kids up to the NHL level and opening up more room in cap space to pounce on the right free agents at the right time.
Kevin Durso is managing editor for Flyerdelphia. Follow him on Twitter @Kevin_Durso.
