As the Philadelphia Flyers embark on their new rebuild under rookie GM Danny Briere, they have some in-house moves to make to continue to build their future foundation as the deconstruct parts of the roster, and that comes in the form of restricted free agents. The Flyers have three notable (and five total) RFAs in Noah Cates, Morgan Frost and Cam York. The latter is by far the most intriguing of the three when it comes to an extension.
Cam York was finally let out the of the doghouse in early December and has once again established himself as a top defenseman for the Flyers, a role he’s now locked into after Ivan Provorov got traded to Columbus earlier in the offseason.
York, 22 with a birthday in January, has 87 NHL games under his belt sprinkled over the last three seasons with five goals and 30 points along with 24 penalty minutes, 111 blocks and a -16 rating to boot. He’s averaging 19:27 of ice time per game, though has regularly creeped above the 20-minute mark as John Tortorella has thrown the defensive pairs into a blender in search of consistency from the players around York. He’s played primarily on the right side during most of his short NHL career thus far, but is expected to move back to the left for the 2023-24 in the absence of Provorov.
York’s overall lack of experience could work in the Flyers’ favor and lead to a cheap couple year bridge deal as he continues to adapt to the NHL, but what if the Flyers opted for a bit of a longer term contract at a lower cap hit?
Getting team friendly deals in this day and age seems less and less likely, but it’s also not impossible.
You’re essentially betting on a young player long term. They get a slightly higher AAV in the short term in exchange for a longer deal that works in the team’s favor as the years go on and his play remains high.
Mikey Anderson in LA, who currently serves as their top left-handed defenseman, just recently re-signed with the Kings for eight years and $33 million ($4.1 million aav). He’s 23 years old with 175 NHL games under his belt. Now, he did sign a one-year, $1 million deal after his entry-level contract expired in 2022 which led to that extension.
It’s always interesting when a player of that caliber accepts a deal that theoretically limits him financially for a long time. Though for the team, having a top pair player under a cost controlled deal for the foreseeable future is exactly the kind of thing Cup contenders do, especially in the prolonged flat cap era that has stifled the ability to throw money around.
Though signings like this aren’t quite the unicorn they appear to be.
Buffalo Sabres left-handed defenseman Mattias Samuelsson signed a seven-year, $30 million ($4.2 aav) in October. His entry level deal expires at the end of this season. His situation in Buffalo is slightly different; Samuelsson is currently stuck behind both Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power on the left side of the defense. While all three players have played on both sides of the defense to make up for injuries and other roster shakeups, they’re all left shot players who will stack on top of each other when their roster is built.
Elsewhere in the league Boston’s RHD Brandon Carlo (six year, $4.1 million aav signed in 2021) and Colorado’s LHD Samuel Girard (seven years, $5 million aav signed in 2019) highlight other comparable deals.
It’s been a minute since the Flyers have had a truly good contract on the books. Sean Couturier winning the Selke on a $4.3 million salary was great, but his new extension was a disaster. Wayne Simmonds putting up 30 goals at $3.9 million was a steal but the age caught up to him and there hasn’t been a notable good deal since.
If York is on pace for, say, a $1.5 million aav bridge for two years, committing $4 right now is a rather large bump for a team that doesn’t have a ton of money available to them during the summer. After re-signing Travis Sanheim, and the fallout from the Provorov trade, the Flyers only had about $6 million of naturally occurring cap space ($13 million when Ryan Ellis hits LTIR) and they’ve also got Noah Cates and potentially Morgan Frost to re-sign as well. Do they take the short term problem for a possible long term bargain?
Getting a player under a respectable AAV contract for a long time could be more beneficial than a cheap bridge for a year or two followed by a six, seven, eight or even nine million extension a couple years from now.
Six years at a $4 million aav is a can’t-lose deal for the Flyers and not a total rip off for York. He’ll be in the market for an extension in 2029 at age 28. By then the Flyers should have a significantly better defense and make the call whether or not to commit to him further, and York should have plenty of tread left on his tired to cash out on a major contract if his play dictates it.
For the Flyers (and Danny Briere’s first major batch of extensions) getting a couple good contracts on the books should be high on the priority list. Chuck Fletcher really didn’t have a “good” contract attributed to him. They ranged from average to franchise crippling, and the team could really use a team friendly deal that ages like fine wine through the rebuild and early into the next competitive era of orange. Is York the guy to get the long-term deal? It makes the most sense given he’s practically the team’s unchallenged top defenseman now and in the immediate future, now it’s just about Briere’s negotiation ability and whether or not he commits to any player long term at the moment.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: Getty Images
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