When the NHL installed a salary cap to the league after the 2004-05 lockout, the Philadelphia Flyers were one of the teams most impacted by the new rules and nearly 20 years later, they still haven’t quite figured out how to deal with a hard cap. Their old approach of throwing money at their problems was no longer a solution as much as it was gigantic problem that impacted the rest of the team for years at a time. The Flyers are on their fourth general manager since to lockout and nary one of them has had palpable success working around it, but some contracts that have been handed out stick out far worse than others for how unfavorable they became.
Number 5- Chris Pronger
The Flyers couldn’t help how Pronger’s career came to an end, but they could’ve helped the contract they signed him to. After acquiring the veteran defenseman from the Anaheim Ducks in 2009, he signed a seven-year, $34.5 million ($4.93 mil aav) extension a week later that went into effect for the 2010-11 season. Since he was over 35 when the contract kicked in, the Flyers were on the hook for the entirety of his cap hit if he retired before the contract ended, and… well, that’s exactly what happened. Pronger’s playing career came to an end just a dozen games into the 2011-12 season and the Flyers were responsible for the five remaining years of his contract. He was on the books until the summer of 2015 when his contract was traded to the Arizona Coyotes.
Number 4- Vincent Lecavalier
During the summer of 2013, 33-year-old Vincent Lecavalier found himself bought out of the only team he had known, the Tampa Bay Lightning. Still seeing potential in the aging forward, Paul Holmgren signed Lecavalier to a five-year, $22.5 million ($4.5 mil aav) deal as he thought he’d be a good fit with head coach Peter Laviolette. The issue is, only three games into the 2013-14 season, the Flyers fired Laviolette and replaced him with Craig Berube, who immediately put Lecavalier in his dog house. After struggling for two-and-a-half seasons with the Flyers, he was dealt to the LA Kings for Jordan Weal and Lecavalier retired after the 2016 season came to an end.
Number 3- Sean Couturier
Sean Couturier went from possibly the most team-friendly contract, winning the Selke trophy on a deal that paid him $4.3 million a season, to one of the worst when he inked a eight-year, $62 million extension ($7.75 mil aav) set to kick in for the 2022-23 campaign. For some, re-signing their Selke-winning forward felt like a no brainer, but for others, the writing was on the wall and Couturier, who had been playing hard minutes since 2012 and racked up his fair share of injuries along the way, was best to not be re-signed. Then in December of 2021, the feared future became reality when Couturier would miss the next 22 months undergoing two separate back surgeries. He’s expected to return to the lineup in 2023-24, but how much gas does the soon to be 31-year-old have left in the tank? Considering he’s got six more years after this season on his contract, the Flyers better hope he still has something to give.
Number 2- Ilya Bryzgalov
After the Flyers’ two previous seasons ended in highly anticipated playoff runs being undone by shoddy goaltending, the front office was desperate to find a starting goaltender to keep their Cup window alive. Enter 31-year-old Ilya Bryzgalov. After four strong seasons in Phoenix he was signed by the Flyers in the summer of 2011 to a nine-year, $51 million contract. Even though he was a work horse, his play was so wildly inconsistent and his off-ice antics were quickly souring public opinion on him. After the 2012-13 lockout came to an end, teams were granted two compliance buyouts, one of which the Flyers used on Bryzgalov, just two seasons into his nine year deal. He’s getting paid $1,642,857 by the Flyers from 2013 until 2027 to not play for them; luckily it doesn’t count against the salary cap. He played 99 games for the Flyers with a .905 save percentage and 2.60 goals against average.
Number 1- Andrew MacDonald
One of the last things Paul Holmgren did as general manager before his “promotion” was acquire Andrew MacDonald from the New York Islanders at the 2014 trade deadline, then immediately sign him to a six-year, $30 million contract. It was a mind-numbing signing at the time, and hamstrung the organization for the next five years. Being overused by coach Dave Hakstol and dominated by all competition across the league, MacDonald was a disaster for the Flyers until he was finally, mercifully, bought out by Chuck Fletcher in the summer of 2019. To make things worse, the two picks the Flyers gave the Isles in that deal turned out to be defenseman Brandon Carlo and goaltender Ilya Sorokin.
Honorable mentions
Travis Sanheim
There’s a bit of a double edged sword with Sanheim’s deal. His eight-year, $50 million extension ($6.25 mil aav) signed in 2022 and kicks in during the 2023-24 season, is more or less the going rate for defensemen these days. The counter argument, is there’s no reason the Flyers should’ve handed out that deal to the 27-year-old in the first place. The extension was Chuck Fletcher’s last, painfully stupid move as Flyers’ GM, and Briere tried to move Sanheim before July 1, 2023 when his extension and no-trade clause kicked in, but to no avail.
Matt Read
Originally an undrafted free agent out of college, Matt Read may be one of the biggest one-hit wonders in recent Flyers history. After bursting onto the scene in 2011-12, he scored 24 goals and 47 points. Two seasons later he’d hit the 20-goal, 40-point mark again and was rewarded with a four-year $14.5 million ($3.6 mil aav) contract in 2013 that went into effect the following season. Immediately after signing his new deal he just about disappeared completely. Scoring just 31 goals and 77 points over the next four seasons, he just couldn’t live up to the contract, eventually finding himself in the AHL for the majority of the 2017-18 season.
Mike Richards
Technically, the fall of Mike Richards didn’t happen under the Flyers watch, but based on his off-ice habits, it was seemingly only a matter of time before he came undone. Richards signed a 12-year, $69 million deal with the Flyers in the summer of 2008, but was later traded to the LA Kings in the summer of 2011 for Wayne Simmonds and Brayden Schenn. He helped the Kings win two Stanley Cups in 2012 and 2014, but the following season, Richards was demoted to the AHL after scoring just 16 points in 53 games. His contract, which still had five years and nearly $29 million left, was terminated in the summer of 2015 after “a material breach of his Standard Player’s Contract” when he was arrested at the boarder with oxycodone without a prescription. Richards filed a grievance and later reached a settlement with the Kings that will see him earn about $600,000 a year until 2032.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: sportsnet.ca
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