The Philadelphia Flyers have taken a hard pivot from their original rebuilding stance they preached heading into the season, trying their best to win games even at the expense of ice time for the prospects. If they’re serious about winning games, it means all avenues of improvement need to be explored during the 2024 offseason, including attempting to catch the big fish of the free agent pool 27-year-old William Nylander.
Nylander, who will turn 28 on May 1, is on an expiring contract that pays him $6.9 million a season, a figure he could look to double on his next deal. The Maple Leafs are cap strapped and more than likely won’t be able to afford his services moving forward, meaning he could hit free agency for the first time in his career, and he’s easily be the biggest name remaining in the 2024 class.
He posted a career-best 40 goals and 87 points in 82 games during the 2022-23 campaign, the second season in a row he improved personal records. He’s scored 12 goals and 27 points in 19 games to start the 2023-24 season, on pace to once again top his own benchmarks.
Considering the Leafs are trying to go all-in during the endless search for a Stanley Cup, it’s unlikely they considering moving Nylander at the deadline, which is actually a disadvantage for Philadelphia. The Flyers’ roster actually has quite a few pieces the Leafs should have interest in, mainly in the form of sturdy middle-six and depth pieces. Sacrificing one top player for three or four key depth fill-ins may have been a worthwhile deal for Toronto.
But it probably means the Flyers are going to have to convince him to sign during free agency.
So what can the Flyers offer? Well… not much. If he doesn’t blindly buy into the rah rah of the “New Era of Orange” and the return to the good ol’ days the organization is busy selling like snake oil, there isn’t much of palpable substance to entice him to play here. They’ve got a roster with zero star power, not enough cap to pay him off, he’d have to play for John Tortorella and he’d probably not see a playoff run with meaning again.
If that doesn’t make you want to join a team I don’t know what will!
It seems like the consensus from insiders around the league is that Nylander could demand an average annual value in the $12 million range, joining Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid as one of only three players to break that plateau.
So how can the Flyers afford that?
They have $3.6 million of retained Kevin Hayes dollars and $1.7 of the Tony DeAngelo buyout still on the books, plus nearly $4 million in the buried cap hit of Cal Petersen for next year as well.
First and foremost, the have restricted free agents Carter Hart and Owen Tippett to deal with internally. It would pretty much mean they wouldn’t re-sign Tippett and the $5-6 million aav he’d demand (or $7 mil, as the rumors state). They’d have to find a way to get out from the last season of Cam Atkinson’s $5.875 mil contract without retaining a single dollar, and the three open spots on the defense are going to have to be filled as cheap as possible, maybe by Emil Andrae, Ronnie Attard and Helge Grans, all players under contract for less than a million dollars.
It’ll take an amount of finagling that’s a near-NHL 24 level of roster overhaul. It’s not impossible, per se, but it’s close enough to it.
On the positive side, adding a top forward will go a long way if 2022 fifth overall pick Cutter Gauthier makes the jump to the NHL. Stapling him to the single player on the roster with talent will make his transition significantly easier than getting thrown into the deep end with the offensively anemic forward group they have now.
Setting their prospects up for success is something the Flyers never really attempted to do, dating back to the early days of the Hextall era nearly ten years ago.
If the Flyers’ front office was smart, they’d build through the draft to acquire their high-end talent. But through both their words and actions, that no longer seems to be the plan. It means the only way to take steps forward to improve the on-ice product is by adding it from the outside, something the organization hasn’t done in well over a decade.
Will the front office step up? Or will they opt to run it back with minimal changes, with the Chuck Fletcher-esque “we like our team” approach the fanbase has grown all too familiar with?
If they don’t want to do the proper rebuild, it may be the wrong choice, but it’s their choice. All it means is that the pressure rises immensely to add those star building blocks via trade or free agency, and there’s no bigger splash to be had during the 2024 offseason than William Nylander.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: nhl.com
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