Travis Konecny’s contract extension is going to be one of the biggest storylines the Flyers have heading into the 2024 offseason. His current deal runs through the 2024-25 season, but he’s eligible to sign his extension at the start of the new league year in July.
Whether or not it’s the right move to sign him to a big money, long term deal is still up for debate, but it’s the most likely outcome despite the consequences.
There are two different scenarios with different levels of variation when it comes to re-signing Konecny- a team friendly extension that doesn’t completely hamstring the organization, and the more likely massive, excessively stupid contract that will come back to bite them sooner rather than later. So let’s break down what his extension could look like.
The Ideal Contract
Three years, $10 million
Pay him, and even slightly overpay him, for his recent success, but don’t give him substantial term. He’ll be 31 at the end of a three-year extension, an age when most players start to decline. They can reassess and hand him a more team-friendly deal when the time comes or trade him if the team still isn’t a Cup-caliber unit by then.
The first GM (particularly Flyers GM) to realize you don’t have to hand out max term contracts to every single player on their roster and can analyze their team in shorter chunks will probably have quite a bit of success when they can adapt quicker. It may cost more now, but could be a genius move later.
The Team-Friendly Deal
five years, $8.5 million AAV
The idea of giving a player what he’s worth is something the Flyers in particular have struggled with… well… ever since the installation of the salary cap.
Konecny will be 28 when his extension kicks in during the summer of 2025. Eight years would carry him until after his 36th birthday. That’s not exactly a great age to be handing out max term deal to. Five years only carries him to 33 years old.
$8.5 AAV gives him a $3 million raise from his current cap hit, and would put Konecny with the likes of Filip Forsberg, Mika Zibanejad, Mark Scheifele and Bo Horvat, with players like Tim Stutzle, Roope Hintz, Patrik Laine and Timo Meier falling on either side of that marker. Reality is, Konecny still hasn’t hit the 70-point plateau in his career, which should disqualify him from getting an obscene cap dollar.
The Not-Team-Friendly Deal
eight years, $10 million
Max term and a stupidly high AAV is definitely worst case scenario, but also a more than believable avenue the Flyers would accept.
Now, the obvious rebuttal here to justify such nonsensical money is that “the salary cap will rise” and that is true. Barring another global tragedy that prevents fans from attending games, a $10 million AAV in three to four years may not seem as egregious as it does today. But in three to four years, Konecny might not be the player he is today, either.
The Likely Outcome
eight years, $8 million AAV
Eight years for an extension to in-house talent is just status quo, no matter how ill advised it is. With any luck the max term can bring down the cap hit a bit, a strategy the Flyers have used often over the last few seasons. $8 million a season is a palatable number for Konecny, provided he can stay at (or exceed) the 30-goal, 60-point mark he’s hovering around now.
Conclusion
There’s an unnerving feeling the Flyers are going to hand Konecny a gargantuan extension that doesn’t make financial or roster sense, but as their best player and fan favorite, it’s highly unlikely they make the tough call and trade him away. It’s very similar to the situation they found themselves in with Sean Couturier a few years ago.
It’s probably safe to assume he’s getting max term of eight years. And if they somehow avoid eight, it’s probably at least six. They’re going to make a long-term commitment one way or the other. While that may be a given, the more interesting part of his negotiations will be the dollar value.
And after checking CapFriendly’s active player lists for the comparable 65-70 point totals, There are 22 players in the league (excluding Konecny) that fit in that mark and their average salary is $7,015,909, with the numbers ranging from $4.9 million (Drake Batherson) to $10 million (Jack Eichel). 17 players in the league are making $10 million or more in 2024-25, and 40 total players are making more than $9 million, and every last one of them is far beyond what Travis Konecny is.
When factoring in the fallback phrase “the cap will go up” especially if he doesn’t sign until 2025, then it’s possible that $7 million baseline gets bumped up a bit and an $8.5 million cap (or potentially higher) could just be the cost of doing business in the future.
Re-signing Travis Konecny is probably going to be a given, but how the Flyers go about handing him an extension will tell a lot about their business savvy. This deal could get stupid if they let their hearts get in the way of their minds. With the current team still very raw and a lot of changes to go before they’re back to a level of serious competition, the name of the game should be giving themselves as much financial breathing room as possible, and the best way to do that is to not severely overpay Travis Konecny.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: nhl.com
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