Have you ever been cruising along on the open road and come across a McDonalds while sitting at a stop light? You think to yourself “hmm, I’m a bit hungry and it’s been awhile since I’ve had a Big Mac, I’ll stop and get one!” With high expectations you om nom nom that greaseball burger in the parking lot and you feel good about your decisions… until the dreadful stomach pains and catastrophic diarrhea hit and you’re questioning all your life’s choices?
Then you’ll understand what it’s like being a Flyers fan this summer!
The Flyers nearly made the playoffs in 2023-24 but a late-season losing streak killed those dreams. It left expectations high that the front office would recalibrate and take some steps forward, but that didn’t happen. Matvei Michkov joined the cause and they called it an offseason. Now they gear up for a 2024-25 season with a nearly identical roster and one of the worst cap situations in the entire NHL. How are you anything other than excited for next season?
Buyouts
Cam Atkinson
In a move that more or less needed to happen, the Flyers bought out the remaining one year and $5.8 million of his contract. It equates to a $2.4 cap hit in 2024-25 and a $1.8 hit in 2025-26, giving them just enough wiggle room in 2024-25 to handle their internal affairs and re-sign Erik Johnson for some reason.
They’re essentially swapping Atkinson for Matvei Michkov on the main roster, which is a huge upgrade, if you want to look at it that way, but it’s even more dead cap on the books for a team currently overflowing with it, even if they really had no choice this time.
Grade: C
Entry Draft
Jett Luchanko
The Flyers moved back from 12 to 13th overall and selected forward Jett Luchanko. He was apparently “their guy” despite not being seen as such at that place in the draft by a vast majority of prospect gurus. Like most prospects, there will be a years-long wait until we know whether or not the Flyers big-brained this one, but it certainly wasn’t the sexy option on draft night.
Grade: C
Everyone Else
Flyers fans will pretend this is the greatest draft ever, but most folks with a clue indicate they’re pretty disappointed with how the Flyers handled their 2024 strategy. They drafted tall, big dudes with relatively low ceilings like it’s a Ron Hextall draft from 2016 or 2017. If guys with size pan out, they’ll be big pieces in the NHL lineup. If not, they’re fourth liners at best and ECHLers at worst.
Grade: D
Trades
Pick 12 for pick 13
Briere is looking to get his lynchpin questionable draft day trade out of the way early in his career. He dealt the 12th overall pick to Minnesota for the 13th overall pick and a third round selection. The Wild took Zeev Buium while the Flyers took Jett Luchanko. They passed on a highly rated player and opted not to select Konsta Helenius who was taken 15th. This will be a fun one to look back on in a few years.
Grade: C
31st pick for a future 1st round pick
The Flyers had two first round picks in 2024, but only selected a player with one, as they dealt Florida’s 2024 first rounder to Edmonton for a 2025 protected pick. The condition being that it’s top 12, the Flyers will get the Oilers’ 2026 first rounder, unless they trade the 2026 first, in which case the Flyers receive an unprotected 2025 first. Considering the Oilers more than likely aren’t bottoming out next year, it was a roundabout way to have a late round selection in 2024 and now having a late round selection in 2025. Yeehaw.
Grade: C
Free Agency
Erik Johnson
The Flyers had nine defensemen under contract that are vying for an NHL opportunity, they did not need a tenth body, but enter 36-year-old Erik Johnson back into the mix. He’s apparently vibe master general, which is great and all, but he’s otherwise completely unimportant and unnecessary to the bigger picture right now and there’s no good reason they went down this route again.
Grade: F
SIGNINGS
Travis Konecny
Everyone knew a Konecny extension was coming, but they made it officially official on July 25 when he inked an eight-year, $70 million extension with the Flyers. Apparently the front office has learned nothing from Sean Couturier or Travis Sanheim about signing players a year early to lifetime contracts and how quickly they can bite them. In the short term, it’s an expensive but fine contract. In the long term, it’s a ticking bomb that will blow up in their faces sooner or later.
Grade: D
Garnet Hathaway
Speaking of players signing a year early, the Flyers re-signed veteran grinder Garnet Hathaway to a two-year extension. He’s a fine depth wingers and a prototypical Tortorella Flyer if ever there was, but the question is why was this the front office’s priority this summer? A $2.4 mil cap hit is less than a million more than he’s making right now and he’ll be 35 when his new deal ends. It’s not the worst thing they did this summer, but it was absolutely unnecessary and mindblowing this is what they were spending time on rather than finding a young center to build around.
Grade: C
Bobby Brink
Brink is back in a two-year contract carrying a $1.5 million cap hit. He’ll totally be respected by John Tortorella this year and not at all misused again, right? …Right?
Grade: B
Anthony Richard
Who? He’s a depth signing to help the depleted Phantoms offense. He’s been a point-per-game forward over the last few seasons and should help cushion the blow of losing both Tanner Laczynski and Cooper Marody at the AHL level.
Grade: C+
Oskar Eklind & Rodrigo Abols
We’ll lump these two together considering they’re both one-year deals to otherwise completely random European skaters. Will they ever see the NHL? Who knows. They’re both big and described as Garnet Hathaway clones, which ups their odds of making it in Tortorella’s system, but with a roster already overflowing with random dudes, it’s unlikely these random dudes stand above the crowd.
Grade: C
Matvei Michkov
Not sure an entry-level contract should count as a signing, but they did manage to get their top prospect to North America two years ahead of schedule. It was the only notable thing that happened the entire summer.
Grade: A
Overall Grade: D
There’s not much to grade because Flyers really didn’t do much of note this summer, and the only real moves of consequence came at the draft where things can’t be properly understood yet.
Were the Flyers limited in their offseason by a salary cap problem of their own making? Yes.
Was that a valid excuse to not do anything even with top prospect Matvei Michkov now it tow? Not really.
They have opted to run back an indistinguishable product from the previous season, because if Briere learned anything from Chuck Fletcher it’s that making moves is hard. They’re supposedly building towards that mythical 2025 offseason, but the stagnation in 2024 means they’re going to have to count their lucky stars the roster and coaching staff can keep the ship upright in the meantime, because if the wheels fall off during the season, there are going to be some questions to answer.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
photo credit: Getty Images
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