The Philadelphia Flyers have set themselves up to run their 2023-24 roster back in 2024-25 as Danny Briere has pointed towards the salary cap as a reason to not make moves. Now, the cap problems Briere is quick to blame are mainly self-inflicted wounds by Briere himself between retained salary, buyouts and painfully stupid contracts to depth main roster pieces, but hey, who’s counting?
The supposed reason for the inactivity now is that there’s an oasis on the horizon in the summer of 2025 when they lose some contracts and the financial situation improves greatly.
But does their cap actually get better next year?
The answer is… kinda.
Their 2025-26 cap isn’t nearly as pretty as assumed, and features some large question marks because of some internal contracts coming due. Travis Konecny, Cam York and Tyson Foerster are all due extensions, and based on how ludicrously they get paid will go a long way to determining their future cap space.
According to PuckPedia, the Flyers already have $64,804,762 invested in 17 players (nine forwards, six defensemen and two goalies) for the 2025-26 season, as well as $5,329,761 in dead cap between Kevin Hayes and Cam Atkinson.
The salary cap for the 2024-25 season is $88 million. That means, based on their projection the Flyers have $23,195,238 in free cap space during the 2025 offseason. While it’s hard to predict how much the cap ceiling will increase by year-over-year, a $3 – $5 million raise seems to be the typical window. For argument’s sake, let’s say the cap sits at $92 million.
That means the Flyers will hover around $27 million in cap space in 2025-26, but as noted, they’ve got some internal options to decide upon first.
- If Travis Konecny re-signs and his aav falls around the $8 – $10 million range, kiss one-third of that cap space goodbye.
- Cam York’s extension may also be gigantic, as young top defensemen are typically making around $8 million a season. It’d be surprising if he makes anything less than $6 million a season.
- Tyson Foerster is the wildcard of the group, and his first contract off his entry-level deal will be decided heavily by his play in 2024-25. He could sign a bridge deal in the $2 million range, or get the Joel Farabee treatment of a longer term contract clocking in around $5 million. Again, for argument’s sake, let’s say he earns a $3×3 bridge deal.
Between the three of them ($10 mil, $8mil, $3 mil), that’s collectively $21 million towards the cap in 2025-26, eating away three-quarters of their $27 million in space. That brings the roster up to 20 of 23 players signed.
And that’s not even factoring in Morgan Frost or Noah Cates, their other two notable restricted free agents, who, if re-signed, will surely get at least some increase from their current $2.1 million and $2.6 million salaries.
Could the Flyers clear more cap space? Sure, but that has not been the M.O. of the current regime. If anything they love accumulating dead cap more so than shedding it.
Even if they were to just trade away Rasmus Ristolainen, Joel Farabee and Scott Laughton that’s $13 million by itself, and it’s also a major argument against re-signing Konecny. If they trade him rather than in him to a new deal, throw an extra $10 million in the pot.
$13 million, plus the $10 million from the Konecny projection plus the $6 million or so they’re expected to have naturally and all of a sudden they’re playing with literal house money to attack the 2025 offseason properly.
The only way they have any kind of funds to draw from is by fantasy booking various trades to get them to that point. But that kind of money isn’t coming their way naturally and effortlessly.
At face value, the idea of finally losing the cap hits of guys like Cal Petersen and Ryan Johansen seems like a positive, it doesn’t exactly have as big an impact as it seems. It just takes their maxed out cap back down to a slightly manageable number. 2025 is no where near the haven the front office seems to be sculpting it as unless they do some footwork to get it there, but based off their inaction during the summer of 2024, it’s hard to just give them that kind of credit.
By: Dan Esche (@DanTheFlyeraFan)
brotherlypuck.com 