Okay, time for my first real article!
I’m going to begin by breaking down the Flyers’ 4 RFAs as they don’t have any major UFAs (don’t worry, didn’t forget about you, Cal Petersen). After that, I’ll show a glimpse of where that puts this team in terms of a cap situation going forward. I’ll be using this article as my starting point showing what/how the Flyers could try and make some big moves this off-season (if that’s the direction they choose to go in, like Briere said in terms of time to add and not subtract).
First, let’s talk about the NHL’s salary cap:
The NHL’s salary cap is set to skyrocket over the next few years. After years of minimal growth during the pandemic, the cap is finally breaking free in a big way. These numbers below are all based on PuckPedia’s projections. Starting from this year’s $88 million cap, we’re looking at jumps of 8.5% to $95.5 million next season, followed by nearly 9% increases in each of the following two years. By 2027-28, the cap will hit a whopping $113.5 million – that’s a 29% increase from today’s numbers. This explosive growth comes primarily from the league’s new U.S. broadcasting deals, the ESPN/Disney and TNT partnerships, along with recovering arena revenues and new sponsorship opportunities. Also, the biggest factor being the players no longer owe the NHL owners anything after they’ve officially repaid the owners for their portion of the profit/loss they experienced during the pandemic.
Tyson Foerster:
As everyone has seen year after year, Foerster’s ability to score has only improved. Couple that with the fact that he became someone Torts trusted defensively and in the neutral zone, it’s easy to see why everyone in Philly is high on his upside. Not only that, but this was the first year where we saw his ability to kill penalties at the NHL level. His ice time has remained relatively flat YoY, but the fact that the coaching staff can trust him in all situations bodes well for his future with the team. Having played 2 full NHL seasons, 1 full AHL season, and mostly exceeding/meeting expectations of a 1st round pick, it’s time for Tyson to get paid.
Now, after looking at a few player comparables to Foerster, I settled on one that appears to be almost a like-for-like example of what both player and team will try and use.
That example would be Gabe Vilardi of the Winnipeg Jets.
At the time when signing his 2-year $3.43M contract, Vilardi had been up and down with the Kings organization. The year before he signed this contract, he had put up 23 goals and 18 assists. Not too far off from Foerster who put up 25 goals and 18 assists. This year, Vilardi, who put up 24 goals and 37 assists, had the benefit of playing with Kyle Connor on their top line, which no doubt helped his assist total grow.
Vilardi opted for a bridge deal and it definitely paid off. Something I’d have to imagine Foerster’s camp is also going to try and go for. I’ve got Foerster’s next deal pegged at a bridge deal of 2-3 years at $3,750,000. If I’m Foerster, I’m going for fewer years since the cap is going to skyrocket, and I’d want to hit my payday of 5-7 million a year right at the peak of the market. For now, this appears to be the market rate for a guy of Foerster’s talents.
Noah Cates:
Now this is a guy who not only deserves every single penny he is about to earn, but we have to keep in mind that he’s already 26 years old. Drafted back in the 5th round of 2017, he’s a prime example of what Minnesota breeds. Just overall great hockey players. They’re highly skilled but they also have a high hockey IQ. Something that I myself am noticing is much harder to teach top Tier 1 players who have all the skills in the world but can’t think the game at a top-end level.
Cates is about to enter his “prime” in his hockey career (27-32). He’s a guy the Flyers have been high on since he started to excel in college before going on to have an ‘A’ on his jersey for the US Olympic team back in 2022. Teams that are competing and winning Stanley Cups year after year usually have a homegrown guy like Cates on their roster who is slightly underpaid for what their role is as they enter their prime.
This year we saw Cates bounce back to the forward who received 7 votes for the Selke back in 2023. While the age discrepancy and offensive pedigrees are definitely different, it’s hard not to watch Cates and be reminded of a young 18-21 year old Sean Couturier. He’s a player you can trust in all situations and has the ability to shut down other teams’ top players.
Now for contract comparisons, I’ve taken a look at Ross Colton and Sean Kuraly:
Ross Colton is Noah Cates’ ceiling for what he can earn. Colton received a 4×4 contract back in July of 2023. Coming off of being on a cup contender/winner with Tampa Bay, Tampa could no longer afford the raise Colton was about to command and traded him to Colorado for a 2nd round pick. Colorado, seeing that they had a hole to fix in their bottom 6 forwards, went right out and solidified that and gave Colton the contract that all bottom 6 forwards covet: security and term.
Now that I looked at the high end of Cates’ ask, the lower end would be someone like Sean Kuraly who is coming off a 4-year $10M deal. Kuraly also received a NTC for year 1 and a 10-team no-trade list for the last three years, which helped bring down his AAV to that $2.5M number. Kuraly perfectly matches the leadership qualities that the Flyers love out of Cates. He’s reliable in all situations and is the perfect locker room guy for the team.
Now that I’ve spent most of this time hyping up Cates and his ability to be a major impact player on a cup-contending team, I’ve got Cates pegged at a 3-year $3,450,000 AAV ($10.35M total). His offensive ability is real enough that I think we still haven’t seen the best out of Cates with the puck. This will also have his contract expiring right into UFA which the cap will have gone up over 30% during that time, and he’ll still only be 29 years old. If this contract does end up being exceptional team value and he outperforms it, he’ll gladly take the $5M+ on a longer-term deal 3 years down the road.
Jakob Pelletier:
Pelletier could very well end up being a solid third-line player in the future with the Flyers. The hardest part here is the Flyers have a number of players who are competing for roles in the bottom 6. Signing college guys like Karsen Dorwart, Devin Kaplan, and Alex Bump is telling guys like Pelletier you better come to camp prepared to compete. Nothing will be given to guys who have yet to prove they truly belong in the NHL.
Now, once John Tortorella was relieved of his coaching duties, Pelletier finally began to see minutes outside of the 4th line, as Charlie O’Connor had reported in the weeks after Torts’ firing. Torts was adamant that Pelletier was just an average career 4th liner and never gave him a chance to prove that he could be more than that. Over the last 10 games of the year, Pelletier began receiving more TOI (12.5 minutes a game) and had 3 goals and 3 assists over that time while getting 11 shots on net. While it’s a very small sample size, that’s rather similar production to guys like Bobby Brink and Owen Tippett over the last ten games of the season.
With that being said, based on where Pelletier’s career has taken him—too good for the AHL, needs more ice time to be offensively productive in the NHL—Pelletier is more than likely to get a 1-year $850-950K deal as a “prove it” (look at Nolan Foote) or, if he showed the Flyers over the last 10 games that he’s ready for a longer-term commitment, he could receive a 2-year deal, which is what I’m going to bet on here. My guess is we’re looking at a 2-year $1,100,000 AAV. This gives the team a little more flexibility for their younger NCAA prospects to go spend a year in the minors. Both Kaplan and Dorwart will almost for sure need some reps in the AHL before jumping right into NHL action. This deal for Pelletier allows that development to happen while also betting on a guy who is closer to the player we saw in the last 10 games of the season.
Cam York:
Gosh, where to begin with Cam York… He’s coming off of a two-year bridge deal that was worth $1.6M per season. Last year, he certainly started to look like the two-way/offensive defenseman that he’s been his whole career. Growing up in southern California playing for the Jr. Ducks, he quickly rose as one of the top defensive prospects in the country at the ’01 birth year. That led to him joining the famous Shattuck St. Mary’s at 14 years old, where he was so much better than his peers that instead of playing 15U or even 16U, they gave him the preferred treatment and moved him up to the 18U Prep team as a 15-year-old. After that, he went on to run the power play at the USNTDP, playing on a loaded team with Jack Hughes, Cole Caufield, Matt Boldy, Trevor Zegras, etc.
All of that to say, this year with Torts was probably the first time in his hockey career he’s had to face real adversity. Sure, he was sent to the minors early in his career, but that’s what tends to happen with defensemen—they need more seasoning when transitioning to the pro game. This year, after being given every opportunity to excel on the power play in previous years, he was almost banned from ever touching the ice when the Flyers were on the man advantage. He continued to play on the PK, and he still ate up over 20 minutes a night, but after having a breakout season of 30 points last year, dipping down to 17 points and just 4 goals this year, you have to wonder what went wrong. Clearly, both he and Torts crossed the line, which led to Torts being fired and York being an effective healthy scratch immediately after. Right after that, he has expressed his desire to stay and grow in this organization, so it sounds like he’s ready to move forward. Playing 20 minutes a night is not an accident—York is incredibly capable of being a top 4 defenseman in the NHL night in and night out.
Now going forward, it’s fair to question how the Flyers view York. If they deem he’s replaceable and they’d rather trade him, albeit at his absolute lowest, you have Jamie Drysdale who appears to finally be taking that next step and Emil Andrae who play very similar games to York. Personally, given his pedigree and the well-known fact that defensemen just take longer to develop in the NHL, I’d sign him to another year.
Similar to Ryan Lindgren, who signed a one-year deal this past season with the Rangers, I’d say that we’re looking at a similar 1-year $4,250,000. That’s still a massive raise from his current deal and very much on par with a player eating up this many minutes a night.
Cap Situation and Coaching Change-
Okay, now laying this all out there, I’ve included an incredibly fancy (basic Excel quick math chart) below for how I personally see the Flyers lines shaking out with these signings:
As you can see, with my projected contract values for the RFAs, it’ll leave the Flyers with roughly $18 million in cap space (could be $24 million if they put Ryan Ellis on LTIR). That’s a ton of space in theory, but keep in mind we could be looking at $10 million going towards Michkov in 2 more years plus all of their other up-and-coming draft picks who will someday need raises.
However, in the short term, this gives the Flyers leverage to go after an RFA or try to swing for the fences on a high-profile free agent. Lastly, the main reason I went with the shorter bridge deals is because the Flyers don’t know who their next coach will be. While a lot of signs seem to point to Rick Tocchet as the Flyers’ next coach, before committing long-term dollars to guys you’re not totally sold on working with a new coach’s system, it makes sense to be cautious.
In a future article, I’ll be breaking down the Flyers’ coaching choices and more about what systems they tend to implement and how that’ll affect current Flyers/future players they may want to target based on that system.
Just for Fun:
While doing my research, and I did land on shorter bridge deals for all of these players, I also mapped out what longer-term extensions would look like for Cates, Foerster, and York.
Foerster – 6-8 Years – $5.5-6 million per year
Cates – 6 Years – $4-4.5 million per year
York – 6 Years – $5.5 million per year (think of the Alex Vlasic deal but with the rising cap)
Leave a Reply