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Meltzer's Musings: Next moves? |
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The news that Tomas Vokoun had signed a one-year, $1.5 million contract with the Washington Capitals yesterday surely came as a kick in the gut to the Flyers. While Ilya Bryzgalov is younger and arguably a marginally better goalie than Vokoun, he's not THAT much better.
Something to keep in mind, however: All of the other clubs looking for goaltenders in the free agency market had already made their moves by the time Vokoun signed yesterday. That caused his market price to plummet. His side waited too long to strike a deal and the Capitals benefited from their patience.
Had the Flyers also still been in the market for a goalie, the price tag on Vokoun would still have been much higher. But the Flyers wanted to be proactive in the goalie market and get their top choice in Bryzgalov. You can't really gripe about that, even if the price tag difference is astronomical between making the first move vs. being patient and seeing how the chips fall.
The Caps still have a fine young goalie in Michal Neuvirth, so a one-year arrangement with Vokoun makes sense both for the team and the two goalies. There is still opportunity on the near horizon for Neuvirth, Vokoun can cash in again next summer if he takes the Caps deep in the playoffs, and the club can evaluate all year.
Some folks seem to have installed Washington as the instant favorite to come out of the East next season. If you are a Caps' supporter, it's hard not to like the moves that have been made. But goaltending was not really a big problem in the playoffs this past year.
The Caps still have things to sort out with having certain key players (and I don't include Alex Ovechkin in this, because I don't think he was anywhere close to healthy much of this past season) utterly disappear in big games. Only time will tell.
Anyway, getting back to the Flyers, if you look at what's left in the free agent market, the one player left who really jumps out as meeting the team's biggest need -- a big, strong third-line center with two-way ability -- is Capitals' unrestricted free agent Jason Arnott. With the Capitals' opening their wallets wide to retain Brooks Laich and also bringing in Roman Hamrlik on defense, there is just $544,872 of cap space left in Washington. Arnott is clearly moving on.
The Flyers' also have limited cap space left. There is $3,277,739 remaining, some of which has to go to re-signing Wayne Simmonds. This open-cap space figure is based on the assumption that the Flyers waive Michael Leighton and Matt Walker, and retain Jody Shelley on the roster.
With LTIR permission for Ian Laperriere, there would be an additional $1,166,667 of cap space. If Shelley were waived, add another $1.1 million of cap space but then subtract $550,000 figuring that Tom Sestito would become the most likely candidate to make the roster as the 12th or 13th forward (Sesisto is subject to waivers if the Flyers wish to send him to the Phantoms).
I simply don't think the Flyers have enough cap space left to be able to sign Arnott, even with the free agency pool dwindling and more and more teams declaring themselves finished for the off-season (apart from re-signing their own RFAs). The 36-year-old is certainly going to have to take a cut from the $4.5 million on the cap that he made the last five seasons. However, the drop seems unlikely to be steep enough to bring him within the Flyers' budget. Michal Handzus got $2.5 million from San Jose. Zeus is good, but Arnott is still the better player of the two.
The inability to make this type of move is where the Ilya Bryzgalov signing is biting the Flyers' a little bit right now. It hurts more than the fact that Vokoun took a small fraction of Bryzgalov's cap hit for next season. The Flyers got themselves arguably a top-five (certainly a top 8-10) goalie in the NHL, but it has potentially come at the expense of filling other on-ice needs this summer.
With Simon Gagne signing in Los Angeles yesterday, I suspect that the Flyers are pretty much done for the off-season. While they don't have much cap space to make a free agency signing now, they will be in decent shape to make moves during the season, especially near the deadline.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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