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Meltzer's Musings: Free Agency Season Open, Lecavalier, Ott and More |
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UPDATE: FLYERS SIGN BLAIR JONES (7:45 PM EDT)
Per Flyers general manager Ron Hextall, the Flyers have signed 27-year-old forward Blair Jones to a two-way contract for next season. The former Lightning and Flames center has notched scored seven goals and 17 points in 128 career NHL games. He was signed to add some depth and size to the organization.
Jones has been a very good two-way player at the AHL level. In the NHL, he's been more of a strictly defensive forward.
UPDATE: FLYERS RE-SIGN EMERY (4:15 PM EDT)
The Flyers have re-signed backup goaltender Ray Emery for one year, at $1 million. Last season, he made $1.65 million.
Emery and Steve Mason have a strong working relationship, and Emery is a battler despite some lateral mobility issues. At that price and given the rapid thinning of the UFA goalie market, the deal makes sense.
"I believe [a goalie relationship] is very important and I also believe Ray was a great influence on Mason's success last year," said Flyers goaltending coach Jeff Reese shortly after the deal was announced.
Added general manager Ron Hextall, "It’s an important thing. I’ve been on teams where the goalies don’t get along and sometimes it can divide the team and it’s not a good working relationship. I think with Ray and Mase getting along so well and kind of both knowing their roles, it obviously worked well for us last year and we expect the same thing this year."
For his part, Emery believes he can improve upon his 2013-14 season.
"I wasn’t happy with my year personally last year, but sometimes it’s not about personal success as much as it is having team success," said Emery. "I thought I fit in well with this team, so I’m looking forward to going back into a familiar situation. I think I’ll be better in my second year."
UPDATE: FLYERS SIGN ZEPP (3:30 PM EDT)
The Flyers have signed veteran goaltender Rob Zepp. The 32-year-old will join rookie goaltender Anthony Stolarz with the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms next season.
Zepp has been a fixture in Germany's DEL for Eisbären Berlin. During the 2012-13 lockout in the NHL, he was a teammate of Flyers captain Claude Giroux and then-Flyers forward Danny Briere. The Canadian goaltender last played in North America a decade ago, and has played in Europe ever since.
"I've seen tape on Zepp, and he looks very polished," said Flyers goaltending coach Jeff Reese. "Nice having a veteran guy with a young guy. There is no rush for Stolarz. He needs to polish his game. That takes time. Again, no rush. Let him develop."
Added Flyers general manager Ron Hextall, "He’s really developed into a really good goaltender. We’ve seen him a couple years at the World Championships and over in Europe, and he’s really developed. He’s in his 30s, he’s not a young guy anymore, but he’s real hungry to come back over and give it a shot. We felt like he was a real good fit with us, giving us the type of depth – you think you’ll never get to your third goalie, but you see situations where teams do and it’s a little bit unnerving."
"We feel very comfortable with him if he’s got to come up and play games for us. We’re excited about it. We want to have a competitive team in the Lehigh Valley there, and Rob’s going to be a big part of it. Some of his knowledge, if in fact Anthony’s there – and that’s not a given - we’ll see how things work out through training camp, and if he needs playing time we’ve got other options, but if we feel he can play in the American league and that’s the best situation for him, I’m sure Rob will be a big help for him."
JULY 1 QUICK HITS
* Free agency season opens today. Late June to early July is the time of year where NHL teams work hard to clear out existing albatross contracts so they can sign new players to albatross contracts they'll be trying to get rid of in another summer or two. There are some bargains to be had, but that usually requires being patient and letting the seller's market switch to a buyer's market in a few weeks.
* The Flyers continue to work feverishly to trade Vincent Lecavalier and get some cap relief. With his $2 million signing bonus installment now coming due, making a deal should become a little easier as the week progresses. The Flyers are in the market for a backup goaltender, a left winger and a defenseman with a combination of size and mobility. The team is allowed to exceed next season's salary cap by up to 10 percent over the summer. However, the more they go over the cap the further they weaken their position in trying to pare down salary without making trades they would otherwise reject.
* I will update today's blog throughout the day if and when the Flyers make roster moves. It would be a bit of a surprise if the team completely stood pat. There have been some potentially useful players turned loose into unrestricted free agency by their teams, but for now, the Flyers are more or less forced into "wait for bargains" mode until some space is cleared under the $69 million cap (whereby the Flyers would then promptly exceed the cap again and need other ways to be creative until they can put Chris Pronger on long-term injured reserve).
* In the restricted free agent (RFA) department, the Flyers have extended qualifying offers to forwards Jason Akeson and Tye McGinn and defensemen Brandon Manning and Erik Gustafsson. With Gustafsson having already signed to play in the KHL next season, the qualifying offer was a necessity in order for Philadelphia to continue to hold the player's NHL rights. The other players are not expected to be tough signings. Including Gustafsson and slide-rule eligible contracts (such as 2013 first-round pick Samuel Morin), the Flyers have 40 players on their reserve list.
* The Flyers did not extended qualifying offers to goaltender Cal Heeter or concussion-riddled defenseman Marc-Andre Bourdon. Both become unrestricted free agents. The Phantoms, who will be joined next season by Flyers' 2012 second-round pick Anthony Stolarz, will be in the market for a veteran goaltender to split starting duties with the rookie.
The Bourdon situation is a sad one but was a necessary step because, if he had gotten a qualifying offer and signed to an NHL contract, the Flyers would only be allowed to place Bourdon on long-term injured reserve while paying the salary in full. The NHL's Collective Bargaining Agreement prohibits teams from waiving injured players and assigning them to the American Hockey League.
It is possible that, if Bourdon's latest concussion rehab progresses to the point where he is able to be cleared to play, the organization could sign him to an AHL contract with the Phantoms. That is what the Flyers did last season on behalf of Eric Wellwood, who proved unable to return from a gruesome leg tendon and artery injury suffered the previous year. Despite Wellwood's season-long inability to rejoin the Phantoms, the Flyers organization kept him on the AHL contract for the full 2013-14 season before he retired as a player to pursue a coaching career.
* Rumors persist that the Flyers are interested in veteran forward Steve Ott, who becomes an unrestricted free agent today. Ott, who turns 32 in August, is coming off a subpar 2013-14 season in both Buffalo and St. Louis but has been a valuable player over the years whose worth to his teams exceeds his usually modest stats.
On the ice, Ott has a longstanding reputation as a bit of a "dirtbag" player and one of the NHL's most notorious trash talkers and pests. However, he is also a very versatile player who can play all three forward positions as needed without skipping a beat -- and is quite good at faceoffs when he is asked to do so. He can be used on any of the four lines and adapt his game accordingly. He is a tenacious forechecker and good penalty killer.
Once I started pulling in double duty at HockeyBuzz (starting in the 2010-11 season) covering the Dallas Stars as well as the Flyers, I got to see Ott play on a game-in and game-out basis and came to appreciate what he brought to his team's lineup. Along with Brenden Morrow and fast-rising young star Jamie Benn, Ott was a major piece in the "Pesky Stars" identity that helped what was still a paper thin roster overachieve enough to repeatedly come within a whisker of reaching the playoffs. Ott didn't score many goals but it seemed like most of the ones he did get came at crucial times.
Off the ice, Ott is actually a pretty likable guy. Flyers fans and reporters would enjoy dealing with him. He has a good sense of humor and can be a go-to guy for quotes. More important, he would immediately become a well-respected part of the leadership group in the dressing room. He keeps things loose most of the time but also knows when to be serious. Ask him about the state of his team, and you'll get a straight answer.
As such, I can understand why the Flyers would have interest in bringing in Ott, especially with Scott Hartnell's personality and on-ice sandpaper gone to Columbus. With all that said, however, I am not in favor of Philly spending big dollars and multiple years to land Ott.
For one thing, he is coming off a year that was bad by just about any metric you want to use. Even if you throw out the pre-trade part of the year with a terrible Buffalo team, the portion of last season Ott spent in St. Louis -- a team that was expected to contend for a Stanley Cup -- was shockingly bad. This was a player who, in the recent past, had been such an important part of helping to keep a mediocre Dallas team competitive throughout the season.
Of course Ott was not the reason for St. Louis' swoon down the stretch and early exit in the playoffs. The point, however, is that he also clearly wasn't part of the solution, either. He provided virtually no help as a rental, and it wasn't for lack of effort.
My bigger concern is this: Committing $3 million or more of cap space and multiple years to a role player in his 30s is NOT an ideal use of limited cap space.
Preferably, a team has a younger, cheaper player who can perform a fairly similar role on the ice even if he is not part of the leadership core. Part of the reason why Dallas did not skip a beat when Ott went to Buffalo was the emergence of Antoine Roussel and late-blooming Ryan Garbutt to perform similar on-ice functions at a lower combined cost.
Unfortunately, the Flyers do not seem to have that player on hand. Zac Rinaldo doesn't do enough things well to be considered an adequate alternative to what Ott could bring, and there is no one else on the immediate horizon to do so. Perhaps Nick Cousins could eventually become that kind of player (but has to continue improving his skating, defensive play and other areas first), but he is not there now.
Ott made $2.95 million against the cap in his now-expired contract and is still highly regarded enough around the NHL to land a contract paying at least that much, as well as expecting a multi-year deal. In my opinion, that is just too much for the Flyers to squeeze in right now, even if Ott were to have a bounceback season in the first year of a new contract.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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