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Flyers Set Opening-Night Roster: Inside the Numbers and Cap Implications |
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All NHL teams filed their season-opening rosters with the National Hockey League yesterday. The Flyers were among the 11 teams in the league that had to do significant compliance gymnastics in order to file a roster that was within the salary cap ceiling as well as being compliant with the 23-man limit on the active roster.
The Flyers filed a 20-man roster that is a mere $284,000 below the NHL's salary cap ceiling: 11 forwards, seven defensemen and two goaltenders. Before we get into the salary cap considerations and the fact that the roster that takes the ice in Prague and/or the team's second game (Oct. 9 vs. New Jersey at the Wells Fargo Center) is likely to change, here is what transpired on Tuesday.
* As on-paper moves, the Flyers did not place either slide-rule eligible winger Joel Farabee or waiver-exempt defenseman Phil Myers on the opening-night roster.
* The team placed center Nolan Patrick, winger Tyler Pitlick and defenseman Andy Welinski on the injured non-roster (INR) list; a designation that provides no immediate cap relief but keeps the opening roster size at 20 players.
* There were 11 forwards placed on the opening roster. It is comprised of centers Sean Couturier, Kevin Hayes, Scott Laughton and Connor Bunnaman, wingers Claude Giroux, Jakub Voracek, Travis Konecny, James van Riemsdyk, Oskar Lindblom, Michael Raffl and Carsen Twarynski.
* There were 7 defensemen on the roster: Ivan Provorov, Travis Sanheim, Shayne Gostisbehere, Matt Niskanen, Justin Braun, Robert Hägg and Samuel Morin.
* Goaltenders Carter Hart and Brian Elliott were placed on the opening roster.
* Veteran winger Chris Stewart was neither released from his professional try-out (PTO) arrangement, nor signed to a contract.
Let's start with the INR designees. This designation covers situations where a player was unable to pass a preseason physical in order to play hockey -- such as Patrick due to his chronic migraine syndrome condition and Pitlick due to left wrist surgery from an off-season training injury -- or the injured player was otherwise not on the active NHL roster for the season (Welinski).
An INR designation retains the players' full salary on the team's total cap hit: $925,000 in Patrick's case, $1 million for Pitlick and $750,000 for Welinski.
Pitlick is close to being ready to play, although he has not yet been medically cleared. If he is ready to go for Friday, which is reportedly a possibility although the originally stated target date was the Oct. 9 game, he could be activated for the game in Prague. That would be one way of ensuring the team would not have to dress just 11 forwards and start 7 defensemen for Friday's game unless Alain Vigneault were to choose to do so.
Another way: The Flyers could place Patrick on the long-term injured reserve list. Apart from getting the full potential benefit if LTIR is needed, general manager Chuck Fletcher was reluctant to use it just yet until he knows for sure that Patrick will miss at least the first 24 calendar days and 10 games. Considering that he hasn't been able to practice at all so far with the team (he's skated and shot pucks regularly on his own), a return to the active roster could take some time even if his medication course has the migraines under control. Patrick was slated to be re-evaluated and a short-term timetable decision made once the team returns from Europe.
If the Flyers decide to place Patrick immediately on LTIR, that is one way of being able to recall Farabee. The way it would work out cap-wise is recalling the rookie would dip into the allowance the team would receive to exceed the salary cap (Patrick's $925,000 minus the $284,000 in currently available space).
In Welinski's case, once the player is cleared to play, he is likely to be waived and assigned to the Phantoms the next day (unless he is claimed). Assuming his timetable to be cleared is short enough that it was more advantageous to use the INR designation rather than applying his $750,000 salary toward LTIR allowance, this situation should resolve fairly soon and add the full amount on Philly's available space under the cap ceiling.
Per Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher, "Welinski's rehab is progressing well; he is back skating."
Contrary to popular belief, LTIR is not "free cap space" in the long term. Exceeding the cap ceiling, whether by LTIR use and/or by bonus payments, incurs penalties against the next season's available cap space. No team in the NHL is in worse cap shape right now than the Toronto Maple Leafs. As a short-term means being able to carry three players with cap hits of $10.9 million to $11.6 million and another at $6.96 million, they have strategically designated a whopping $13.7 million toward LTIR allowance; of which there is only about $10,000 left over.
Per CapFriendly, the Buffalo Sabres are using a projected $2.22 million of LTIR space on their season-opening roster. The Penguins are capped out and using roughly $82,200 of LTIR. Vegas comes in $61,668 below the cap ceiling. Dallas has $75,835 of cap space to start the season. St. Louis has $138,740 of space. Then comes Calgary ($154,958), Vancouver ($166,794), Edmonton ($263,001), Arizona ($297,723) and the Flyers in terms of the team's with the least amount of opening cap space. Carolina is 13th, with $1.09 million and then the Rangers with $1.12 million.
Even though in-season cap space below the ceiling in bankable in its entirety while salaries themselves are prorated on a daily basis, in order to find the first team that could currently afford to make a trade for a player with a salary of $3 million or higher, one has to go to the team -- Minnesota -- that has the 19th least (13th most) amount of cap space to start the season. From Washington (22st least/10th most) on up, teams would have sufficient space right now to take on at least a $5 million salary in trade.
One can debate how wisely or foolishly the Flyers used the roughly $33.5 million of cap space for 2019-20 that they had on the first day of the 2019 off-season (note: this figure was before deducting 2/3 of Radko Gudas' salary, and the buyouts of Andrew MacDonald and David Schlemko but based upon the NHL's cap ceiling that was later set about $1.5 million below what was projected at the time). The team's record this upcoming season will the ultimate arbiter of whether Fletcher's spending paid off or not in the immediate term.
In terms of breaking down how the cap space was used, here's a guideline on the AAVs that were added to or retained on the books:
* Kevin Hayes: $7.14 million (trade/UFA pre-emption, 7-year deal)
* Ivan Provorov: $6.75 million (RFA re-signing, 6-year deal)
* Matt Niskanen: $5.75 million (trade, UFA in 2021)
* Travis Konecny: $5.50 million (RFA re-signing, 6-year deal)
* Justin Braun: $3.80 million (trade, UFA in 2020)
* Travis Sanheim: $3.25 million (RFA re-signing, arbitration-eligible RFA in 2021)
* Scott Laughton: $2.30 million (RFA re-signing, UFA in 2021)
* Brian Elliott: $2.0 million (UFA re-signing, UFA in 2020)
* Tyler Pitlick: $1.0 million (trade, UFA in 2020)
* Radko Gudas: $1.01 million (retained after trade to WSH; off books in 2020-21)
* Andrew MacDonald: $1.17 million (buyout; $1.92 retained in 2020-21 then off books)
* David Schlemko: $900,000 retained (buyout; $600K retained in 2020-21 then off books)
Looking ahead to the summer of 2020, Lindblom and Patrick are the significant RFAs among the forwards, while Pitlick is a UFA. Braun is a UFA, Myers is a first-time RFA, and Hägg is an arbitration-eligible RFA among the defensemen. Goaltender Elliott is a UFA, while Hart cannot become a first-time RFA until the summer of 2021.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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