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Quick Hits: Free Agency Eve, Shots Through %, Morin and More

July 27, 2021, 11:32 AM ET [441 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Quick Hits: July 27, 2021

1) Nothing has been "normal" about the last 14 months, whether it pertains to hockey or most anything else. Rather than the traditional July 1 (coinciding with the first day of the new fiscal year for NHL teams), free agency season opens tomorrow. Barring the Flyers making a trade today to address further upgrades in areas of need and/or restructuring their salary cap space a little further. Currently, the Flyers have $11,710,477 of cap space available under the ceiling.

That's enough to come to terms with restricted free agents Carter Hart and Travis Sanheim and add a backup goalie to pair with Hart with a modest amount of money left over to bank just a little cap and avoid dipping into LTIR allowance if injuries pile up.

It seems likely that the Flyers will have their second goalie squared away in the next day or two. As for adding additional forwards or a third-pair left defenseman so as not to risk rushing Cam York, there are players out there on the UFA market who might help address certain areas of need (size, grit, supplementary scoring, speed). However, there's only so many cap dollars to go around and only so many roster spaces.

Whenever someone says "Would the Flyers have interest in (Player X)", there are three questions that have to be answered: 1) What need does that player address significantly better than in-house options? 2) What's the REALISTIC term and AAV on the potential contract? 3) Who is being subtracted from the numbers equation and how readily will that gone by opening night?

I don't think it's a lock that the Flyers are done trading this offseason but there are no inklings that anything is imminent. Whatever has been discussed internally or with other teams has either been kept under wraps or isn't at a stage of seriousness where it would out there among Elliotte Friedman, Pierre LeBrun and other nationally plugged-in media. By the way, I'm going to revisit this in the final section of today's blog.

The Flyers still have players they could trade if there's the right trade fit. The fact that James van Riemsdyk went unprotected in the Expansion Draft while Nicolas Aube-Kubel was protected in an unsuccessful effort to steer the Seattle Kraken to take a high-salaried player (JVR or one of the since-departed Jakub Voracek or Shayne Gostisbehere) certainly suggests that if cap exchanges and return can be worked out, JVR is obtainable if another team was inclined to work out a deal with Chuck Fletcher. It's less likely that either Travis Konecny or Sanheim would be dealt, but never say never, right? It'd have be part of a blockbuster. I'd say the odds of that are pretty slim.

As far as the Gostisbehere trade went, the Flyers were dealing from a position of significant disadvantage. With the span of a few months, the player passed through waivers unclaimed. He then passed through the Expansion Draft unselected by Seattle and with not enough apparent interest by other NHL clubs to work out a deal for the Kraken to select Ghost and then flip the following day for a draft pick. This is what Calgary did to obtain ex-Flyers winger Tyler Pitlick. Seattle took him from Arizona with the knowledge that there were NHL teams (Friedman reported that the Flyers were one) who'd send a pick to acquire him by trade. The Calgary Flames sent a 2022 fourth-round pick to Seattle on July 22.

Now the Flyers were twice unsuccessful in trying to get a full $4.5 million of cap relief on Gostisbehere. As such, in order to avoid retaining cap on Gostisbehere, they had no other choice but to accept the terms that Arizona general manager Bill Armstrong wanted in order to accept the entire cap hit along with the player. The Flyers also had to send a 2022 second-round pick and 2022 seventh-rounder to make Armstrong agreeable to taking on the entire cap hit for two years. The cap space itself was the return.... no mid-round draft picks or minor prospect coming back, because the cap space was the most valuable commodity.

2) The Flyers extended qualifying offers yesterday to Hart, Sanheim, Connor Bunnaman and Dave Kase. In the case of Kase, who elected to return to Europe for next season, the QO was tendered in order for the Flyers to retain the player's NHL rights. It seems likely that Bunnaman will accept his qualifying offer.

I saw a couple people, including one who really ought to know better because he runs a hockey publication, post something along the lines of "Hart's qualifying offer isn't going to get it done."
Well, of course it isn't!

The qualifying offer is a collective bargaining agreement requirement so as to ensure the player is a restricted free agent and doesn't become a UFA. It's done to the minimum required dollar figure based on the player's expired contract. It's not a negotiating tactic. It's a pre-negotiating procedural step, and nothing more.

Hart is not arbitration eligible. Sanheim is. As such, the Sanheim negotiation is a little more time sensitive if the player's agent files for binding arbitration. Neither side wants to chance going in front of the arbitrator.

3) One area where the Flyers figure to be an improved team next season is in terms of their effectiveness in getting shots through from the point. The eye-test in recent seasons on Shayne Gostisbehere was that he relied more on shooting volume than shooting accuracy with his howitzer one-timers. The eye test also suggested that Phil Myers took too long to release the puck and was particularly prone to getting blocked. The numbers back it up, too.

If you go Hockey Reference, there are stats for "Shots through percentage" -- the percentage of all shot attempts that get on net rather than missing the target, getting blocked or hitting the post/crossbar -- as well as the related numbers of total shot attempts, shots on goal, blocked and missed shots. Below is a look at the five current Flyers defensemen who are locks for opening-night roster spots (I excluded 20-year-old rookie Cam York and Sam Morin).

The first listed number is the player's career average for shot attempts that get on goal. The number in parenthesis is his percentage during 2020-21 season. I also listed the numbers for the main defensemen who've departed Philly since the start of last year. If the 2020-21 season represented a career-high or a career-low shots through percentage, I noted it.

Ryan Ellis 51.0% (51.7%)
Ivan Provorov 50.9% (50.0%)
Travis Sanheim 49.4% (51.0%, career high)
Rasmus Ristolainen 53.4% (47.7%, career low)
Justin Braun 44.5% (49.6%)

Shayne Gostisbehere 47.1% (45.0%)
Phil Myers 43.6% (45.8%, career high)
Erik Gustafsson 43.2% (35.5%)
Robert Hägg 43.8% (37.7%, career low)

4) Yesterday, Sam Morin signed a one-year $750,000 contract to remain with the Flyers rather than testing unrestricted free agency. It's a one-way deal, meaning that Morin will get paid the same regardless of whether he's in the NHL or AHL. No need to prorate anything. That's a really good salary for the AHL level and it's dirt-cheap by NHL cap management standards, so there's a benefit for both sides.

5) Tony Androckitis of Inside the AHL tweeted that he's heard the Flyers will sign veteran Taylor Fedun tomorrow to play for Lehigh Valley in the AHL and serve as a depth option for NHL in-case of injuries. He spent most of last season on the Dallas Stars' taxi squad. If it comes to fruition, the 33-year-old would take over the right-wide defense depth role previously played by Nate Prosser.

6) The other day when Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher gave his post-Draft press conference, veteran writer Rob Parent asked the GM if there'd be a change in the captaincy next season. Fletcher erased whatever doubt -- and it was only the tiniest sliver -- still existed about Claude Giroux remaining captain.

"No, he's our captain," Fletcher said bluntly.

Other than a small but noisy group of social media and message board posters who bang the "strip the C from Giroux" drum on seemingly a daily basis, there was already 99.9% certainty that Fletcher's comments about the team needing more leadership were not an indictment of Giroux himself but rather of what needed to be added to the mix from that standpoint. It was still a legitimate question to ask the GM to remove any doubt in people's minds as to who the captain will be come next season, but the answer was already nearly a foregone conclusion.

Why do I say there was close to zero doubt?

* Before the Expansion Draft, there wasn't any whisper, rumor or insinuation that the Flyers even gave a moment's thought to asking Giroux to waive his no-movement clause. If there had been anything -- even an outside chance -- that this might happen, it would have been picked up on by Friedman or LeBrun in particular and very prominently reported. The fact that there wasn't a peep along those lines was a pretty damn clear sign that the idea was never floated at any point. Meanwhile, the Flyers very much needed a big chunk of cap space. That's why JVR, Voracek and Ghost were all exposed to the Expansion Draft. They didn't have NMCs but, if Fletcher had truly intended to have a new captain, he'd have asked Giroux to waive.

* Giroux only has one one season left on his current contract. When the GM was asked about it a few week ago, he said that the Flyers want Giroux to be here for as long as the player also wants it. Giroux's already said that he hopes to finish his career in Philadelphia. Did any of that sound like the precursor to an imminent captaincy change?

* Before the captaincy question was even asked, Fletcher said nearly verbatim that the reason for targeting three players who'd been alternate captains elsewhere in the NHL (Ryan Ellis, Cam Atkinson and Rasmus Ristolainen) is the team needed more leaders and different voices to assist the leaders who were still here.

Was there still the tiniest sliver of a doubt? Could Sean Couturier (himself entering the final year of his current contract) have been given the C and Giroux switched to an A. Theoretically, maybe, although nothing of that sort had even been hinted. Nonetheless, it was still legitimate to ask as journalistic due diligence, and that prompted Fletcher to succinctly respond in a way that closed the matter.

Actually, as I see it, the story here NEVER was the mere fact that Giroux would remain captain. That should not have come as the slightest surprise. The story was how bluntly Fletcher affirmed it and thereby, padlocked any further questions.

Even that probably won't stop the "strip the C" fans from continuing to holler over and over daily about what is currently a non-issue. Merely noting that Fletcher confirmed Giroux's ongoing captaincy and not his steadfastness about it is more like tossing red meat to the jackals.

Now what would happen if the Flyers struggle this coming year in any way resembling 2020-21? That's when you might see even bigger changes at all levels because then you are in tear down and rebuild territory. It's no fun to contemplate. Every one knows the stakes next season: The GM knows. The head coach and his staff know. The captain knows. The rest of the team is also fully aware.
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