1) On the first day of NHL free agency, the Flyers did the following:
* Signed unrestricted free agent goaltender Martin Jones to a one-year, $2 million contract.
* Brought back unrestricted free agent center Nate Thompson for a second tour of duty in Philadelphia, signing him to a one-year, $800,000 contract.
* Made official the already widely reported signing of unrestricted free agent Keith Yandle to a one-year, $900,000 contract.
Instant Analysis articles on Flyers.NHL.com, dissecting each of the signings:
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Martin Jones and Nate Thompson.
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Keith Yandle.
2) The Flyers currently have $8.01 million of cap space free below the ceiling. Most of it will be taken up by new contracts for restricted free agents Carter Hart and Travis Sanheim.
3) The Flyers also announced five two-way contract signings, negotiated by assistant general manager Brent Flahr. The contracts are geared toward the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms but can, in some cases, also add NHL depth as call-up options. The deals are as follows:
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Ryan Fitzgerald (LW): Fitzgerald received a one-year contract worth $750,000 at the NHL level The Flyers re-signed the unrestricted free agent after a strong 2020-21 season in the AHL with the Phantoms. He led the Phantoms with 12 goals and was second in overall scoring with 21 points in 28 games. Fitzgerald will turn 27 on Oct. 19. He is the son of current New Jersey Devils general manager and longtime NHL player Tom Fitzgerald. He is cousins with Flyers center Kevin Hayes, former NHLer Jimmy Hayes (Kevin's brother) and current NHL players Brady Tkachuk and Matthew Tkachuk. Before joining the Phantoms, he spent portions of four seasons with the AHL's Providence Bruins after a four-year collegiate career at Boston College. He was originally chosen by Boston in the fourth-round pick (120th overall) of the 2013 NHL Draft.
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Gerry Mayhew (C): The Minnesota Wild organization, when it was run by Chuck Fletcher and Flahr, brought the undrafted Mayhew into the pro game after a four-year collegiate career at Ferris state. Small but clever and shifty, Mayhew has emerged as one of the upper-tier offensive performers in the American League for the Iowa Wild. His best season was in 2019-20, when he racked up 39 goals and 61 points in just 46 games. Mayhew, who will turn 29 on Dec. 31, parlayed his AHL success into an NHL deal with parent club Minnesota. He dressed in 13 games for Minnesota in 2019-20 (two goals, zero assists) and four games (zero goals, one assists) this past season. At the AHL level in 2020-21, he put up 18 points (nine goals, nine assists) in 18 games. Overall, he has 178 points in 228 career AHL games. Mayhew's deal with the Flyers is for one year, paying $800,000 on NHL end of the two-way terms.
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Adam Clendening (D): A veteran of 90 NHL games for seven different NHL teams, Clendening has also played 370 games in the American Hockey League. At the AHL level, he's a two-time All-Star Game selection and a past First-Team All-Star (2013-14). This past season, Clendening was mostly on the Columbus Blue Jackets' taxi squad. He appeared in nine games for their AHL farm team, the Cleveland Monsters. For his AHL career, Clendening has posted 243 points and often played at or near the top of the rotations. At the NHL level, he's mainly been a third-pairing guy when he's been in the lineup. He had 24 career NHL points (four goals, 20 assists). Clendening, who was originally drafted by the Blackhawks in the second round (36th overall) of the 2011 NHL Entry Draft, will turn 29 on Oct. 26. His contract with the Flyers is for one season, with a $750,000 cap hit at the NHL level.
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Nick Seeler (D): Flahr and Fletcher have often dipped into the pool of players they drafted and developed while with the Minnesota Wild. The 28-year-old Seeler is another one. The Wild selected the left-handed defenseman in the fifth round, 131st overall, in the 2011 NHL Entry Draft. At the NHL level, the former UN-O and University of Minnesota product has 105 games of regular season experience. He was a regular starter for the Wild in 2018-19, starting 71 games and spending the entire season on the NHL roster. The next year, he appeared in a combined 12 NHL games for Minnesota and Chicago. A taxi squad player for Chicago throughout the 2020-21 season, he saw no game action this year. Seeler is a defensive defenseman with size (6-foot-1, 200 pounds) and some physical bite to his game. His one-year Flyers contract has a $750,000 salary at the NHL level.
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Cooper Zech (D): The youngest of the free agents signed today by the Flyers, Zech will turn 23 on Dec. 18. An undersized puck-mover, Zech signed an AHL deal with the Providence Bruins in 2019 after just one collegiate season with at Ferris State (that year, he led his team in scoring). He started the 2020-21 season in Slovakia, playing for MHC Nitra until the belated AHL season began. When the American Hockey League was finally set to start, Zech returned to Providence. Overall, Zech has played in 78 career AHL games, posting three goals and 22 assists. If neither Cam York nor Egor Zamula make the Flyers' NHL roster out of camp, the Phantoms' blueline options would consist of those two prospects, Linus Högberg, Wyatte Wylie, Mason Millman, Clendening, Seeler and Zech. Departures: Derrick Pouliot, Nate Prosser, Tyler Wotherspoon, Chris Bigras.
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Chuck Fletcher Transcript
Late on Wednesday afternoon, Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher had remote media availability. He discussed the signings of Martin Jones, Nate Thompson and Keith Yandle and updated the timetable to talk contract with restricted free agents Carter Hart and Travis Sanheim. A transcript follows below, courtesy of the Flyers.
You signed Jones for two million. That’s the same amount Dallas signed Holtby for. What did you like about Jones over Holtby?
It was a really fast-moving market. There's a lot of teams looking for goaltenders. You look at as many situations as you can and find as many situations where the player has the same interest in you that you have in him. You make quick decisions.
Martin Jones is a guy that has played really well in this league for a long time. The last couple seasons in San Jose haven't gone as well as he hoped, or the team had hoped. He has over 60 games of playoff experience. Again, he won 30 games in this league multiple times. He's only 31 years of age and perhaps as importantly as all of those points, he's very familiar with Kim Dillabaugh. He and Kim have a strong relationship. I think they both feel strongly that they can do the things they need to do to get Martin’s game going the way everybody would like to see it go.
Do you feel like you are done for the summer for the Flyers? Are there any other moves that you would like to make?
I'm not sure at this point. We're just going to take a deep breath. We’re going to engage a little bit more assertively in negotiations with Travis Sanheim’s camp and with Carter Hart’s camp. They're obviously two very important parts of our team. We'd like to lock those guys up, and then we'll see. I think it's important that there's some opportunity for young players to come in and compete for spots. The cap is always an ever-present challenge. We have a little bit of flexibility now to sign the players we need to sign and have a little bit of room left over. Maybe an opportunity presents itself that we can then pounce on.
What is the reason that you think Jones can turn it around this season? Is it mainly the relationship that he has with Dillabaugh?
I know he has a strong relationship with Kim. I think Kim knows his game and feels that he can work with him and help him get them back to where he was. This is a guy that's used to playing 60 games a year, so he's coming into a tandem situation now. I think there'll be opportunities here to get practice time and to work on things. Sometimes a chance to reset and recharge in a new environment is a good thing, too.
What went into the decision to bring Nate Thompson back this season?
Just some of the things we've felt we needed to address. He brings size and grit to our team. He is a good penalty killer. He's good on face-offs. He can play left wing or center and just provides us with more experience, more leadership, and more depth up front. It seems like every year if you don't add this type of player now, then you have to add it at the deadline. We just thought we'd get ahead of it and bring him in. We had a good experience with them before. We are excited to bring him back and Nate is excited to come back.
Adding guys like Yandle and Thompson and even Jones to an extent, these are players who’ve served in leadership roles in the past. Is this part of almost a culture change with your locker room?
The culture changes: I'm sure that that's part of it. Anytime you can add good quality people, good, experienced players who have been leaders on other teams, it's only going to enhance your leadership group. I think we needed a little bit more experience last year. I think we were a little young in certain areas and it really impacted our performance on the ice. First and foremost, I think these guys are players that can help us win games. They're good hockey players.
We also do have a number of young players that are still developing their game and growing into bigger roles. When you surround them with good, experienced quality people, it will help in their development as well. I think just helps organization in general, not just the culture, but the talent, the development of our young players, the work ethic. These guys check a lot of boxes in a lot of areas.
Can you dive into Keith Yandle and how he fits into the D-corps?
I think he's perfectly complements our existing D corps. A left shot was something we felt we needed. Somebody to help with the powerplay. Keith is very good at moving the puck up the ice. He's got a lot of experience. Look, neither one of our special teams were great last year. We think we've added some things to help the PK. I think Keith in particular is somebody that can help quarterback the power play and bring another option for our coaches for the power play. I think we have several defensemen that can play on the power play. Keith has a pretty good skill set.
With you look at a goaltender struggling, and this applies to Carter last season too, when Jones had a bit of a downturn in San Jose, they had other quality goalies there too that seemed to struggle as well. It wasn't just Jones. Devan Dubnyk's been a good goalie in this league but couldn't get it together in San Jose. Aaron Dell, another capable goalie, struggled. How do you break down what is the team, what is the goalie and what is a combination between the two?
Well, it's a hard thing to do, but we saw it here last year too. Our goaltending numbers weren't very good. Our team defense wasn't very good. Really, it started up the ice. It was a full team effort, as I've mentioned several times.
We didn't manage the puck well. We lost the third guy, lost our third forward all the time. We gave up too many odd-man rushes. We didn't defend well in-zone. We didn't kill well, and we didn't get enough saves. It was a combination. When you don't play well in front of your goaltenders, it makes life very hard on them. You can lose confidence. You start compensating and cheating in different ways. It’s hard to know. I can only speak to our situation. I can't speak to what happened in San Jose. I do know that if we defend better in front of our goaltenders, they in turn will play well and allow our players to be more confident too.
Does Keith Yandle’s presence almost augment Cam York’s development, allowing him to have a few more games in the AHL and not rush him?
I think Cam’s play will dictate when he arrives in the NHL. What this move does is just give us more depth. You need a lot of defenseman to get through a season and this goes to our goaltending tandem, too. I think two seasons ago, we played 69 games, last year 56, and are going back to 82. It's a compressed schedule. It's a difficult schedule. We have a five game in seven nights stretch.
We have 16 or 17 back-to-backs. All kinds of three-in-fours. We’re crossing the continent again. We're going to need a lot of bodies, and it's going to be an adjustment for the players going back to 82 games and with this type of compressed schedule. I think what we're trying to do as much as anything is add as many quality players as we can, knowing that you're going to need a lot more than 22 or 23 players to survive the season.
With Rasmus Ristolainen and Martin Jones, you guys are kind of betting that those guys are going to perform better in a different environment. Why are you so confident that this is the environment they’ll perform better because you guys kind of were the environment where guys didn't perform as well as they have in the past?
Two years ago, we were in a really good environment where players seem to improve and were better. We defended well. We believe in the players we have in our room and believe in our coaches. In particular with Martin Jones, again, I think the relationship with Kim Dillabaugh is crucial. I think coming into a situation where you have Carter Hart here as well. We have two quality goalies that can help each other, that can push each other. We have a very good tandem. We believe in our group. Time will tell, but we think these are quality bets to make.
How do you explain so many moves happening and making trades in the flat salary cap?
We are seeing more and more trades where teams are attaching assets to players to move the money or taken back dead cap space. You need somebody that's pretty sharp with numbers and understanding the cap to make all this work. There seems like there's been a lot of activity today. I haven't fully wrapped my arms around everything because we've been pretty busy.
There's no question there's a lot of teams that think they have a chance to win and a lot of teams are making bold moves to try to get better. That speaks to the parity of the league, and to everyone's belief that if you can add a piece or two, you can be right there. There's always optimism this time of the year. That's what makes it so much fun. It's a tough league.
In your mind, do you have an idea how you want these goaltenders to split the time?
I don't. That'll be up to Kim and Alain to get together and figure out what makes sense. Obviously, how the player’s performance and health will come into that. I don't know if it's possible to play 60 games, for a goaltender to play 60 games this year.
I'm not sure if it's 16 or 17 back-to-backs. Our schedule changed a little bit at the end. It's five games in seven nights and three time zones I think we have at one stretch. Obviously one guy is playing three and one guys playing two there. It's just the nature of it. I'm sure when we get to the ‘22-23 season without an Olympic break, the schedule may have a few more breaks in it, maybe spread out a little bit better. This year is going to be a tough schedule. It'll be the first time in three years that we played 82 games.
With Kevin Hayes knowing Martin Jones so well and Justin Braun knowing Martin Jones, did you reach out to those players to get more information about those guys?
Obviously with Kevin Hayes and Keith Yandle, teams have been really trying to recruit him since he was bought out from Florida. There was a lot of interest in Keith. Certainly, Kevin was an important part of selling the virtues of coming to the Philadelphia Flyers. We're very pleased that Keith chose to come here over many other competitive offers and teams. The Martin Jones situation is a little bit different. He was only bought out yesterday. Again, there's a lot of teams looking for goalies, so it's one of those situations where you rely on your scouts. We obviously have very good information on Martin from Dean Lombardi and Kim Dillabaugh. We relied on that.
It is being reported that you signed Adam Clendening to a two-way. Can you confirm that? Are you expecting other potential veteran signings for the Phantoms, but also NHL depth?
Yeah, Brent's been busy. I think we've signed five or six today. I was hoping the release would come out. Yes, we have. We’ve signed Adam Clendening. I did sign this contract. We've agreed to terms with a few other players. Adam’s a guy with 90 games of NHL experience, can move the puck. He has some skill. He’s obviously a star at the American Hockey League level, but he can certainly play games in the NHL. With the skill set and the right shot, we thought that would be a real valuable type of guy to add to our organization.
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