The Philadelphia Flyers will be without Matt Niskanen after the veteran defenseman decided to retire a year before his contract expired, but they are bringing back some more experience on the backend. Justin Braun has signed a new two-year contract with the Flyers that will carry an average annual value of $1.8MM. Braun was scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent on Friday.
Even though he can’t fill the same skates as Niskanen, this deal represents quite the bargain for the Flyers who will bring back Braun at a discount. The 33-year-old defenseman is coming off a five-year contract that carried a $3.8MM cap hit, meaning he’ll take quite the pay cut to remain in Philadelphia. The long-time San Jose Shark ended up playing in 62 games during his first year with the Flyers, recording 19 points and averaging just over 17 minutes a night.
That number could potentially increase in Niskanen’s absence, with Braun at least taking on a good amount of penalty killing work next season. He was actually statistically the team’s most effective option there, though Niskanen and Ivan Provorov logged much more short-handed time.
Regardless, Braun represents a fairly cheap option for a team looking to go on another deep playoff run next season. The Flyers were a game away from reaching the Eastern Conference Finals and could be targeting some big names with their new cap space.
Wasn’t hugely impressed with Braun’s game this season, but, now that Niskanen retired, that is a perfectly reasonable deal. I look forward to Myers hopefully taking that next step, and Braun will be perfectly fine logging 2nd / 3rd pair minutes with some PK help.
hope you’re right on that assessment. I wasn’t impressed with him either – he needs to step up now.
Price tag is nice, deal probably never happens if Niskanen stays. Myers just can’t seem to stay healthy, my guess is they will still move Ghost out, Braun stays a 3rd pairing, extra dman and they maybe bring another veteran in to put with Provy….Friedman seems more likely at this point than Myers, IMO
Just curious, what makes you think Friedman is more likely to be a top guy than Myers? I was really impressed by Myers last year and it seemed like the entire media raved about him going back to his World Juniors days.
My bad, brain was thinking Morin but the fingers typed Myers. Yeah I agree, Myers is solid.
He’s a free agent defenseman that just signed for $1.8M per year. If you expect him to be more than a 3rd pairing guy, your disappointment if your own fault.