The Washington Capitals have placed forward Matthew Phillips on waivers, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. The 25-year-old winger is set to become a restricted free agent this summer and currently carries a $775K cap hit.
Phillips made headlines this fall when he made the Capitals roster out of training camp. This season has marked his official rookie year, after playing in three games spread across the 2020-21 and 2022-23 seasons with the Calgary Flames. But Phillips has yet to find his scoring at the top level, netting just one goal and five points this season – the only scoring of his NHL career. He’s been much more productive in the AHL, where he scored 36 goals and 76 points last season. That mark ranked Phillips fifth in the league in scoring. He accomplished a similar feat two seasons ago as well, ranking ninth in the AHL with 68 points in 75 games.
This season marks Phillips’ first outside of the Calgary Flames organization. The team originally drafted the winger in the sixth round of the 2016 NHL Draft – taking him in the same round that featured players like Jesper Bratt and Brandon Hagel. Phillips made his professional debut during the 2016-17 season but didn’t play out his full AHL rookie season until 2018-19. He scored 38 points in 65 games that season.
Phillips will now be exposed to the entire league for the second time in his career. He was previously waived by the Flames ahead of the 2021-22 season, passing through and getting assigned to the AHL.
Flames should pick him up, but that would be like a bad joke
How happy would he be to return to the organization that he walked from because of how they recently treated him? Although I do agree with their recent direction he should be a fit. But considering how Sutter treated him (“what number was he”) he might have some negative feelings towards the team. If the Flames could talk to him prior to a claim it might help. He does have a history with Huska, and most Flames fans were disappointed he was let go.
That comment from Sutter was referring to Pelletier not Phillips, but I get what you’re putting down. Phillips wasn’t up long enough to really garner any kind of comment. I really hope the best for him, but I can’t picture a fit with the Flames. Conroy is really pushing to get bigger, and Phillips definitely isn’t in that mould. He would help the Wranglers for sure come playoffs of course, but I think that would be a kind of slap.