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Philadelphia Flyers Sign Adam Ginning

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The Philadelphia Flyers have signed another prospect, inking Adam Ginning to a two-year entry-level contract. Ginning could have become an unrestricted free agent had he not signed by this summer, given he was drafted four years ago.

Now 22, the big, physical defenseman has not exactly followed the development path that some expected when he was a young player. After making it to the SHL by the age of 17, he became the captain of the Swedish junior program and looked like a sure-fire first-round pick in 2018. But there was just no sign of any offensive upside at all by the time the draft rolled around, and with teams leaning at that point toward mobile puck-movers, Ginning ended up falling nearly out of the second.

The Flyers grabbed him, a worthwhile bet at that point, but things still haven’t really changed for the 6’3″ defenseman. He still provides basically no offense–he scored just five points in 51 games this season–but things have started to change in the NHL, as teams start to covet reach, mobility, and physicality once again at the position. The fact that Ginning continues to find team success, and won an SHL championship this year, shows that there is something to be said for his shutdown style.

Given he is no longer under contract in Sweden, the next step is likely for him to come to North America and play in the minor leagues. As an older prospect, he may even move quickly through the system and see NHL minutes next season. Whether he can hold down a spot is another question entirely, though it’s easy to see why the Flyers are willing to give him a chance after such a successful campaign.

2022 Masterton Trophy Finalists Announced

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The NHL continues to release finalists this week for their major awards. Today, Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli revealed the three finalists for the 2022 Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, as voted on by the PHWA. New York Islanders defenseman Zdeno Chara, Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price, and Philadelphia Flyers forward Kevin Hayes were named for the award.

The Masterton Trophy is awarded “to the National Hockey League player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey.” Each NHL team is able to put forth a nominee for the award, and voting members then select nominees from that list.

Chara earned his nomination after returning to the league for his 24th (and likely final) NHL season. The 45-year-old defenseman suited up for 72 games with the New York Islanders this season, his most games in a season since he played 73 in 2017-18. Finishing with two goals, 12 assists, and 14 points, Chara gave his best to the Islanders team that originally drafted him back in 1996. Those 14 points were actually the most he registered in a season as an Islander — he spent four seasons with the team from 1997-2001, recording a previous high of 11 points in 1999-00.

Price, the future Hall-of-Fame goaltender, battled back to play five games at the end of this season after being sidelined for the majority of the season with a knee injury and spending time in the NHLPA Player Assistance program. With the injury severe enough to cause uncertainty surrounding the future of his playing career, Price obviously did all he could in order to try and return to the crease after carrying his team to the 2021 Stanley Cup Final.

Hayes would be the second Flyer to win the trophy in as many years if victorious. Oskar Lindblom won the trophy last year after battling back from cancer diagnosis and treatment. Hayes played not only through injuries that limited him to just 48 games, but also dealt with the sudden news of his brother and former NHLer, Jimmy Hayes, passing away just prior to the season. Kevin still managed 31 points this season on a weak Flyers team despite the adversity.

Offseason Checklist: Philadelphia Flyers

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The offseason has arrived for half of the league’s teams that aren’t playoff-bound plus some that were eliminated early in the playoffs.  It’s time to examine what they will need to accomplish over the coming months.  Next up is a look at Philadelphia.

Things went off the rails early and often for the Flyers this season.  The team had high internal expectations and didn’t come close to meeting them.  Injuries hurt them considerably throughout the year, a coaching change did nothing to turn the tide, and Carter Hart put forth a second straight tough year.  Despite all that, they’re showing no signs of a rebuild so their checklist this summer may seem counterintuitive to the direction that many believe they should take.

Thread The Needle

GM Chuck Fletcher has talked about what he terms an aggressive retool.  On the surface, it appears that the intention there would be to shake up the core again, moving veterans for other veterans in the hopes that the new mix will result in better success.  They tried that last summer with the additions of Cam Atkinson and Ryan Ellis but while Atkinson had a decent season with 23 goals and 27 assists, Ellis was limited to just four games due to injury.  In the end, it didn’t really change their fortunes.

Fletcher now needs to find a way to make more of those swaps to make the team more competitive now while also not throwing away parts of his future as he did in the Rasmus Ristolainen trade.  While there will be teams open to those types of swaps since many will have salary cap challenges and will be limited to those types of trades involving impact players, finding the right combination of moves to spark the team isn’t going to be easy as the success rate around the league on those is nowhere near 100%.

Only one team scored fewer goals than the Flyers this season (Arizona) and only five allowed more goals so clearly, notable changes need to be made both up front and on the back end.  Full seasons from Sean Couturier and Ellis will help but that alone won’t be enough.  To borrow terms from other sports, Fletcher will need to thread the needle on a pretty significant sequence of moves and knock a few acquisitions out of the park.  They have their work cut out for them as a result.

Free Up Cap Space

Just when you might be thinking that the above seems pretty daunting in itself, let’s bring the salary cap into play now.  Philadelphia has less than $6MM in cap space this summer with Owen Tippett, Morgan Frost, and Zack MacEwen needing new deals up front and a replacement for Keith Yandle on the back end.  Even if that number is a little inflated with some of their end-of-season recalls, there isn’t much in the way of flexibility in terms of trying to make a splash in free agency.  Unless, of course, they can clear some money up first.

The obvious candidate on that front is James van Riemsdyk.  The 33-year-old has provided the Flyers with some decent secondary scoring in his second stint with the franchise, scoring at least 17 goals in each of his four years since returning (and that low mark came in the COVID-shortened 2020-21 campaign).  However, his effectiveness has waned as he ages and $7MM is an expensive price tag for someone who is best utilized as a middle-six winger.  It’s unlikely he’s going to turn things around next season and get back to the 30-goal mark so he’s someone that stands out as a trade candidate.  The question will be how much of an offset will be needed (either by retention or by taking a player back) or how much of an incentive they’ll need to provide to get a team to take the contract without sending any money back.  What happens with van Riemsdyk will go a long way towards determining what they can or can’t do this summer.

While they didn’t really get a chance to evaluate their full back end due to Ellis missing 78 games, it also seems likely that they will move a defender as part of their aggressive retool.  It won’t be Ellis as his value is down after missing almost the entire year and they just committed five years at $5.1MM per to Ristolainen; clearly, he’s not moving either.  That leaves Ivan Provorov ($6.75MM through 2024-25) and Travis Sanheim ($4.675MM in 2022-23, then becomes a UFA).  Provorov is coming off an underwhelming year so while moving him would save money, his trade value certainly isn’t at its best.  Sanheim is easier to move but yields less in cap savings.  But if they want to shake up the back end again, one of those two may need to be on the move as a result.

Hire A New Head Coach

After the decision to fire Alain Vigneault early in the season didn’t yield the results Fletcher was hoping for, the Flyers decided not to continue with Mike Yeo as their head coach for next season.  That puts finding a new bench boss very high on the priority list over the coming weeks.

With Philadelphia committed to trying to retool instead of rebuild, that could push them in the direction of a veteran coach over a first-timer in that role.  While long-time Flyer Rick Tocchet is viewed as a popular option, someone like Barry Trotz – who led quick turnarounds for the Capitals and Islanders – could stand out for that reason as well.  Paul Maurice is also a possible fit if he wanted to get back behind a bench so quickly after stepping away from Winnipeg.

Among the first-time head coaching options, Lane Lambert has long been speculated as a candidate but he could be promoted to the top spot for the Islanders after Trotz’s departure.  Nate Leaman is always an option to make the jump from the college ranks while Rikard Gronborg and Roger Ronnberg are international coaches that always come up at this time of year.  But again, a first-time NHL bench boss would be a bit surprising given their win-now intentions.  Regardless, it will be a crucial hire for Fletcher as with the way the last couple of seasons have gone, he may not get another one.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.  Salary figures courtesy of CapFriendly.

Montreal Canadiens Win 2022 NHL Draft Lottery

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Beginning this season, the full effect of the changes to the draft lottery rules announced last year are in place. Starting this year, teams can only move up a maximum of 10 spots if they’re selected, meaning teams originally set at picks 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16 cannot move up all the way to the first overall pick. A win for one of these teams in the first draft lottery secures the pick for the team that finished last.

The team with the best odds coming in will win the draft lottery for the second straight year, though. The Montreal Canadiens will pick first overall in their own building, the first time such an occurrence has happened since 1985 when the Toronto Maple Leafs drafted Wendel Clark at Maple Leaf Gardens. The New Jersey Devils moved up from fifth overall to second overall, bumping down the Arizona Coyotes, Seattle Kraken, and Philadelphia Flyers down one spot each.

The order for the top 16 picks of the 2022 NHL Draft is as follows:

  1. Montreal Canadiens
  2. New Jersey Devils
  3. Arizona Coyotes
  4. Seattle Kraken
  5. Philadelphia Flyers
  6. Columbus Blue Jackets (via Chicago Blackhawks)
  7. Ottawa Senators
  8. Detroit Red Wings
  9. Buffalo Sabres
  10. Anaheim Ducks
  11. San Jose Sharks
  12. Columbus Blue Jackets
  13. New York Islanders
  14. Winnipeg Jets
  15. Vancouver Canucks
  16. Buffalo Sabres (via Vegas Golden Knights)

While Shane Wright is still the consensus no. 1 overall selection across public draft boards (and NHL Central Scouting), there’s been recent noise about players like Juraj Slafkovsky and Logan Cooley potentially challenging him for first overall. That’s an upset unlikely to happen, though, as Wright had a terrific second half of the 2021-22 campaign, finishing with 32 goals, 62 assists, and 94 points in 63 games with the OHL’s Kingston Frontenacs. He also has 10 points in eight playoff games at the time of writing. While teams will draft him for his elite playmaking ability, he’s got an underrated shot when he chooses to use it as well. Standout Slovak defenseman Simon Nemec, Czech defenseman David Jiricek, Canadian forward Matthew Savoie, and Finnish forward Joakim Kemell are also names to watch for near the top of the draft board.

Flyers Sign Ivan Fedotov

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It has taken quite a while but the Flyers have finally been able to sign prospect goaltender Ilya Fedotov, announcing that they’ve inked the netminder to a one-year, entry-level contract.  Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The 25-year-old was drafted in the seventh round back in 2015 and the only reason that Philadelphia was able to retain his rights for that long without ever signing him is that the Russian Hockey Federation doesn’t have a signed Player Transfer Agreement with the NHL.  He was capped at signing a one-year contract due to his age.

Fedotov has had a stellar KHL career, recording a 2.13 GAA along with a .925 SV% in 89 games over seven years.  His numbers this season were very close to that as he posted a 2.00 GAA and a .919 SV% in 26 appearances with CSKA Moscow during the regular season.  He was even better in the playoffs, helping his team engineer a comeback from being down 3-1 to Metallurg Magnitogorsk while recording a 1.85 GAA and a .937 SV% in 22 contests.  Fedotov may also be recognized from the Olympics as he suited up for the Russian Olympic Committee in that tournament, helping lead them to a silver medal.

It’s unlikely that Fedotov will be coming to North America to play with Philadelphia’s AHL affiliate in Lehigh Valley.  Instead, he should be expected to form the other half of their goaltending tandem with Carter Hart and with the youngster struggling over the last couple of seasons, there will be an opportunity for the 6’8 Fedotov to push for playing time right away.  The Flyers had to wait nearly seven years to sign Fedotov and they’ll soon be able to find out if he was worth the wait.

14 Teams Face Bonus Overages For 2022-23

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In the flat cap world, nearly every team in the league is dealing with situations that require every last dollar under the ceiling. More than half the league was using long-term injured reserve relief at some point this season, a decision that sometimes comes with some attached risk. One of those risks is the performance bonuses from entry-level contracts, which can cause overage penalties if achieved by the end of the season, should the team not have the cap space to fit them in. Those penalties are then applied to the following season’s cap, meaning they have less room to work with moving forward.

CapFriendly has calculated the overage penalties for the entire league, finding 14 of 32 teams that will face them next year. Notably, these penalties lower the cap ceiling for a team and therefore cannot be covered up by going into long-term injured relief again. The penalties are as follows:

Carolina Hurricanes: $112,500
Chicago Blackhawks: $237,500
Colorado Avalanche: $25,000
Dallas Stars: $675,000
Edmonton Oilers: $896,000
Florida Panthers: $637,500
Los Angeles Kings: $637,500
Montreal Canadiens: $1,132,500
New York Islanders $245,796
Philadelphia Flyers: $295,000
St. Louis Blues: $1,000,000*
Toronto Maple Leafs: $212,500
Vancouver Canucks: $1,250,000
Washington Capitals: $100,000

*Can still increase

Details on how each number was reached can be found on CapFriendly’s Twitter thread but the vast majority are from Schedule A performance bonuses for time on ice and games played. While some would argue that it is worth the penalty, as it means a young player has been a strong contributor, it can also be quite impactful moving forward. The Oilers, for instance, are facing a cap charge of nearly $900K, significantly more than the league minimum salary. It could very well mean they aren’t able to carry the maximum of 23 skaters for at least parts of next season while they are still trying to compete, thanks to the bonuses owed to Evan Bouchard this year.

It’s the Islanders that are perhaps the most interesting case since they did not finish in LTIR relief and in fact, were more than $2MM under the $81.5MM ceiling at the end of the year. While most of the other bonuses were on entry-level contracts, theirs included games played bonuses for Zach Parise, Zdeno Chara, and Andy Greene. That means despite being well out of the race, the Islanders will have a little less room to work with next season.

The Blues meanwhile could still face an additional overage, as their penalty is based on the bonuses given to Tyler Bozak. He can still earn $100K if the Blues win the first round and another $150K if they win the second round, which each would also be applied to next year’s cap.

Philadelphia Flyers Hire Sami Kapanen, Kyle Shero In Front Office Roles

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The Philadelphia Flyers today announced the hirings of two former players in front office roles today. NHL and Flyers veteran Sami Kapanen was named Head of European Player Development & Pro Scout, while fresh-out-of-college Kyle Shero was added as an amateur scout.

Kapanen, who played 311 games for the Flyers between 2003 and 2008, will head a region he’s certainly familiar with. Kapanen spent his junior career in Finland and played five seasons of pro hockey there after leaving the Flyers.

Kapanen, who owned KalPa in the Finnish Liiga from 2003 to 2020, served as the team’s general manager in 2010-11 during a one-year break from playing. He was the head coach of KalPa’s U20 team in 2015-16 before coaching the big club for the following three seasons (assistant in 2016-17, head coach from 2017-19). He most recently served as the head coach of HC Lugano in the NL for the first half of the 2019-20 season before being relieved of his duties.

Shero, just 23 years old, is the grandson of Flyers coaching great Fred Shero and the son of Stanley Cup-winning general manager Ray Shero. After four years of Division III hockey at Connecticut College, he’ll begin his front office career with the Flyers.

Samuel Morin’s Playing Career Ends

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Almost nine years after he was selected 11th overall by the Philadelphia Flyers, Samuel Morin’s playing career has come to an end. General manager Chuck Fletcher confirmed today that Morin will not be able to return from his latest injury, the end of a long string of unfortunate issues that have kept him off the ice.

Morin, 26, ended up playing in just 29 NHL games, recording a single goal. The 6’6″ defenseman (who tried his hand at forward late in his career) suffered multiple major knee injuries that required surgery, including a procedure to remove loose bodies in September. He did not play a single game at any level this season and will be forced to retire as a true “what if” story.

While he never possessed elite offensive upside, the mean, physical nature of Morin’s game had a place in the NHL. He was a strong contributor for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in his first two seasons of professional hockey, earning a single game with the Flyers in 2016-17. Things went steadily downhill from there, however, as his knees were ravaged and his skating severely impacted. He tried to reinvent himself as a Matt Martin-like forward, essentially an enforcer who can add some defensive presence to a line, but was limited to 20 games in 2020-21, his last season.

He was set to become a Group VI unrestricted free agent this summer, and will now have to look for another avenue of employment. Fletcher did suggest that they could find a place for him somewhere in the organization, though it is unclear where exactly that would be.

Philadelphia Flyers Working On Contract With Ivan Fedotov

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One of the more interesting notes from Chuck Fletcher’s media availability this morning (apart from the confirmation that Mike Yeo will not return as head coach) is that the Philadelphia Flyers are working on a contract with Ivan Fedotov and expect to agree to terms in the near future. The general manager explained that it is complicated because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but is confident they will ultimately be able to work out a contract and bring him to North America for next season.

Fedotov, 25, was a seventh-round pick of the Flyers way back in 2015 and has been slowly developing into one of the best netminders in Russia ever since. This season he was the starter at the Olympics, posting a .943 save percentage in six games and winning a silver medal, and then returned to CSKA Moscow to take his club all the way to a Gagarin Cup championship. Fedotov had an eye-popping .937 save percentage in 22 playoff appearances, allowing a goals-against-average of just 1.85.

It was at the Olympics when Fedotov suggested to reporters that he was planning on coming to North America next season, and it appears as though there could be an NHL spot waiting for him when he arrives. Fletcher indicated that the big netminder will compete for the backup NHL role, should he be signed.

Standing 6’8″, you likely aren’t going to find a goaltender that fills the net as much as Fedotov, but it’s not just his frame that has allowed him to reach a high level. His overall play has steadily improved over the last several years, as he was brought along through the junior and minor leagues. Now a real option for an NHL team, the Flyers could be getting a ton of value out of a late-round pick that happened well before this management regime was installed.

Philadelphia Flyers Will Not Retain Mike Yeo As Head Coach

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10:00 am: At his media availability, Fletcher confirmed that Yeo will not be head coach next season. They will continue to speak with him over the next few weeks to determine if there is another place in the organization, though he is expected to interview for other positions around the league.

8:30 am: The Philadelphia Flyers are another one of the teams in the NHL with an interim coach after they fired Alain Vigneault partway through the year. Mike Yeo, who took over, has a long history with general manager Chuck Fletcher, dating back to their days together with the Minnesota Wild. Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be helping him in this case. Kevin Weekes of ESPN tweeted last night that the Flyers are expected to move on from Yeo, and Olivia Reiner of the Philadelphia Inquirer confirmed it this morning.

It certainly makes sense to bring in a new coaching staff, given the struggles of the Flyers this season. It’s not like things turned around after Yeo took over. In his 60 games behind the bench, the team went 17-36-7, finishing last in the Metropolitan Division and 29th in the league. They were 31st in goals for, 27th in goals against, 27th in penalty killing, and dead last on the powerplay. It was a brutal year to be a Philadelphia fan, and retaining Yeo–at least as head coach–never seemed to make much sense.

One might ask if Fletcher himself is in the crosshairs, though Flyers brass has made it clear that they will continue to back the front office executive for the time being. The general manager will meet with the media today to break down the season and discuss what changes will be made this offseason.

Yeo, meanwhile, will have to look for another job unless he is brought back as an assistant under the new head coach. Throughout his career, he has been given head coaching opportunities only to squander them with poor performances after some early success. In Minnesota, he helped the team to a 100-point season in 2014-15, and then was out partway through the next year. With the St. Louis Blues, he took the team to the second round and then somehow managed to miss the playoffs in 2018, even with a 44-32-6 record.

There is some evidence that he can be a successful head coach at the NHL level, but it obviously didn’t come in Philadelphia this season. His name will likely be included in some other coaching searches, though where he eventually ends up obviously still remains to be decided.

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