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Justin Braun Signs With Philadelphia Flyers

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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.

Philadelphia Flyers’ Matt Niskanen Retires

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In a stunning turn of events, Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Matt Niskanen has decided to retire from the NHL. Niskanen has one year remaining on his current contract and was due $5.75MM this season. That number will be removed entirely from the Flyers books, meaning they have some extra cap space to spend this offseason.

Friedman adds that the Flyers are working on re-signing Justin Braun, who is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent. Niskanen’s retirement would move his cap hit off the books entirely, giving the team more room to maneuver this offseason.

The 33-year-old Niskanen was still a very effective player for the Flyers this season, pairing often with young star Ivan Provorov and logging big minutes for the team. In 68 games, Niskanen actually recorded 33 points, the fourth-highest total of his career and most in one season since 2016-17. Not only was he signed for another year, but he also appeared to have plenty of hockey left in him.

Taking $5.75MM off the books does have its benefits though, as the Flyers attempt to tweak a roster that came within a game of reaching the Eastern Conference Finals. There is plenty of young talent on the defensive side of the puck, but the team could use some more scoring punch upfront. That’s likely exactly why the Flyers recently spoke with the Winnipeg Jets about Patrik Laine, a discussion that LeBrun believes both teams will circle back to at some point. With a chunk of cap space now freed up, perhaps that conversation takes place once again.

For Niskanen, it has been a very successful career including a Stanley Cup championship in 2018 with the Washington Capitals. The physical, two-way defender skated in a total of 949 regular season games and registered 356 points. He also racked up more than 1,500 hits and 1,100 blocked shots, laying his body on the line every night. If he’s hanging them up, it’s been a good run.

Overseas Notes: Texier, Sandstrom, Brannstrom

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The Columbus Blue Jackets have transferred the loan of Alexandre Texier from KalPa in Finland’s Liiga to Grenoble in the French professional league, where the young forward will continue playing for the time being. As Brian Hedger of the Columbus Dispatch reports, Texier will remain in France with his family as someone close to him is dealing with an undisclosed illness.

Texier, 21, actually spent one season with Grenoble in 2016-17 before heading to Finland to continue his development. The young forward took quite an interesting path to the NHL, where he spent all of this season. Texier is still expected back in North America when the 2020-21 season begins.

  • The Philadelphia Flyers have loaned Felix Sandstrom to Vasterviks IK of the Swedish second league, where he will presumably play until things start again in North America. Sandstrom, 23, is another top goaltending prospect in the Flyers system that was the 70th overall pick in 2015. In 2019-20 he posted just an .885 save percentage in the ECHL, but there is still lots of upside in the 6’2″ netminder. Perhaps he can get things back on track in his native Sweden, where he already found success at the highest level before coming to North America in 2019.
  • Though the official announcement still hasn’t come out, Ottawa Senators GM Pierre Dorion confirmed to reporters including Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia that Erik Brannstrom will be loaned to Switzerland until the next NHL season begins. Brannstrom is expected to play for the SCL Tigers in the Swiss NLA. Though he split time this season, the 21-year-old defenseman is expected to receive a full-time NHL role in 2020-21.

Philadelphia Flyers Re-Sign Brian Elliott

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Veteran goaltender Brian Elliott will be back in the Philadelphia net for a fourth season in 2020-21. The Flyers have announced a new one-year contract for Elliott, who was set to reach free agency on Friday. Elliott will play for an AAV of $1.5MM this coming season, a savings of $500K for Philly from the one-year extension he signed last off-season.

Elliott, 35, hasn’t exactly been sharp over his time with the Flyers, but he has been a great mentor to young Carter Hart, who has supplanted him as starter and should see his workload increase even more this year. Elliott avoided injury this season after missing 41 games in 2018-19 and did see a slight improvement in his goals against average. He also impressed in two postseason appearances. However, the former All-Star still recorded a lowly .899 save percentage in 31 appearances. With many options in goal on the free agent and trade markets to upgrade the backup position, admittedly at a high price with many needy teams, Philadelphia’s decision means they clearly feel comfortable with their current tandem and Hart’s ability to take on a greater role so as to limit the pressure on the aging Elliott.

Speaking to the intangibles of the veteran netminder, GM Chuck Fletcher stated the following in the team’s release: “Brian is a quality, veteran goaltender who is also an important part of our leadership group. His preparation and work ethic are exemplary. With Brian and Carter, we believe we have a strong goaltending duo who have each had success and work very well with each other.”

Offseason Keys: Philadelphia Flyers

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The offseason has arrived for most squads.  Having covered the teams that weren’t a part of the NHL’s return and the ones ousted in the Qualifying Round and official first round, we shift our focus to the ones that were eliminated in the second round.  Next up is a look at Philadelphia.

The Flyers were a playoff team for most of the season but really found their stride down the stretch and pushed themselves into the seeding games for the playoffs and avoided the Qualifying Round.  From there, they jumped to the top spot and were able to get by Montreal in the first round before their offensive struggles were too much to overcome against the Islanders.  Despite the weakened production, Philadelphia was one of the better offensive teams during the regular season so GM Chuck Fletcher may opt to not do too much there.  Instead, the things on their to-do list this offseason revolve around the back end and between the pipes and largely involve small tweaks at most instead of big changes.

Re-Sign Myers

There aren’t many restricted free agents of note in Philadelphia, particularly with Nolan Patrick missing all of this season with lingering migraine issues.  (While the team is optimistic he’ll play next season, he’ll almost certainly wind up with a cheap one-year deal.)  But defenseman Philippe Myers is one whose case carries some importance.

The 23-year-old still hasn’t played a full season with the Flyers but he appears to be on his way towards becoming an important piece of their defensive core.  He played in 50 NHL games this season, picking up a respectable 16 points while averaging 17 minutes a night.  His workload increased in the playoffs, however, as he was bumped up to more than 20 minutes per game and into a spot in their top four.  Myers even chipped in with three goals in those 16 contests.

While it’s a small sample size, it’s likely that Myers is back in that role for next season, especially with Justin Braun set to become an unrestricted free agent next week.  A short-term contract would be easy enough to do and should come in fairly cheap given that he has less than 90 games of experience but if he plays well, the price of a long-term deal would go up considerably.  As a result, Fletcher may want to kick the tires on what a longer pact would cost; even if it was a slight overpayment in the short term, it would have the potential to be a bargain down the road.  That makes this case a bit more important than it might seem at first.

Move Gostisbehere

For a while now, it has seemed like an eventuality that defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere would be made available.  That is now indeed the case as just a few days ago, it was reported that they are willing to move the 27-year-old.

Gostisbehere is only two years removed from a breakout 65-point season that made it appear as if he was on his way to becoming a top-notch offensive defender,  Even though he’s not the best defender, that type of production would make up for it.  Even the years that sandwiched that 2017-18 showing weren’t bad either with outputs of 39 and 37 points.  Those certainly weren’t as good but that’s still well above average for a defenseman.  Had 2019-20 even come close to that, this probably wouldn’t even be close to being considered at this point.  But with only a dozen points in 42 games that saw him scratched down the stretch in the regular season and for most of the playoffs, his value has cratered quite quickly.

Further complicating things is his contract which has three years left at a $4.5MM price tag.  That’s justifiable if he can get back to the mid-to-high 30s in points in a normal cap environment but his ability to bounce back is going to be in question and this is anything but a normal cap environment.  If Fletcher can find a taker for Gostisbehere, he’s going to have to consider it.  Selling low is never ideal but moving him out would at least give them some cap space to work with if they want to try to add to their forward group this offseason.  It’s quite the fall from grace for Gostisbehere and it just goes to show how quickly things can change.

Pick A Backup Goalie

The Flyers are among the many teams that have a vacancy to fill between the pipes with Brian Elliott being eligible for unrestricted free agency next week.  The team could opt to bring him back in a familiar mentoring role for Carter Hart while Alex Lyon waits in the wings as a cheap option as well but is almost certainly better off as a third-string option.  There are plenty of options in free agency and the trade market, however, that will also be worth considering.

There are a couple of questions that Fletcher will need to answer in order to determine which goalie he wants to sign: How comfortable is he with Hart playing back-to-backs and how much do they want to spend in that spot?

While next to nothing is known about the schedule for next season, the current expectation is that the schedule will be somewhat compressed in an effort to get as many games in as possible.  Having starting goalies play in both ends of a back-to-back is something that teams have been shying away from doing in recent years and while Hart is young enough that he could probably handle the role, it’s worth noting that he only has 88 career games under his belt (regular season and playoffs combined).  Adding the extra pressure of frequently playing back-to-backs is something that they may not want to do.

That will take a bargain-priced goalie off the table which helps shape the answer to that second question.  Even so, there is still a sizable gap price-wise between someone like Elliott and the top backup options available.  They have a bit of cap room but most of that will go to Myers, Patrick, and rounding out the roster.  If they want an upgrade at backup, they probably would need to free up a bit of cap room first.

As things stand, it certainly seems like re-signing Elliott would make the most sense.  While his days of being one of the better backups may be gone, he’s someone that accepts his role and works well with Hart.  He also won’t need a multi-year commitment in a marketplace where quite a few backups should get an extra year to satisfy expansion exposure requirements.  Philadelphia shouldn’t be in that situation as they could qualify Felix Sandstrom and expose him next offseason.  Fletcher has a bit of time to think about this but the annual game of musical chairs in free agency often doesn’t last more than a couple of days so, within the next seven-to-ten days, he’ll need to make a decision on this situation.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Robert Hagg Signs With Philadelphia Flyers

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After a report surfaced this morning that Shayne Gostisbehere is available for trade, the Philadelphia Flyers have moved to lock up one of their other defensemen. Robert Hagg has signed a new two-year contract that will carry an average annual value of $1.6MM. Hagg was scheduled for restricted free agency next month and was arbitration-eligible. He will now be under contract through the 2021-22 season, after which he will be an unrestricted free agent.

Hagg, 25, was a second-round pick of the Flyers back in 2013 but spent several years in the minor leagues polishing his game. By the time he reached the NHL in 2017, he was a strong, punishing defender that offered a new look for the organization. In fact, over the last three seasons, Hagg has recorded 632 hits, fourth among all NHL defenders and tenth among all skaters. Over the same period, he has blocked 337 shots, a number that puts him only behind Ivan Provorov on the Flyers and still among the league’s best.

No, hits and blocked shots aren’t everything, but with so many other talented puck-moving defensemen in the Flyers system, Hagg’s physical profile fits in well. He offers a different look for opposing teams, while actually taking relatively few minor penalties. At $1.6MM per season, he will still represent an inexpensive option that can be deployed on the third pairing nightly.

For the Flyers, that leaves Philippe Myers and Nolan Patrick as the two biggest restricted free agents left to sign. Justin Braun is also a free agent—though the unrestricted variety—but there are other young options for Philadelphia if they choose to let him walk.

Shayne Gostisbehere Available In Trade

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Though it may not come as much of a surprise, Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic confirms that Shayne Gostisbehere of the Philadelphia Flyers is available in trade talks as the offseason approaches. The team has “shown a serious willingness” to move Gostisbehere for the first time, even though his name has been in trade speculation for years.

It’s easy to see why that might be the case. Gostisbehere has fallen out of favor with the new coaching staff, seen his offensive production fall off a cliff, and still carries a $4.5MM cap hit for the next three seasons. The 27-year-old scored just 12 points in 42 games this season, playing the fewest minutes of his career and barely even getting into the Flyers postseason.

That said, this is a player that recorded a 65-point season as recently as 2017-18 and has shown an ability to contribute huge numbers in the offensive end. A powerplay quarterback, he has twice received votes for the Norris Trophy as one of the league’s best defensemen. No one would call Gostisbehere a shutdown defender in his own end, but he still does produce strong possession stats and may be seen by another team as a serious buy-low candidate.

Importantly, as LeBrun points out, Gostisbehere’s contract was also heavily front-loaded. That means the enigmatic defenseman will only actually earn $3.25MM in salary over each of the final three seasons, a lot less money than his $4.5MM cap hit suggests. For teams looking to cut costs while still remaining cap compliant, he may be a rather attractive target.

Philadelphia Flyers Sign Alex Lyon

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The Philadelphia Flyers will bring back some of their goaltending depth for another season, signing Alex Lyon to a new one-year contract. The deal is worth $700K and will allow Lyon to avoid unrestricted free agency next month.

There’s no doubt that Carter Hart will be the Flyers starter and workhorse next season, but as we discussed yesterday goaltending depth could have even bigger importance due to the condensed schedule. Lyon, while not exactly pushing for a full-time roster spot in the NHL, does provide solid performance as an organization’s third goaltender. In 145 AHL appearances, the undrafted free agent signing has recorded a .913 save percentage and 2.73 goals-against average.

One thing to always remember with Lyon is that he is no longer waiver-exempt, meaning that in order to be stashed in the minor leagues he’ll have to pass through unclaimed. While he’s done it before, an injury at the wrong time to the wrong team could mean a desperate grab for an available netminder like Lyon.

There is also still some uncertainty over who will serve as backup for Hart in the NHL next season. Brian Elliott is scheduled for unrestricted free agency and is now 35, while the team’s other young prospects are likely not yet ready for duty in the big leagues. If they don’t sign another goalie over the next few months, Lyon could potentially have a pathway to that spot.

Philadelphia Flyers Sign Nicolas Aube-Kubel

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The Philadelphia Flyers have finished some offseason business early, reaching a contract with Nicolas Aube-Kubel before he hits restricted free agency. The new two-year deal will carry an average annual value of $1.075MM and run through the 2021-22 season.

Aube-Kubel, 24, made his presence felt in the NHL for the first time this season, scoring 15 points in 36 games with the Flyers. The 48th overall selection from 2014, he had played three full seasons in the minor leagues and had just nine NHL games and no NHL points to show for it before 2019-20 started. When he agreed to a one-year, two-way $700K contract last summer he seemed like he may be destined to be organizational filler instead of a real option for the Flyers lineup.

Now, after finding himself on the ice for 13 of the team’s 16 postseason games, it’s hard to imagine he won’t get a real shot at a full-time roster spot in 2020-21. With Nate Thompson, Derek Grant and Tyler Pitlick all scheduled for unrestricted free agency, there may be some more minutes to go around for players like Aube-Kubel.

With a $1.075MM contract, he becomes an inexpensive option that could technically still be completely buried in the minor leagues if the team needed. That cap number is precisely the amount that comes off the books when someone is stashed in the AHL, though Aube-Kubel would need to clear waivers in order to go to the minors in the first place. One other thing to worry about is Group VI UFA status after the deal expires, though he’ll need just 22 games over the length of the contract to avoid that designation.

The Flyers still have some work to do with their restricted free agents, including Nolan Patrick, Philippe Myers, and Robert Hagg.

Prospect Notes: Askarov, Hogberg, McPhee

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If anyone needed a reminder of just how good Yaroslav Askarov is, he provided it today. The top 2020 draft-eligible goaltender posted his first KHL shutout when he blanked Spartak by stopping all 33 shots he faced (including a penalty shot). Askarov only turned 18 a few months ago but is already turning heads at the highest level in Russia, raising expectations even further as he heads into the draft next month.

A consensus first-round pick, the young goaltender is signed through the 2021-22 season with SKA St. Petersburg but is a potential franchise starter for a team willing to take the chance on him in a few weeks. How high he climbs that board is unclear, though Spencer Knight’s selection at #13 last year may show that teams are now a little less hesitant to spend big on goaltending at the draft.

  • The Philadelphia Flyers have loaned Linus Hogberg to HC Vita Hasten of the Swedish second league, keeping him overseas once again. Drafted in 2016, Hogberg’s rights would have expired had he not signed an entry-level contract with the Flyers before June 1 of this year. He ended up inking his two-year deal on May 30, but will be staying in Sweden for the time being. The 22-year-old defenseman has played four full seasons in the SHL, scoring 14 points in 50 games in 2019-20.
  • Just a few days ago Graham McPhee signed a one-year AHL contract with the Bakersfield Condors, but now he’s suiting up for Vienna in the Austrian pro league. The son of Vegas Golden Knights executive George McPhee, the 22-year-old forward actually became an unrestricted free agent when the Edmonton Oilers decided not to sign him to an entry-level deal last month. After four years at Boston College, the fifth-round pick will have to work his way up the professional hockey ladder, starting in Europe for now.

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