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The Philadelphia Flyers may seem set after the team’s General Manager Chuck Fletcher’s amazing off-season moves. But looking ahead to next off-season, there will still be a need for more cap relief. The Flyers’ management made a smart move during camp when they re-signed their Frank J. Selke Trophy award-winning top line center to a new eight-year deal worth $62 million (which averages out to be a $7.75 million cap hit over the course of the deal), but this deal- which takes affect at the beginning of next season- is set to give Sean Couturier a $3.45 million raise over the $4.3 million he is getting paid currently. While this raise is surely deserved given his play, there are some other openings that will need to be filled next season as well.
One of these openings or holes in the lineup that will need to be addressed is the re-signing of the team’s 33-year-old captain Claude Giroux, who is set to become an unrestricted free agent at the season’s end. Like him or not, Giroux has been productive over the years and this season is no different. With Fletcher choosing to revamp the lineup and bring in guys like Cam Atkinson, Giroux only seems more revitalized. Proof positive is his play thus far. In 10 games played (GP) Claude has scored 5 goals and 7 assists for 12 points. That’s good enough for a 1.2 point-per-game (PPG) average. With that being said, Giroux currently makes $8.275 million a season. This contract was signed some years ago and Giroux will surely not be offered that much money to return to the Flyers next season, but his numbers are good enough to have a struggling team like the already rumored/interested Ottawa Senators to pay whatever Giroux would ask of them this off-season. This is interesting because it just so happens that Ottawa is where Claude, his wife Ryanne, and their family reside in the off-season. While you may think that there’s no way that Claude- being so close to breaking so many records here in Philly- would ever think twice about leaving town, I would ask you to recall how the media (this writer included) and some of the fans in Philadelphia have treated him over the years. When you ponder on that you should come to the conclusion that, if offered a hearty deal from the Senators, Claude just might be so inclined to take it so the Flyers better be willing to pony up.
But Giroux is not the only player the Flyers will have to look to retain next year. After this season the Flyers will only have three defensemen signed. Like every year in recent memory, they will need to retain a backup goalie once again. Along with that, their whole fourth line will be free agents, as well as center Derick Brassard who is acting as the team’s second line center right now with Hayes being out due to injury. This makes for quite the substantial need for salary cap space this upcoming off-season.
In order to achieve the desired cap space to make all of the above possible next season, the Flyers should look no farther than a team they are quite familiar trading with- both recently, and in years past when they are in a salary cap crunch. That team is the Arizona Coyotes. Think about it: After the team tried (with no success) to rid themselves of defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere during multiple trade deadlines, who did they finally find that was willing to take him and all of his $4.5 million salary for the next two seasons? Arizona. Granted, Philadelphia had to include a 2nd and a 7th round draft pick along with him in that deal to make it happen, but they did so and were able to receive $4.5 million in spendable cap space this past off-season. And, if you look back even farther, who did the Flyers find back in 2015 to take on the last two years of the injured Chris Pronger’s (who never even played again) $4.9 million-a-year contract and an aging Nick Grossman. That’s right, it was the Coyotes who willingly took that on burden so that they could reach the league’s salary cap floor when they were struggling to sign players.
So, why not try to see if they would be willing to take on some cap space once again? This time in the form of winger James van Riemsdyk (JVR). It is no secret that since the Flyers resigned van Riemsdyk back in 2018 he has not lived up to his now (what seems like) albatross-like contract that carries a $7 million cap hit (for this season and next), and although he now has seemed to finally buy into head coach Alain Vigneault’s system his one goal and 4 assists for 5 points this season scored while playing on the teams 3rd line just doesn’t warrant what he is getting paid. Therefore, this makes him potentially expendable.
But the question then becomes who would the team trade for? Well, hear me out. How about Phil ? A player who has been rumored to want out of Arizona and wants to play for a contender? If you compare these two there are a lot of similarities between their games but there are some areas where Kessel currently excels more than JVR, along with a few past feats that Phil has been able to accomplish during his career that James has not.
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Let’s dive in, shall we? Kessel is a right wing, where van Riemsdyk is a left wing who is currently playing the right side. Phil stands at 6’0 and weighs in at 203 pounds. James stands at 6’3 and currently weighs in at 213 pounds. Both are in their 30’s with Kessel being 34 years old and James being 32 years old. Both are former 1st round picks with Phil being taken 5th overall back in 2006 by the Bruins and James being taken 2nd overall in 2007 by the Flyers. Both currently earn similar salaries with Kessel having a cap hit of $6.8 million and JVR getting paid $7 million a season. But here’s one of the big differences: Kessel’s contract is set to expire after this season. JVR’s has one more year left on it. Essentially, if traded heads up, the Flyers could choose not to re-sign Kessel at the season’s end and gain $7 million dollars in cap space for next season.
So, you may be asking why would the Coyotes be interested in such a trade? Well, let’s face it: Arizona is not the most preferred hockey destination. They’ve recently been on the brink of bankruptcy and had to be bailed out by the league. Then due to their management’s careless mistake of violating the league’s combine testing policy it resulted in them forfeiting their 1st round pick last year. Year in and year out they lose star players to free agency and then are forced to rebuild with the leftovers other teams no longer wanted. Then to add insult to injury, the team (who currently has plans to start construction on a new arena and practice facility in Tempe, Arizona) is presently without anywhere to play their home games next season after the city of Glendale (who owns Gila River Arena) decided recently to opt out of its joint lease agreement that they had with the team. So, when faced with all this, and now potentially losing yet another disgruntled star player in Kessel for nothing at the end of the year, trading him for a former 35+ goal scorer with a year still left on his contract may not seem like that bad of move. Remember prospects don’t put butts in seats, and Arizona struggles to fill their arena right now.
Still not convinced? Let’s keep comparing. This season, Kessel has 2 goals and 3 assists for 5 points and (like previously stated) van Riemsdyk has 1 goal and 4 assists for 5 points. Last year both players totaled 43 points where, in 56 games played by each, Phil scored 20 goals and 23 assists to reach 43 and James scored 17 goals and 26 assists to reach 43.
When you look at career numbers both have an eerily similar goals-per-game average with Kessel averaging 0.34 goals per game (GPG) and van Riemsdyk averaging 0.32 GPG. But, when you look at points-per-game average, Phil has a 0.80 PPG average in 1134 games played and James has a mere 0.65 PPG in 807 games played. Kessel has over 900 regular season points and will likely reach the 400-goal club this season where van Riemsdyk has totaled just 529 points over the course of his career during the regular season and only netted 265 goals to date.
While both have similar career highs in goals (Phil reaching 37 and James achieving 36- both while playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs), Phil has reached that number twice- once in the ‘11- ‘12 season then again in the ‘13- ‘14 campaign. Then if you look at career highs in points Kessel’s numbers blow away what van Riemsdyk has been able to put up. In ‘17- ‘18, while playing for the Penguins, Phil was able to post 92 total points. James had his best year in ‘16- ‘17 while playing for Toronto where he was able to total just 62 points. A 30-point difference!
The Flyers have done well for themselves in trades as of late where perhaps the best acquisition of the off-season came when they acquired the pure shooter Cam Atkinson from the Columbus Blue Jackets in exchange for long time Flyer, Jakub Voracek. Since his arrival, Atkinson’s willingness to shoot the puck has been a welcome addition to the lineup and this is one thing that Kessel has been known for over the course of his career. While van Riemsdyk has made his money by standing in front of the net and deflecting shots, Kessel has been known to score some big goals over his career, largely due to the fact that he loves to shoot the puck. In his career, Phil has totaled 3,548 shots on goal to James’ 2,227 and, if you look to the playoffs, Kessel has put a solid 300 shots on net compared to van Riemsdyk’s 212.
And speaking of the playoffs: Phil (the two-time Stanley Cup Champion) tends to come alive in the post season where, in 96 playoff games, Kessel has managed to score 34 goals and 47 assists for 81 points. That makes him a 0.84 PPG player when the cup is on the line. Where James, on the other hand, has managed to play in 71 post season games and has only scored 20 goals and 11 assists for 31 points, making him a 0.43 PPG player in the playoffs. Oh, and in the post season Phil is a +21 player while James is a -14.
To go along with those two Champiosnship rings Phil has 3 All Star Game appearances to James’ 0 and a Bill Masterson Trophy that has Kessel written on it from the ‘06- ‘07 season when he received it for his play after battling back from a rare form of testicular cancer that he was forced to deal with in his rookie campaign.
In fact, say what you want about him but the only knock that most people have on Kessel is his career plus/minus record during the regular season, which is -129. But I ask you how much you can put this on the player before you put some of the blame on the team that he has been playing on in Arizona for the last couple of years. Former Coyotes’ star defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson is a career -106 but is a +3 already this season now that he is playing for the Vancouver Canucks. Or how about the Flyers’ newly-acquired defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen, who the Flyers traded for from the Buffalo Sabers (an organization that has not done much since goaltender Dominik Hasek left town). He is a career -163 after playing 8 years in Buffalo but is an even player for the Flyers right now.
At the end of the day, this proposed trade may not be ideal for either team, but it would help both clubs. While Kessel has in the past been said to be difficult to coach, this rumored hot dog aficionado simply wants to win! There’s no denying that Kessel (who still possesses breakaway speed that he combines with a deadly accurate shot) will go down as being one of America’s most accomplished and overall greatest players of all time. It would give Philadelphia a proven playoff contender with a Stanley Cup winning pedigree who not only likes to shoot the puck but who has an expiring contract that, if not re-signed, would give the Flyers the cap space needed to re-sign others. It would also give Arizona a proven goal scorer (in JVR) who still has another year left on his deal and could possibly entice other free agents this off season to come to the desert. A win-win for both clubs. What say you?
