With the salary cap remaining flat (or the same) next season and possibly continuing to stay stagnant for the next three seasons; most teams find themselves scrambling to make moves because they were relying on the cap to rise. Philadelphia is in fact one of those teams who are finding themselves in need of shedding some salary in order to possibly be able to finish signing their remaining restricted free agents (Philippe Myers, and Nolan Patrick depending on the AAV of the contracts). As if that wasn’t going to be hard enough the Flyers will still need to manage to retain enough left-over cap space to afford a viable back up for the teams’ star goaltender Carter Hart. To accomplish this Flyers’ General Manager Chuck Fletcher will have to get creative.
Now the easy route would be to bring back the teams’ current unrestricted free agent goaltender, veteran Brian Elliott. Elliott is in fact the guy Carter Hart has already come out to the media about and stated that he would like to have back alongside him next season; but I ask you should Fletcher just try to go ahead and appease Hart? Let’s remember how it went the last time the team took Hart’s advice and brought in Carter’s training partner and close friend goaltender Cam Talbot. Talbot only lasted four games with the Flyers because he posted a shaky 3.70 goals against average (GAA) and a .881 save percentage (SV%). If you look at the numbers Elliott is now 35-years-old and starting to see his goals against average (GAA) elevate from the once great numbers he managed to post earlier in his career with the St. Louis Blues. Such numbers included a 1.56 GAA in the 11-12 season, and a 1.96 GAA in the 13-14 season. When you compare those stats to his to his now 2.96 GAA in the 18-19 season and the 2.87 GAA he had this year for the Flyers you can start to see a sudden decline in his play. Further proof of this can be found when you look at his save percentages over the years. In similar years with the Blues’ Elliott averaged seasons where he held a .940 SV%, a .930 SV%, and a .922 save percentage, which are vastly different from the .899 SV% he posted this past season with the Flyers. Now let’s think, just how much more can this veteran show the young Carter Hart? Hart maybe young in age, but he is very mature! Example: Carter was unflappable this postseason proving that he can handle the pressure of a big game by taking his team all the way to the brink of a Eastern Conference Finals appearance. So, with his age increasing and his play starting to decline might the Flyers benefit from moving on from Elliott and save a little cap space at the same time?
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Now you might be asking then just who would the Flyers go after? This time of year you hear all kind of crazy rumors and ideas spread by people without a clue, stating that their team should go after the biggest names on the market every year with no thought to how those players would fit in under the cap; and if Philadelphia had the cap space it would be easy to imagine the “WHAT IF’S” because there is a plethora of options out there this off season who could fill in between the pipes. In the unrestricted free agent market alone, you have names like Branden Holtby, Corey Crawford, Jimmy Howard, Robin Lehner, Craig Anderson, Jacob Markstrom, Thomas Griess, Anton Khudobin, and Mike Smith to name a few. Then you have Pittsburgh’s restricted free agent goaltenders Tristan Jerry, and Matthew Murray that they could go after. If the Flyers wanted to go the trade route Philadelphia could look to Montreal where the Canadiens now have Carey Price on the block. Or they could call up Las Vegas seeing that the Golden Knights are looking to move on from goaltender Marc-André Fleury. Fletcher could also consider signing newly bought out goaltender Henrik Lundqvist formally of the New York Rangers.
But we live in reality and any and all of those moves would be out of the teams’ budget for this off season! What the Flyers and Chuck Fletcher should do rather than day dreaming about the unattainable is to put in a call to a team like the Nashville Predators (who have been a valuable trade partner of the Flyers in the past) about a current goaltender in their system. That goaltender is the young Connor Ingram. Ingram who is currently just 23-years-old was selected by the Tampa Bay Lightning back in 2016 in the 3rd round of the NHL Entry Draft. (The strong points to his game are his ability to stay in good position, his amazing glove hand and his calm laid back approach that helps him to not over react to the play.) After being drafted by the Lightning Connor joined the teams American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate the Syracuse Crunch. Connor’s play with the Crunch was so impressive that it landed him an invite to the AHL All-Star game. Shortly after that announcement though the Lightning’s management surprisingly sent Ingram down to the teams East Coast Hockey League affiliate, the Orlando Solar Bears. Once there it was easy to see that Ingram possessed talents far greater than the likes of the players he was being forced to play with. So once brought back up to the AHL Connor approached the team’s management about his previous demotion. Now Tampa is holding the contents to this conversation close to the fold, but judging by their knee jerk reaction to accept a ridiculous trade proposal from the Predators organization that allowed Nashville to acquire Ingram for just a 7th round pick in the 2021 NHL draft. This writer will go ahead and assume to say that the conversation between the two parties did not go so well.
Since the trade this past season Connor proved to Nashville that they did not make the wrong decision by trading for him when he posted a 1.92 GAA with a .933 SV% in 33 games played for the teams AHL affiliate the Milwaukee Admirals. The Predators must have liked what they saw from Ingram because they recently resigned him for an average of $733,000 until the end of the 2022-2023 season. These number as you can imagine were among the best in the league last season and should be worthy of a promotion, but Nashville’s crease is already being inhabited by the likes of Juuse Saros, and Pekka Rinne who are both signed through the end of next season.
With that being said Pekka Rinne is 37-years-old and will likely retire after next season with the Predators. So either Ingram or fellow Admirals goalie Troy Grosenick will likely be in line to take on the role as Saros’s backup the following year. But that does not mean that the Flyers will likely have to give up as much as you would think in order to acquire the likes of Ingram. Nashville JUST signed college standout star Devin Cooley who is 23-years-old and was an undrafted free agent goaltender who currently plays for the University of Denver. So, the probability of the Predators being willing to part with Connor Ingram in a trade just got a lot better. The Predators also have two big unrestricted free agents to re-sign this off season, and their names are Craig Smith and Mikael Granlund. Both of which were an integral part to the Predators offense last season. If Nashville were to lose one or both of these players to free agency in the coming weeks they might be so inclined to take on a player like the Flyers’ winger James van Riemsdyk who could fill the void as a net front presence for the Predators if they lost Smith; James has also proven himself capable to net goal totals which exceed that of any of Granlund’s previous seasons statistics. This may seem like a lot to offer for a backup goalie but remember in this flat cap era the Flyers might be wise to sweeten the pot by offering to retain $2 million dollars of van Riemsdyk’s salary for next season ONLY. Doing so would not only allow the Flyers to attain an inexpensive backup to Hart (one who is more than ready to step up and produce on the highest level) but would also create the cap space necessary in order to resign the teams remaining restricted free agents as well. Oh and yeah I almost forgot to mention Carter Hart and Connor Ingram already know each other and have shared a crease before for team Canada in the 2017 IIHF World Junior Tournament.
I remember reading about this kid during the Tampa situation. He seems like legit NHL talent but is he really going to want to sit behind Carter for the next few years? The season going be condensed and shortened in all likelihood how many games is he going to get if Carter stays healthy? What about one of our own taking the spot with a strong camp? We still have the lyon king under contract. The deal of jvr straight up for an unproven NHL talent seems bit extreme or are the flyers getting more in return on this deal?
Thanks for the read Kenneth. The big return from the trade I proposed would have been the cap space to resign our other restricted free agents. JVR is a proven goal scorer, but he doesn’t put forth the hustle or defensive skill set that coach AV requires out of his players. Thus is why he was a healthy scratch at times this season.
I get that but if the flyers move jvr they are going to have to eat a part of his salary. I’d rather see the team go on his for a back up goalie. The top six or even top nine forward are set if both Nolan and Oscar are 100 percent then you have Raffy bunneman and nak as a fourth line. Trade jvr eat some salary sign our ufas to team friendly deals. The only one I would bring back is Patrick let Grant and Thompson walk.