Confirmed with Link: Sean Walker & 5th round pick ('26) traded to Colorado for 1st round pick ('25 - top 10 protected) & Ryan Johansen - Johansen assigned to Lehigh Valley

[CanadianFlyer88]

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[Fight4yourRight]

How can there be a beef between RyJo and Torts? I've been endlessly lectured on how the Players love Torts.

To be fair… using RyJo as the example to make this point is… odd. Dude has been disliked by more than his share of coaches and teammates.

 

[freakydallas13]

To be fair… using RyJo as the example to make this point is… odd. Dude has been disliked by more than his share of coaches and teammates.

Do we even know why the players in Colorado soured on him yet? It is strange for sure.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

Didn’t Tortorella publicly complain about how Farabee’s agent was behind Frank’s report last year that he was unhappy & could be traded?

Why yes he did. I pointed that out during the Gauthier stuff.

Sure makes you wonder.

 

[Beef Invictus]

It was in the Byram for Mittlestadt section. The grammar is atrocious. I did the best I could with what I had.



I suspect 10 people read that 10 different ways.

If the Flyers are going to war against agents over insanely petty stuff that's not a good idea.

 

[Curufinwe]

This is what they wanted to do to Vinny back in the day, but he had a NMC so they couldn't waive him.

But they still strongarmed enough that he agreed to be traded to LA and retire after that season, which voided the last two years of his contract and cost him $6,000,000.

Vincent Lecavalier Contract, Cap Hit, Salary and Stats - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps

Vincent Lecavalier contract, salary, cap hit, salary cap, aav, career earnings, lifetime earnings, aav, advanced stats, transaction history, trade history, and rfa or ufa free agent status

www.capfriendly.com

EARLY RETIREMENT: Retired prior to the expiry of this contract (Jun. 21, 2016)

 

[flyersnorth]

I wish the NHL would move away from guaranteed contracts.

 

[Curufinwe]

I'd like a maximum term of 5/6 years. But the NFL salary cap seems a lot harder to follow than the NHL, so I don't want to go that route.

 

[FLYguy3911]

Non-guaranteed contracts?

Just hire better GMs.

 

[GKJ]

Maybe the well-liked Keith “the Great Communicator” Jones can smooth this over.

 

[Curufinwe]

"We actually told Ryan to make up a BS injury cause we didn't want him on the Phantoms!"

*everyone laughs*

 

[flyersnorth]

Non-guaranteed contracts?

Just hire better GMs.

That's definitely a part of it.

I still don't think guaranteed contracts are a good idea.

 

[Random Forest]

There’s no denying they have done better than expected this season and Torts has got them to buy in to a system that makes them competitive despite a lack of talent. But the 2018 Flyers had a better, younger team, and also better prospects, and as many draft picks as this allegedly rebuilding team has.

So doing victory laps now is very weird, especially since they haven’t even made the playoffs yet.

Late to this, but 2018 really was an inflection point. They had the pieces to become a competitive team at that point, and the subsequent failure to turn it into something is both a combination of egregious management and poor luck. If Patrick became who he perhaps could have been, the franchise would have had an entirely different trajectory. Same with Provorov. Just those two turning out differently could have papered over the circus of obvious management errors that transpired both before and after.

 

[FLYguy3911]

That's definitely a part of it.

I still don't think guaranteed contracts are a good idea.

From a competitive standpoint sure but you're siding with the billionaires here.

Football has partial non-guarantees but they also have much higher AAVs and get to free agency much sooner into their pro careers.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

I'm strongly against saving incompetent franchises from themselves. Even if it would help me personally.

Non-guaranteed contracts punish the teams that are run well. Bad process.

 

[flyersnorth]

From a competitive standpoint sure but you're siding with the billionaires here.

Football has partial non-guarantees but they also have much higher AAVs and get to free agency much sooner into their pro careers.

I'm not siding with billionaires, I'm just looking at it from a normal market standpoint.

I would have no issue with earlier free agency. Higher AAVs are a product of higher revenues for the NFL, so that's just a question of scale.

I would definitely prefer a freer labour market over the shenanigans with buyouts, retentions, LTIR manipulation, etc. It all feels very game-y and a distraction from the sport.

Non-guaranteed contracts don't have to mean saving owners from themselves. I think a lot of that has to do with big market vs small market (or rather, wealthy owners vs non-wealthy owners) and exploiting the rules to their benefit. Some can afford to absorb poor decisions, so they are more willing to take risks. If you change the rules of the game, there are probably ways to disincentivize that kind of behaviour.

I don't know what the solution is, but I feel like the current setup isn't very interesting to me. It's just layers of complexity.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

The issue is NHL GM’s by large still don’t understand economics in regards to what & what not to invest into. The NHL still invests contractually way too much into older non-star players (that’s what type of contracts often put teams in trouble).

Look at baseball for example they used to fall victim to similar stuff. Now guys like Bryce Harper who was 26 at the time he hit the free agent market are about the only types of guys who get the long term big money deals anymore. Back in the day guys like Jacoby Elsbury used to get paid crazy money as older free agents despite at their peak being good secondary type of talents. Harper had to wait a long time to get that deal ultimately too & frankly he probably lost money compared to where baseball once was as he was hit the fiscally responsible/money ball era of baseball took full effect. He probably would have made a contract closer to $400-500M if baseball kept going on old times of the doing business.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

I don't know what the solution is, but I feel like the current setup isn't very interesting to me. It's just layers of complexity.

Remove ELC restrictions and the draft, then make everyone entering the league a UFA. Even if you add a cap to the amount of money each team can spend there, you'll find out very quickly who the best orgs are.

 

[flyersnorth]

The issue is NHL GM’s by large still don’t understand economics in regards to what & what not to invest into. The NHL still invests contractually way too much into older non-star players (that’s what type of contracts often put teams in trouble).

Yes, that's certainly a part of it, I agree.

On the other hand, and I'm just spitballing here, but for some markets, a few high-priced name stars (bad contract or not) will drive gate revenue even if the team is just mediocre (Montreal, Toronto, NYR). The reward (revenue) dictates the actions. There is no urgency for a championship.

For others, even a high-performing team will not bring in fans (look at Winnipeg this year, averaging 13,000 fans).

Maybe the issue is that the Stanley Cup is not the driving motivation for some markets? As in, the urgency for a Cup is not there if their existence doesn't depend on a highly-competitive team.

Remove ELC restrictions and the draft, then make everyone entering the league a UFA. Even if you add a cap to the amount of money each team can spend there, you'll find out very quickly who the best orgs are.

Yes, I was going to suggest almost exactly that... but I know that would mean the death of many franchises, mostly small-market and undesirable locations.

I would love it, because I think there are too many teams, but the league would never go with that kind of model.

Chop off 10 teams, and the talent level across the board would be so much better.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

Yes, I was going to suggest almost exactly that... but I know that would mean the death of many franchises, mostly small-market and undesirable locations.

I would love it, because I think there are too many teams, but the league would never go with that kind of model.

Chop off 10 teams, and the talent level across the board would be so much better.

Theoretically capping that pool would help that problem. I say theoretically because it's always going to vary from kid to kid how much money it takes to change their minds. But ideally it would have enough wiggle room to allow teams to make significantly different offers. If the Rangers have 900k for you and Nashville has 2.1, most people are going to (rightly) take the money.

I think it would be more undesirable locations than the small market teams. Carolina is consistently good and develops people. They won't land a Bedard, but they'll be more than fine. It's specifically the Canadian teams that would get creamed, which is a major problem. I think I'm lumping Montreal in with Edmonton, Calgary, and Winnipeg too. That relationship has gotten more and more combative over the years. The Islanders might lose the most on such a deal?

 

[flyersnorth]

Theoretically capping that pool would help that problem. I say theoretically because it's always going to vary from kid to kid how much money it takes to change their minds. But ideally it would have enough wiggle room to allow teams to make significantly different offers. If the Rangers have 900k for you and Nashville has 2.1, most people are going to (rightly) take the money.

Do you mean here that a drafted player is a UFA upon being drafted, and free to sign wherever?

I think it would be more undesirable locations than the small market teams. Carolina is consistently good and develops people. They won't land a Bedard, but they'll be more than fine. It's specifically the Canadian teams that would get creamed, which is a major problem. I think I'm lumping Montreal in with Edmonton, Calgary, and Winnipeg too. That relationship has gotten more and more combative over the years. The Islanders might lose the most on such a deal?

When you consider Canadian taxes, I'd even put Toronto in there. Tavares just went through a whole thing about not having paid enough taxes on his bonus.

In the end, such a free model would likely lead to a situation similar to the pre-cap world, where some franchises would just be at the bottom of the pecking order waiting for the second-tier and third-tier players who got squeezed out of the more desirable markets.

 

[ponder719]

I wish the NHL would move away from guaranteed contracts.

Counterproposal: in addition to current buyout rules, teams get one compliance buyout per year. They owe the player 1.5x the cash remaining on the current contract, and pay triple the cash remaining into the league revenue sharing pool, but the contract goes away for good with no cap implications. So, if they're prepared to spend 4.5x the amount of cash to make a problem go away, they can. Player is made whole and then some, the rest of the league gets additional mad money to work with as an additional make-good.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

 

[BernieParent]

Do you mean here that a drafted player is a UFA upon being drafted, and free to sign wherever?



When you consider Canadian taxes, I'd even put Toronto in there. Tavares just went through a whole thing about not having paid enough taxes on his bonus.

In the end, such a free model would likely lead to a situation similar to the pre-cap world, where some franchises would just be at the bottom of the pecking order waiting for the second-tier and third-tier players who got squeezed out of the more desirable markets.

Agreed. Canadian teams will always be taking a hit based on taxes owed by their players.

 

[pooch]

You would think he’d fly to Philly to make his case that he should play, not fake an injury. Weird.

 

[freakydallas13]

The RyJo saga continues. Maybe we prove Colorado covered up an injury he had and get some compensation picks for our troubles.

A guy can dream.