Flyers to steal another free agent from the Leafs!?

For a second consecutive summer!

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 4 years ago
Flyers to steal another free agent from the Leafs!?
Zuma Press

Last summer, the Toronto Maple Leafs couldn’t manage to re-sign forward James van Riemsdyk and the Philadelphia Flyers came in and offered him a a $35 million five-year contract at midnight on the first day of free agency. 

It seems like the Flyers are getting ready to pull a similar move this summer. 

The Maple Leafs are facing quite the financial puzzle this offseason with many pending free agents to re-sign. William Nylander’s holdout concluded with a six-year, $45-million deal and Auston Matthews inked an extension that will see him count for $11.634 per year through 2023-24… There is quite a bit of worry that the Leafs can’t afford to keep the team together in Toronto.

The team’s first priority is to accommodate Mitch Marner’s upcoming raise. John Tavares, Nylander and Matthews will add up to just under $30 million in cap space, and we already know Marner should command $10 million more. Then there are Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson, who are two of several pending RFAs looking for a nice raise… and defenseman Jake Gardiner is expected to walk out the door unless he’s ready to take a significant pay cut to re-sign with the Leafs. 

Enter the Flyers. 

According to Emily Kaplan and Chris Peters of ESPN, the Flyers could use their cap space to bring in Gardiner to Philly this summer. They are expected to look for help up front, and the free agent market provides many options for them. 

The great thing for the Flyers is that Cap Friendly revealed they have over $48 million invested in 14 players. If the salary cap does indeed reach the projected $83 million for next season, they’ll have around $35 million to re-sign not only their key free agents in Travis Konecny, Ivan Provorov and Travis Sanheim but also room to bring in impact players through trades or free agency like Gardiner. 

As for options down the middle, ESPN suggests players like Columbus’ Matt Duchene and Winnipeg’s Kevin Hayes who are likely to test the market. 

How will Toronto will handle losing another good player at the hands of the Flyers?

Source: ESPN