Flyers free agency: 10 takeaways from a quiet Day 1, and what comes next

It’s going to be quite a few years before the Philadelphia Flyers are one of the clubs making headlines on Day 1 of free agency again.

That’s the nature of a rebuild.

As predicted, the Flyers didn’t completely sit out the day, as GM Daniel Briere made two NHL-level signings and revealed a fair amount of information regarding the front office’s plans for the rest of the summer. But they certainly weren’t in on the big names or throwing lots of money around to beef up their roster.

So where do the Flyers stand as July 1 comes to a close?

1. Poehling the Flyers’ early signing

Briere and the Flyers entered Day 1 of free agency making fans fully aware that they didn’t expect to be especially active — but that they’d like to make a depth add or two if possible, particularly in the middle and on the back end.

The result? Early in the day, they came away with 24-year-old Ryan Poehling, a 2017 first-round pick of the Montreal Canadiens, on a one-year, $1.4 million contract.

“At his age, the position that he can play — wing or center — I think it’s very exciting,” Briere said. “It’s kind of right in line with what we’re trying to do, giving our young guys the chance to play, I think he fits in with that timeline at his age.”

Poehling, of course, isn’t a needle-mover at first glance. The reason he was available is that the Pittsburgh Penguins chose not to issue the pending restricted free agent a qualifying offer on Friday, making him a UFA come Saturday. In other words, he was only out there because his team from last year decided it didn’t want him back.

But had Poehling been a UFA on June 21, he would have made my free-agent shopping list for the Flyers, so the fit is there. Poehling isn’t much of a scorer — just 14 points in 53 games last season and 36 in 138 for his NHL career — but he did show signs of underlying improvement last season with the Pens, grading out in the 57th percentile among forwards by even strength xG impact after finishing in the 16th and 19th percentile in his first two cracks at the NHL. There might be something there — and there’s more value for the Flyers in trying to develop a quality bottom-six center than to simply sign a comparable veteran for the 4C role. Poehling will get to battle prospects like Elliot Desnoyers and Tanner Laczynski for playing time, and the competition should help all three.

“What I like with him is he can kill penalties, he can play the middle, he brings us speed — an area we wanted to improve on also in our bottom six,” Briere said. “So he hits a lot of points. And obviously the age factor made it a no-brainer.”

2. Then grab Hathaway

At 3:30 p.m., when he spoke to the media, Briere seemed pretty convinced that the Poehling deal would be his last major one of the day.

“I don’t expect anything else today,” he said. “We’re going to keep looking the next few days, whatever’s out there. I’m not saying something’s going to happen. We’re keeping our eyes open, if it makes sense and if it’s into something that can help us, then we’ll dive into it. But at this time today, I don’t expect anything else. You never know — things can come last minute, but I don’t expect it.”

But just before 9:30 p.m., something else came around: the Flyers locked up Garnet Hathaway, a 31-year-old winger, to a two-year, $4.75 million contract.

On the positive side, Hathaway is a very good bottom-of-the-lineup winger, with extensive experience playing for quality clubs in Calgary and Washington, not to mention a post-trade deadline stint in Boston. We’re talking about one of the better fourth-liners in the NHL. He consistently drives play and is good for 10 goals a season, while also piling up the hits (268 last season). Hathaway is the rare depth guy that both the traditionalists and nerds can agree is a very effective player.

The negative? Hathaway is a bit of an odd fit. Not stylistically — he certainly fits that ideal middle ground of being “tough to play against” traditionally while also being a quality player by the numbers. You know, the middle ground the Flyers should have been chasing down the past few years while they were trying to be competitive. But Hathaway would seem to be a better match for a contending club than a rebuilding one, given his age. In addition, the signing pushes one of Tyson Foerster or Wade Allison out of the projected right wing NHL lineup depth chart, assuming no more trades are made. Given that Briere was adamant on Saturday afternoon about not blocking the kids, that’s a bit of an odd apparent contradiction.

That said, Hathaway does make sense as a “culture” add, and at 6-foot-3 and 208 pounds, he’ll certainly bulk up the Flyers up front. The two-year term is fine for the Flyers’ current situation, and the $2.375 million cap hit is reasonable, if a bit over Evolving-Hockey’s projected $2.27 million at a three-year term. And if an injury or another trade up front happens — say, Travis Konecny or Scott Laughton is shipped out — then the potential forward logjam is quickly resolved.

Hathaway isn’t a bad signing by any means. Adding a quality player at a low cap hit on a short-term deal rarely is. But he’s not as seamless of a fit as Poehling is.

3. Don’t block the kids?

As noted, a little after 3 p.m., Briere made sure to present himself as extremely cognizant of where his young players fit into the lineup, and wanting to avoid pushing them out of prime lineup spots.

“Yeah, it’s a fine line, right?” Briere said. “We’d like to add a little bit more of a veteran presence. But at the same time, we want to be careful. We want to let our young guys … we don’t want to block them. We want to give them the chance. And we want to see what we have, also. It’s kind of important to find out what they’re really made of.”

Poehling was the ideal middle ground — a player who solidified a roster weakness while also being young enough to qualify as at least something of a “kid.” Hathaway, on the other hand, does complicate the forward corps a bit.

Here’s a look at a projected lineup, with Poehling and Hathaway included.

It all does still work, as long as the coaching staff is willing to deploy sufficient rotations — or, as noted, if injuries strike the club early, as they often do. But the right wing position now is especially crowded, and that’s even after moving Owen Tippett over to the left side in this exercise.

To this point, however, they have fully held to the plan of keeping the defense open for the youngsters. And that may not change.

“We want to be careful,” Briere said. “We have guys like (Egor) Zamula coming, and (Adam) Ginning and (Ronnie) Attard, (Emil) Andrae as well. So we want to be careful. We’re not sure exactly where they are in their development.”

4. DeAngelo on his way out

One player who notably is not on the above defensive depth chart? Tony DeAngelo. And there’s a reason for that.

Obviously, a trade to the Carolina Hurricanes was heavily rumored last Saturday but ultimately was not executed. The holdup was a CBA clause that prohibited a player from being traded back to his previous team within a year’s time if salary was being retained in the deal — which it was, since the Flyers were planning to retain 50 percent of DeAngelo’s contract, turning it into a $2.5 million cap hit for Carolina. The original deal was executed on Day 2 of last year’s draft, but because of the differences in schedule, that was on July 8, 2022 — meaning that to pull off the agreed-upon deal, the Flyers and Canes would have to wait until a year from that date to do it.

Despite the holdup, it sure seems like both sides are intent on doing it.

Briere wouldn’t confirm the DeAngelo to Carolina deal. But by omission, when asked about potential partners for Cam York, he made it pretty clear that DeAngelo wasn’t in his plans for 2023-24.

“We feel we have some good veterans around him,” Briere said. “Adding (Sean) Walker should help. Risto was playing better the second half of last year. I think he deserves to get a longer look.”

OK, so what about DeAngelo?

“Well, he has one more year (on his contract),” Briere said. “I’m not going to discuss the trade talks that I’m having with different teams. We’re open for business with anyone. He’s part of the team as of right now.”

Briere might not have been willing to discuss those talks, but Hurricanes GM Don Waddell was. The trade is apparently done in handshake form, and this snafu isn’t going to stop it.

Hurricanes GM Don Waddell said the Tony DeAngelo deal remains in place with the Flyers. Just can’t execute it until after July 7.

— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) July 1, 2023

DeAngelo is on his way out.

5. Sanheim looks to be staying

The other Flyers defenseman who was nearly moved last Saturday? It looks like he’s staying.

Travis Sanheim was very nearly shipped out along with Kevin Hayes to the St. Louis Blues before Torey Krug chose not to waive his no-trade clause and blew the deal up. Sanheim was very available throughout the week in Nashville at the draft, but there was a time limit on the deal — Sanheim’s full no-trade clause would be kicking in on July 1, making him much tougher to trade.

Of course, no trade happened. So is Sanheim staying now?

“I don’t imagine him being moved at this point,” Briere said.

The Flyers still like Sanheim, and don’t believe his poor 2022-23 campaign is representative of his talent. But had they been able to jettison his eight-year, $50 million contract — which doesn’t really fit their rebuilding timeline — and pick up a first-round pick in the process, they absolutely would have moved him. Once that deal died, however, no other offers proved enticing.

“Even going into it, I didn’t think he would get moved,” Briere said. “But at the same time, you listen. That’s what I said before. It’s my duty to listen. Just nothing really made sense at this point. But yeah, obviously now he has the no-trade clause, and we’re going to respect that.”

6. The other trade options

OK, so Sanheim is probably staying. But the Flyers’ other top trade options — Konecny, Laughton, Carter Hart — remain. Are they now likely to stay with the team as well? Was the draft in some ways the deadline for those moves to happen, given that the Flyers believed it was an especially strong one and wanted to load up on picks?

“I would say (the passing of the draft) doesn’t have an impact for us. Because when I was talking to teams, I was very open that I didn’t mind picks in the future as well. I didn’t mind pushing them back,” Briere said. “But obviously the pressure point, the draft kind of pushed talks to accelerate in a lot of cases. So it’s probably going to be a little slower because of that. But if it makes sense, it doesn’t matter. We’re open to discussing future picks as well.”

The Flyers, in other words, are still “open for business.” But business might be a bit less busy moving forward.

7. Willing to take on bad contracts?

When discussing the Hayes trade on Thursday after Day 2 of the draft, Briere noted that one of the reasons he wanted to move out Hayes — even at 50 percent retention for a minimal return — was to open up cap space that he could “weaponize.” In other words, maybe take on a contract that a team was looking to jettison and pick up a future asset in the process.

He’s still open to that possibility if other teams are.

“We’re looking into it as well. That’s an option,” he confirmed. “You know, it’s interesting, you saw some pretty big deals going on today — teams that I didn’t even know had that much space. So we’ll keep looking, we might be able to help a team in a way where we can acquire assets down the road. (The Hayes trade) gives us the freedom maybe to do that a little bit more. So we’re certainly open and exploring that avenue if it comes.”

8. JvR to Boston

Longtime Flyers winger James van Riemsdyk officially left for greener pastures on Saturday, signing a one-year, $1 million contract with the Boston Bruins. It’s a solid fit, as van Riemsdyk comes at a bargain price, and the Bruins are one of the few contenders that play a deliberate enough pace that concerns regarding van Riemsdyk’s ability to keep up will be at a minimum. Van Riemsdyk can still drive play at five-on-five, and in the right situation, very well could still be a power play weapon.

It just won’t be in Philadelphia anymore.

“He’s a great teammate. Nobody had anything bad to say,” Briere said. “So everybody’s excited about him having another chance now with the Boston Bruins. They were the best team in the NHL in the regular season. I think it’s a great fit for him to go to a good team.”

9. Couturier update

Still all good news on the Sean Couturier front.

“So far so good,” Briere said. “It seems to be very positive. I spoke to him last week. He was gung-ho and seems to think that everything is back to normal with him, which is exciting for him and us. So at this point, I expect him to be on the ice for training camp and be on the ice for Game 1 of the season.”

10. Gauthier not coming to development camp

The one mildly concerning piece of Flyers news on Saturday? The rosters for development camp were revealed — on-ice sessions begin Sunday — and Cutter Gauthier’s name wasn’t on the list.

Now, his absence shouldn’t come as a major surprise. Bill Meltzer of HockeyBuzz and Flyers.com reported last week that Gauthier wouldn’t be attending. But Meltzer cited the reason as a rule that does not permit college players from attending more than one development camp without signing an NHL contract — unless they pay their entire way and it does not conflict with summer classes.

However, fellow college player and 2022 pick Devin Kaplan will be at development camp. So why not Gauthier?

“Cutter was invited, he declined to come,” Briere said. “We’re assuming that is because he’s played a lot of hockey with the World Championship, lots of travels. We’re not too worried about that.”

Assuming? So that means that the Flyers don’t yet know why Gauthier isn’t attending?

“We’re trying to figure out why he didn’t want to come,” Briere acknowledged. “But at this point, I’m not too worried about that.”

Most likely, this will ultimately be a non-issue. But that the Flyers don’t know — or don’t want to reveal — precisely why the 2022 No. 5 pick will not be attending prospect camp is at least mildly concerning, given how important he is to the future of the organization. It seems highly unlikely that Gauthier would spend the full four years in college just to earn the right to leave the Flyers organization, so there’s no need for fans to panic yet. It’s just a noteworthy piece of information — or lack of information, to be exact.

(Photo of Daniel Briere: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)

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