The Philadelphia Flyers’ official announcement for Cam York’s 5-year extension capped off a busy offseason for the club that should likely be done, barring unforeseen circumstances.
It’s been a busy one for the Flyers, who got to work in late April after missing the playoffs for a fifth straight season. They needed a brand new coaching staff, a centre, better goaltending depth, four important RFAs to look into, and seven picks in the first two rounds of the draft.
After a bunch of rumours and interviews, the Flyers landed Rick Tocchet coming out of Vancouver. The Canucks decided not to exercise their option to retain the 2024 Jack Adams Award winner, and in turn he decided to return back to his old stomping grounds, looking to reinvigorate the dormant franchise.
General manager Daniel Brière was understandably excited as he landed his top option but the verbiage he used was important because it shined a light into the end of John Tortorella’s tenure.
He was looking forward to Tocchet being a teacher, how players look up to Tocchet and only have glowing remarks about his coaching, and subtly that he’s a good recruit come free agency and perhaps through trades.
Next up was addressing the roster and Brière did that by extending RFA forwards Noah Cates and Tyson Foerster to relatively team friendly deals when factoring in the rising salary cap. Cates received a 4-year deal worth $16 million, whereas Foerster signed a bridge deal worth $3.75 million per season over the next 2 years.
Before the draft, Brière also swung for a trade with the Anaheim Ducks for longtime target Trevor Zegras. The former first round pick had struggled over the last 2 seasons after collecting 60+ points in 2021-22 and 2022-23. He’s suffered through some gruesome injuries since then but finished 2024-25 on a high note with 19 points in his final 28 games.
For Zegras, a change of scenery was needed as his relationship with then head coach Greg Cronin was coming to a head, almost similarly to Tortorella and York. Now in a new environment – surrounded by close friends in York and Jamie Drysdale – with a new coach and a new role, the hope is he can rediscover that fine form that saw him burst onto the scene as an extremely gifted offensive player.
The draft came next and with Flyers having dropped 2 spots through the draft lottery, they were set to pick at #6. After all the speculation, mock drafts, draft rankings, discussions, and arguments, the Flyers were given a choice between Porter Martone and James Hagens and went with the former as he surprisingly dropped to 6th.
The big winger had been tabbed as a top-3 prospect for most the season, top-4 at the lowest, but late risers in Caleb Desnoyers and Brady Martin made for an interesting few weeks leading into the draft. Centre-needy teams in Utah and Nashville took a swing on both players, leaving the Flyers with a grand choice – and one that Brière and company felt was a slam dunk.
Following Martone, the Flyers traded their two late picks to jump all the way up to #12 to select Jack Nesbitt out of OHL Windsor. The selection drew the ire of many because of some of the prospects that were still on the board, some even at the same position, but the Flyers reportedly received intel that Detroit (#13) and Vancouver (#15) wanted him as well.
While Nesbitt didn’t have jaw-dropping numbers and some even had him as a late first round selection, the Flyers understood he would probably not be there for their next pick at #22, let alone survive through the 13th or 15th pick, so they decided to gamble to get their guy.
The 6’5” centre will be a project, at least compared to Martone, but let’s see what the soon-to-be 18-year-old can get to doing in 2025-26 with an expanded role in juniors. The Flyers did the same thing last year when they selected Jett Luchanko over the likes of Zeev Buium or Konsta Helenius, leaving some flabbergasted by the “reach”.
After that, the Flyers hit it out of the park with their 4 selections in the second round, where they took defenseman Carter Amico and forwards Shane Vansaghi, Jack Murtagh, and Matthew Gard.
The Flyers continued with their trend of big prospects but some of them also had legitimate first round valuations, primarily Amico and Vansaghi. They finished things off by selecting Max Westergård, Luke Vlooswyk, and Nathan Quinn to round out their draft.
That led them straight into free agency where they conducted their business fast and early with the signings of Noah Juulsen, Dennis Gilbert, Lane Pederson, Christian Dvorak, and Dan Vladař. The latter two were the more important ones as Dvorak signed a 1-year deal worth $5.4 million and Vladař was brought in for 2-years at a cap hit of $3.35 million.
While Dvorak assuredly earned more than most teams were willing to offer, the Flyers went big for the former Tocchet disciple knowing that he could be a rental in a worst-case scenario and they could shop him at the trade deadline. Vancouver was once again in the race and reportedly offered him a 3-year deal worth $4 million per season but Dvorak chose to bet on himself in Philadelphia instead.
As for Vladař, his numbers might not look the greatest but he has served as a serviceable backup to Tuukka Rask, Jacob Markström, and Dustin Wolf in recent years. His peripherals took a massive hit with an abysmal showing while shorthanded, having barely stopped 80% of the shots fired his way, however that doesn’t tell the whole story.
He ranked 15th league-wide with Sergei Bobrovsky and Ilya Sorokin with a .919 SV% at even-strength and had the 18th-best goals saved above average at 5.15, showing that there’s a lot more than meets the eye.
As Samuel Ersson’s projected 1B, Vladař would be the best tandem partner the young Swede has had in his young career since Carter Hart’s departure and that could change the landscape in between the pipes this season – barring injuries.
On the same day, it had been reported that Foerster would be out for an indefinite period of time after an injury he suffered at the IIHF World Championships, where he represented Team Canada. The Flyers confirmed he had injured his elbow, but he came back and everything seemed fine before sustaining an infection in the elbow that made things worse.
With that in the back of their minds, the Flyers did reportedly push for veteran forward Corey Perry before he ultimately signed with Los Angeles. They also lost out in the Maxim Shabanov sweepstakes to the New York Islanders, who were able to give the Russian forward several roster assurances that the Flyers couldn’t or perhaps weren’t willing to give up front.
With York now in the fold for the next 5 years at a very reasonable cap hit of $5.15 million, the Flyers are just under a million dollars over the cap for 2025-26.
It is all but likely they will be waiving Ivan Fedotov, and when he presumably goes unclaimed, he will be reporting to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms alongside Carson Bjarnason and Yaniv Perets, who signed an AHL deal with Lehigh Valley according to Inside AHL Hockey’s Tony Androckitis. The cap savings should be around $1.1-1.2 million, which would give them a surplus of just over $500K for the upcoming year.
With the roster mostly set, there will be interesting camp battles to look out for primarily the bottom-4 on the defensive side of things as well as a few winger spots in the top-9.
With Rasmus Ristolainen most likely missing the start of the year, Juulsen and Gilbert should be vying for a spot alongside Emil Andrae and Egor Zamula. Conversely, forwards like Nikita Grebenkin and Alex Bump will be gearing up to take Foerster’s spot and push for greater opportunities.
Luchanko could also have an opportunity to claim a roster spot but with the Flyers operating down the middle with Cates, Dvorak, Zegras, and captain Sean Couturier, they could allow the former first round pick to take another season of development with OHL Guelph before joining the Phantoms when their season ends again. However, if Zegras returns to the wing, Luchanko should be the next man up for a centre spot in the top-9.
A lot still needs to be ironed out but that is what training camp and a loaded preseason schedule are for. The Flyers were busy from the onset and addressed several positional needs with their acquisitions but only time will tell if they will make the impact they were hoping for.
