In a bit of surprising news, the Philadelphia Flyers have closed in on a 5-year contract extension with Christian Dvorak at a cap hit of $5.15 million per season, as first reported by DFO’s Anthony Di Marco and later confirmed by The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz.
Additionally, Kurz mentions that the deal includes a no-trade clause for the first 2 seasons, a limited no-trade clause in years 3 and 4, and no trade protection in the 5th and final year.
What we already knew was that the Flyers were keen on extending the upcoming unrestricted free agent, but it was believed to be on a 2 or 3-year deal around $5 million-$5.5 million per season. The 5-year term is very surprising and somewhat unnecessary from the Flyers brass.
The Flyers are just about to get out of salary cap hell with what was going to be $47 million in projected cap space. They did have a laundry list of restricted free agents to take care, but Dvorak was the primary focus when it came to their pending unrestricted free agents, which usually takes precedence.
The 5-year term handed out slightly goes against their mantra over the last few years about looking to the future with younger players, but Dvorak has done such a good job in his first season with the Flyers, that they felt the need to reward him almost instantly, since the earliest they could have started negotiations was January 1st.
It also helped the 29-year-old that the Flyers were barren at the centre position and were unlikely to receive much help from any of their prospects in the next coming year or two. The extension also adds a bit of a wrinkle on prospect Jett Luchanko, not that he’s going to be traded, but more so that the club doesn’t believe he’s ready to take that next step at this very moment.
Dvorak currently has 9 goals and 25 points in 39 games with a +8 rating, 12 PIM, 75 shots, 54% success rate on the dot, 23 blocked shots, and 16 hits in 17:06 ATOI. He’s in line to reach his previous career highs which were both set in 2019-20 as a member of the Arizona Coyotes when he scored 18 goals and 38 points.
It’s an interesting decision by the Flyers considering Dvorak has never reached lofty heights in his points production, and considering the season is far from over. In a perfect world, a 2-3 year deal would have been the maximum anyone would have been comfortable with, but it seems like Alexander Wennberg’s extension in San Jose changed the landscape.
