With Rick Tocchet now in the fold, it begs to question whether or not he will have any sway or say in roster decisions for the Philadelphia Flyers.
With the Flyers in dire need of depth at the centre position, one of Tocchet’s former players in Pius Suter should be hitting the open market and could be seen as an underrated pickup should it come to fruition.
Anthony Di Marco noted in a piece for Daily Faceoff that while many believe the Flyers could be in the market for some bigger fish, he doesn’t think that will be the case this year as they might spend the off-season looking to shore up glaring holes with depth pickups – i.e. goaltending and centres.
The Flyers currently have Sean Couturier and Ryan Poehling under contract and recently re-signed pending RFA Noah Cates to a four-year extension. Missing in this equation is another serviceable centre despite the club potentially using Rodrigo Ābols, Jakob Pelletier, or anyone else that surprises in camp.
One player that checks off a lot of their boxes is Suter and he’s got a lot of familiarity with Tocchet having spent the last two years together in Vancouver.
Suter went undrafted and spent parts of 6 seasons in his native Switzerland split between the Swiss League’s A and B sectors from 2015-16 to 2020-21. He was then signed by the Chicago Blackhawks and made his NHL debut in 2020-21 with 27 points in 55 games played.
He then signed as a free agent with the Detroit Red Wings and accumulated 29 goals and 60 points in 161 games played as a top-9 forward averaging 15:31 TOI. After two solid seasons, Suter then joined Vancouver as a free agent and added 75 points in 148 games while averaging 16:30 TOI.
More importantly Suter registered a career-season in 2024-25 under Tocchet and with the Canucks dealing with a ton of injuries, inconsistent play, and trades between Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller, and Filip Chytil.
Suter registered 25 goals, 22 of which came while playing even-strength, added another 21 assists, was a plus-2, averaged 17:21 TOI, and added 43 blocked shots to his 59 hits. He also played an instrumental role on special teams seeing 185 minutes shorthanded and another 109 minutes on the power play.
Looking for stability in an otherwise unstable environment, Tocchet handed Suter a larger role around New Year’s as he averaged 18:38 TOI in his final 47 games played to go along with 14 goals and 27 points. Furthermore with the Canucks pushing for a postseason berth, Suter saw over 20 minutes a game in the final month, while also tallying 7 goals and 14 points.
Safe to say when push came to shove and Tocchet needed someone to step up in the midst of a tough season, Suter stepped up to the plate and added to his free agent value as he is set to hit unrestricted free agency on July 1st.
While he might not be a household name, the free agent market is thin with centres and Suter’s career year could bode well for his chances at a more lucrative and longer termed deal than the previous 2-year contracts he’s received in the past.
Players like Sam Bennett and John Tavares are going to generate a lot of the buzz on July 1st should they reach that point. Secondary options like Claude Giroux and Mikael Granlund will command good paydays as well.
That will then leave players like Suter, Radek Faksa, and Christian Dvorak as potential targets that the Flyers could try and swoop in for before the rest of the herd thins out.
In and around the trade deadline, the Canucks were looking at what an extension for Suter would come to but were deterred by the numbers they were hearing, according to Elliotte Friedman. The unfortunate part of this business is that market value dictates what a player is worth now and his number is being projected at around $4.8 million-$5 million+ per season, according to AFP Analytics.
While that might be expensive off the hop, the Flyers are looking at stop-gaps until they’re truly ready to contend. It’s obvious they’re not going to tank like Chicago or San Jose and they want to be as competitive as possible without losing sight of their long-term goals.
Bringing in Suter on a 2-3 year deal would be beneficial for both player and team. The 26-year-old can look to solidify himself league-wide with a top-9 role on a rebuilding team while also being in-line for another contract down the road around the time he turns 30.
For the Flyers, it gives them familiarity between player and coach, a player who possesses the skill set they always seek, and someone who can play in all situations, is dependable, and can eat top-6 minutes if need be.
Cates and Tyson Foerster, who have now both re-signed, and Cam York should take up somewhere around half of the remaining cap space that the Flyers have heading into the summer. That should leave them with around between $10-12 million dollars to address depth and goaltending.
It remains to be seen if Suter will command anywhere near his AFP projections, however with how volatile the open market can be and when factoring in how many teams need help down the middle, it could get costly but it also depends on how the dominos fall from Bennett to Tavares to Nelson and further down to Suter.
The Flyers desperately need a reliable top-9 centre to play for the here and now, which should push them to try and reunite Suter and Tocchet after the last two seasons they shared in Vancouver.
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