Flyers Quick Hit: Price Trade a Prototype for Philly?

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The Montreal Canadiens bought themselves cap space on Friday. Montreal traded Carey Price’s contract to the San Jose Sharks, along with a 2026 fifth-round pick. The Canadiens accepted non-prospect defenseman Gannon Laroque in return.

Why is this relevant to the Flyers? Philadelphia has a mere $227,739 of available cap space, according to Cap Wages. Meanwhile, the Canadiens unloaded a $10.5 million average annual value contract on an unofficially retired player. Price last played in 2021-22.

What’s in it for San Jose? Short answer: a cap floor cushion. Price already received his signing bonus installment ($5.5 million) for the 2025-26 NHL calendar. He has a $2 million base salary, spread over the final year of his contract. Additionally, the Sharks gained an open space on their 50-contract reserve list limit. Laroque, a 2021 fourth-round pick, has dealt with injuries througout his pro career to date. He has 12 games of AHL experience and three games in the ECHL.

Do the Flyers have a similar option with Ellis?

Ryan Ellis has not played a game since the fall of 2021. He’ll never play again. Meanwhile, the Flyers have been saddled for years with the $6.25 million AAV on the player’s contract. Two reasons why the Flyers have been unable to trade the contract all these years: 1) The remaining term.2) The contract structure. Ellis’ entire cap hit comes entirely via base salary. Additionally, it’s not a front-loaded contract. The real-dollar salary is the same as the average annual value.

Light at the end of the tunnel

The bad news: Ellis’ contract still has two seasons to run. Even if the Flyers were to retain money on the contract, it’s tough to find a trade partner (even a cap floor team). There’d have to be roughly equivalent money coming back.Thus, there’s little to no cap benefit. Additionally, it’s not a “hockey trade” candidate. There’s no on-ice upside unless the Flyers part with a useful roster player or prospect they’re unwilling to move.

The good news: There’s light at the end of the tunnel. Next year, when the Ellis contract enters its final year, a cap dump deal becomes more feasible with retention.

For now, however, it might be tough to use Ellis’ contract in a cap-space deal. There’s still too much base-salary owed.

Flyers did it right with the Pronger deal

Say what you will about Ron Hextall’s GM tenure in Philadelphia. He got it right with the Chris Pronger contract trade with the Coyotes (now Utah Mammoth).

By 2015, Pronger was unofficially retired. Post-Concussion Syndrome (suffered in late 2011) ended his career. Unfortunately, he was still on the Flyers’ books for a $4.9 million annual salary cap hit. He had two seasons remaining on the deal. However, he had a front-loaded contact. By 2015=26, his actual remaining salary was only $575,000 per year. 

Hextall leveraged the cap hit vs. real dollar difference. He traded Pronger’s contract plus NHL roster defenseman Nicklas Grossmann to the Coyotes in exchange for NHL roster forward Sam Gagner. The financially strapped Coyotes gained a lot of AAV assistance toward the cap floor. However, it was budget neutral trade in reality. Pronger and Grossmann’s salaries balanced out almost exactly with Gagner’s.

Philly got it wrong with Gostisbehere

The Shayne Gostisbehere situation in 2021 differed from the Pronger or Price deals. Gostisbehere was (and remains) an active NHL players, However, the deals had one thing in common: one team needed to get rid of a contract.

The cap-strapped Flyers placed the oft-injured Gostisbehere on waivers during the 2020-21 season. There was no taker. The player finished the year with Philadelphia. It was an awkward situation.

The Flyers general manager at the time, Chuck Fletcher, tried another strategy. He dangled Gostisbehere as an unprotected player in the Expansion Draft. Unfortunately, the newly created Seattle Kraken didn’t bite.

The Flyers acquired veteran defenseman Ryan Ellis on July 17, 2021. His injury risk was even higher than Gostisbehere’s. However, he was also a more complete player than Gostisbehere. The hope was that an Ellis-Ivan Provorov tandem could be the Flyers’ best defense pairing since the Kimmo Timonen-Brayden Coburn duo.

Needing cap relief, the Flyers again offered Gostisbehere around the league for a minimal return. Fletcher indicated a willinessness to add a sweetener (via a non-first round Draft pick or middling prospect). The catch: the prospective trade partner had to take the entire contract.

A potential taker emerged: the Arizona Coyotes. The Coyotes offered ONLY to take Gostisbehere. In return, the Flyers had to accept “future considerations” (AKA no player or pick) and also had to include two Draft picks. Ultimately, the Coyotes “compromised” on 2022 second-round and seventh-round picks as the sweeteners.

The optics of the trade looked terrible. The Flyers had to deal an NHL roster offensive defenseman and two assets for nothing in return. Yes, cap space is an asset. Even so, the Flyers went into the deal knowing how bad it looked. They hoped Ellis would stay healthy. If he did, the team could easily withstand accepting the one-sided Gostisbehere deal.

Unfortunately, ala Eddie Mush, the luckless Fletcher rolled snake eyes. Ellis played only three games. He missed a month. Ellis returned for one game in Dallas. He quickly returned to IR thereafter. Ellis never played again. All the Flyers got was a tease (five points in four games, plus-two, several nice stick-on-puck plays) of what Ellis COULD have brought if healthy. Meanwhile, Gostisehere subsequently got his career back on track after several years of injuries and year-to-year inconsistency.