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The Philadelphia Flyers are officially in their offseason planning stage following their heady run to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. For general manager Daniel Briere, it’s time to consider their summer pathway for building on that unexpected success.
For the playoffs provided their younger core players with an beneficial education on what it takes to win. But it also laid bare the areas where the Flyers have to strengthen if they are maintain or advance their achievements over the next few seasons.
One area that the Flyers are looking to make a marked improvement is to improve their league worst power-play. On that, Philadelphia is specifically looking to find a defenseman who can handle the point position. Head coach Rick Tocchet tried a number of options, including Jamie Drysdale, Cam York, and Rasmus Ristolainen.
None of them could elevate the unit’s performance.
During the playoff run, Tocchet pointed out that it wasn’t a fixable problem for the current roster. Now that the season is done, where can Briere look to find answers?
In our first look at the Flyers offseason needs, we’ll look at their options in unrestricted free agency.
As expected, this market is very thin on options, with three players that might be considered a potential upgrade. They would be Tampa Bay’s Darren Raddysh, Vegas’ Rasmus Andersson, and Anaheim’s John Carlsson. However, all three will cost the Flyers in terms of cap space and/or term. A fourth option (San Jose’s John Klingberg) that could come at lower cost, but with even greater performance variance .
Darren Raddysh
Raddysh picked the right year to have a massive offensive explosion. The 30 year old blueliner finished with career highs in goals (22), assists (48), points (70), and plus-minus (+21). He also had six game winning goals. He took full advantage of power-play time afforded to him in the wake of Victor Hedman’s injury limited season, notching 10 PP goals and 26 PPP’s.
In addition, Raddysh’s last three seasons in Tampa had seen a notable increase in production, with 33 and 37 points in the prior two years before his explosion this year.
There’s little question that he’ll be the proverbial “belle of the ball” in this years free agent market. Raddysh would be the easiest, most straightforward option for the Flyers to sign to upgrade their power-play point position.
However, Raddysh has never played at this level before. Based on his prior performance, it’s understandable if the Flyers have reservations about whether his surge is sustainable. How much of what he did this season is a product of taking advantage of Tampa’s high talent level? He likely stands to get substantial term and cap hit on a very limited sample size with a starved market begging for his services.
However, his defensive metrics were merely average and his postseason offensive performance was underwhelming.
If the Flyers decide to sign Raddysh, they are taking the risk that he is a late bloomer who can carry his career-best performance over from Tampa Bay. It also has the potential of being a classic trap signing that limits the Flyers future salary cap flexibility if he can’t.
Rasmus Andersson
Andersson is an interesting option, though much like Raddysh, he stands to make more on the open market than the Flyers may be looking to pay. Traded from Calgary to Vegas this season, his regular season numbers might not jump out at you with 13 points since his arrival. In the playoffs, he has five assists.
The one thing that could attract the Flyers to possibly pay up for him is his overall defensive profile, in which he can fit in with his physicality and occasional nasty streak. Another thing that might tip him to Philadelphia is his familiarity with goal Dan Vladar, who he was teammates with in Calgary for four seasons.
Comparatively to Raddysh, he is a couple years younger than his Tampa counterpart, with a longer track record of handling major minutes. He profiles more as a top pairing defenseman than Raddysh does, though he can struggle to defend against rush chances when he gets over-aggressive and takes himself out of position.
In Calgary, he was the team’s top power-play unit’s point man and he knows how to move the puck up ice. Currently, he is second in the pecking order when it comes to power-play point duties for the Golden Knights. Does he fit in as a potential top point man for the Flyers? Perhaps, but much like Raddysh, he will cost the Flyers term and cap space.
John Carlson
Without relitigating the Steve Eminger trade, yes it would be so very Flyers to sign John Carlson as he approaches the back-end of his career. But there is absolutely clear justification for Briere to consider bringing in the 36 year old former Washington Capital and Anaheim Duck.
Between the two clubs, the 6 foot 3, 220-pound defenseman put forward a strong offensive performance with 14 goals and 60 points. He finished the postseason as the Ducks’ point man on their top power-play unit.
The primary concern is that Carlson’s overall pace of play is slowing down at this point. The Vegas series clearly showed that. However, the Flyers could look at his veteran acumen and experience as beneficial to the younger defensemen on their roster. Enough that they might consider him at a reasonable one or two year term. However, it would likely be for a pretty high cap number.
John Klingberg
Klingberg remains as a fourth option to consider. But when looking at the other parts of his game, his candidacy is a marked drop down from the first three. He led the Sharks defensemen with 10 goals and had some streaks of good offensive play.
However, he struggled mightily with turnovers and defensive coverage, with a minus-13 rating. He wasn’t a defensive dynamo in the best of times. Add in his bilateral hip resurfacing procedure from 2023 and he could be a risk not worth taking.
He was signed to a one year, $4 million deal last summer and expected to handle the Sharks top power-play unit. But he lost that role to Dmitry Orlov, while missing 26 games this season due to injury and healthy scratches.
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