The Philadelphia Flyers still have their most important Restricted Free Agents sitting without new contracts.
General Manager Chuck Fletcher has done a solid job at getting a couple of the Philadelphia Flyers Restricted Free Agents under contract this offseason. He signed defenseman Travis Sanheim to a two-year, 3.25 million dollar AAV deal about a week before Free Agency began and was able to avoid arbitration with forward Scott Laughton, inking him to a two-year contract of his own worth 2.3 million annually. With those two now signed, sealed, and delivered, Fletcher will turn all of his attention to the key Flyers RFA’s who have yet to receive deals.
Ivan Provorov, Travis Konecny, and to a lesser extent Nicolas Aube-Kubel are those remaining RFA’s. Provorov and Konecny have played significant roles for Philadelphia in the past two years while Aube-Kubel will likely battle for a roster spot during training camp and preseason after playing in nine games for the team last year. I don’t have to tell you that getting Provorov and Konecny under contract will be more important than Aube-Kubel given their overall value, but when could these three find themselves signing on the dotted line?
I’d assume Fletcher is more focused on Provorov and Konecny at the moment, which is why an Aube-Kubel deal hasn’t been announced yet. I can’t see NAK making anything more than 800-900k and think a potential contract will be made official after one of Konecny or Provorov sign. Speaking of those two, it could take some time before the 2015 First Round Picks get new deals from the Flyers, especially in Provorov’s case.
Fletcher could be waiting for other RFA defensemen around the league to sign before coming to terms with Provorov. Guys like Zach Werenski, Charlie McAvoy, and Jacob Trouba are among the blue-liners still waiting for a contract, and the Flyers President and GM said it might be difficult to move forward on the 22-year-old defenseman until the market settles down. That shouldn’t come as much of a surprise since GM’s sometimes use similar players contracts as a negotiating tactic to help reach an agreement. As far as Konecny goes, I’m slightly surprised the two sides haven’t settled on anything yet. I can’t imagine them being far apart on specifics and Fletcher said he’s had good conversations with his representatives thus far, so I’m not sure what the hold up is exactly.
TSN Insider Bob McKenzie said that he’d bet a “vast majority” of the currently unsigned RFA’s will still be out there when Labor Day comes around. McKenzie did say he could be wrong on that sentiment, but it’s not the most promising thing to hear. If I had to guess, I think Konecny gets a deal done in August while Provorov’s situation could last into training camp. This is purely speculation, though.