I apologize to my fellow Philadelphia Flyers fans in advance.
The Philadelphia Flyers have made their fair share of bad longterm commitments throughout the years. Whether it was during the Paul Holmgren or Ron Hextall eras, both former General Managers made some poor decisions during their respective tenures with the Orange and Black. They made good ones, as well, but I’ll write about that on a different day because I’m about to look at four of the worst contracts the Flyers have given out in the past decade. * boo’s intensify*
My criteria for determining which deals are the worst is relatively simple. I’m going to rank these by the term, the amount of money provided to the player, and how those players performed during their time in Philadelphia. There weren’t as many to choose from as I thought there’d be looking back through the transactions, but enough to make me wince just thinking about them. So, without further ado, let’s jump right into number four.
The fourth worst contract in the last ten years is none other than Dale Weise. Hextall signed Weise to a four-year, 9.4 million dollar on the first day of the 2016 Free Agency period. It wasn’t so much the money Hexy gave the Bottom-6 forward, which averaged around 2.35 million a year, but the freaking term. Giving a guy who scored 25+ points twice in his career that kind of term was preposterous at the time and still is today, and yet, some teams haven’t learned their lesson. Weise went on to post an underwhelming 34 points (17 Goals, 17 Assists) in 152 games in a Flyers uniform until current GM Chuck Fletcher shipped him back to the Montreal Canadiens in a trade.
Coming in at number three is good old Vincent Lecavalier. If you don’t recall, the Tampa Bay Lightning bought out the 1998 First Overall Selection during the 2013 offseason, and the Flyers swooped in and inked him to a five-year, 22.5 million contract about a weeks later. For whatever reason, Holmgren thought it’d be a tremendous idea to give, at the time, a 33-year-old centerman who was increasingly missing time due to injury a five-year deal. I mean, nobody could’ve seen this contract going awry, not a single soul.
Lecavalier went on to completely fall off a cliff after scoring at a near point-per-game pace the year before, netting 37 points in 69 games for the Flyers. He would never reach 30+ points again during the rest of his career and Hextall, somehow, unloaded his contract along with Luke Schenn to the Los Angeles Kings for Jordan Weal and a third. This was a great example as to why you should never give a player on the wrong side of 30 a lengthy contract.
Everybody’s favorite defenseman Andrew MacDonald comes in at number two. Holmgren traded for MacDonald’s services in exchange for Matt Mangene and a second and third-round pick at the 2014 Trade Deadline and subsequently extended him for six years and 30 million dollars a month later. A-Mac was coming off a career-high 28 point campaign between time with the New York Islanders and Flyers, scoring just four of those 28 after being dealt to the City of Brotherly Love.
This deal got worse and worse as the years went on, with MacDonald showing he was at best a third-pairing blue-liner making high-end second-pair money. Hextall even sent him down to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms for a solid portion of the 2015-16 season but he and Dave Hakstol decided he magically turned into a top-pair d-man and used him as such until this past year. Fletcher finally bought out MacDonald during the offseason to save some cap, thus ending his brutal tenure as a Flyers player.
Rounding out the list is goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov. After trading Jeff Carter and Mike Richards to L.A., the Flyers signed the 6’3, 216-pound net-minder to a whopping nine-year, 51 million dollar agreement in hopes that he’d be the number one goaltender the team had been looking for. While he was excellent in the crease at times, Bryz’s inconsistency, poor postseason performances, and honest off-ice comments did him in, and the team bought him out in 2013, a mere two years following his arrival in Philly. The Flyers are still paying him to this day to not play for the squad, which should be all you need to know as to why this deal was a disaster.
Every team in any sport are prone to making lousy roster decisions as no GM or front office is perfect. Hopefully, the good will outweigh the bad for the Flyers in the future.