Analyzing the Philadelphia Flyers Salary Cap: The Defensemen

The Flyers have an extremely young group of players patrolling their blue line for the next few seasons.

There are currently seven defensemen on the Flyers NHL roster. While the forward group has a lot of talent outside of that, there aren’t many other names challenging for a spot on defense. The team is able to go into the season, and almost certainly will, with what they have on the backend.

The biggest change on defense came with the retirement of Matt Niskanen after the playoffs. It left a huge hole, one that can hopefully be filled in by one, or possibly two of the Flyers’ young defensemen.

After bringing in Erik Gustafsson on a one-year deal, there isn’t expected to be any other significant changes. That is unless the team truly feels they can get better value by trading Shayne Gostisbehere. There is a belief a fully healthy season will be key to him re-finding his game. And with training camps expected to be less than a month away, the chances of a trade happening are extremely unlikely at this point.

Besides the departure of Niskanen and the addition of Gustafsson, the Flyers will continue to rely on their young guns on the backend. And they have some good value back there.