Flyers place Shayne Gostisbehere on waivers

Chuck Fletcher has seemingly put his foot down as we approach the trade deadline. The Flyers announced Shayne Gostisbehere was put on waivers on Tuesday afternoon.

There is a lot to unpack here. Gostisbehere has had his struggles, like most of the team. But, he is far from the problem as well. His cap hit sits at 4.5M for the next three seasons, including this one. In a flat cap world, that could be an issue.

So the move to put Gostisbehere could be a way of trying to clear that money off the books. His name has popped up in many trade rumors before. Either the team could not find a suitor for him, or they weren’t willing to part with him at the time. Has that time finally come?

Aside from Ivan Provorov, Gostisbehere has the next highest cap hit among the rest of the defensemen. If the Flyers are truly looking to cut money ahead of a bigger move, he was going to be the odd man out on the backend.

We won’t find out if this is part of a bigger move until at least Wednesday afternoon. If Gostisbehere ends up making it through waivers tomorrow, there are a few options. He could remain with the Flyers or they could send him down to Lehigh Valley.

But it’s hard to see him making it through waivers. Going back to the flat cap, a lot of teams may not be able to take that hit without losing anything of their own. But certainly someone is willing to take a chance. His numbers aren’t what they once were, but  11 points in 25 games isn’t bad by any means.

He’s shown signs of the Gostisbehere that the Flyers had seen before the injuries. So there could be some hope that he would return to form. Losing a player for nothing is a tough pill to swallow. But if this is part of a bigger move, it should get very interesting in Philadelphia.