Bad Gambles Define Flyers Management

I get that with DeAngeleo there is baggage. That is a deal breaker for some. I can respect that opinion.  Anyone can make a mistake, and it is not my job to see that he is forgiven or not. But it is my purview to show that the Flyers are engaging leadership you would expect to see from sheep passed down from the Comcast, and it is to the organization’s detriment.

For what it was worth I advocated signing DeAngelo for 2 years at 1.25 million last summer. The risk being, that some of the bad behaviors came back, with the calculation that in such an event the team could put him in the minors for two seasons, which would only cost about $500,000 against the cap and effectively end DeAngelo’s NHL career. It was a slam dunk easy play for a team desperate for a RHD.

Instead DeAngelo signed with Carolina for one year for $1,000,000 in 2021. No draft picks or compensation. Comcast, following the next big thing, wokeness in this case, passed on DeAngelo.  Clutching their pearls, making certain to tell those who mattered that they were too good of people to consider a troglodyte like DeAngelo. The Flyers made no offer and had no interest in a player who grew up dreaming of playing for the Flyers.

So what changed in a year?  Could it be that virtue signaling and tearing down Kate Smith statues wasn’t filling the seats like they expected?  Maybe the “Wife of Gritty” costumes and bobble heads are still stuck in port in Long Beach.  Perhaps winning is back in fashion at the dawn of what is to be a pretty rough recession.

But wait it gets worse.  DeAngelo is inked a pretty rich extension with the Flyers, maybe close to “take this job and shove it” money.  While I don’t expect Tony D to back slide, it seems more likely he could with a fat guaranteed contract, rather than while fighting for an NHL future.

He is the same guy who had the same questionable past as he did a year ago.  How has the risk changed on DeAngelo?  At the least, it is the same. But rather than taking a low risk chance, as the Canes did, the Flyers paid through the nose for a player who was no less risky than he was a year ago. The calculus does not make sense, it is like paying $10.00 for a bag of sketchy day-old soft pretzels you could have gotten for $2.00.  No matter the price, the pretzels are still sketchy, purchasing them is taking the risk, but why pay more for it?  That is bad management.