Flyers Blueprint For a Rebuild

The Flyers need to offload the dead wood. By my count, there are at least three, and perhaps as many as five, contracts that would qualify. There is a market for such contracts. Teams that are facing financial difficulty need dead wood. It allows a team to stay above the leagues cap minimum but at a substantial discount. Using Ryan Ellis as an example, he is $6 million in salary cap dead wood that make signing or extending anyone difficult for the Flyers, but for a team like the Coyotes, who struggle to stay above the league minimum, he is found money.

While the Coyotes would see Ellis and his 6 million dollar cap hit, the team, the owner would only pay him a fraction of that because he is injured.  Insurance on the contract would reimburse the owner, potentially to 75% of the contract. In the Ellis example that is 4.5 million dollars going back to ownership, which would go a long way in paying other staff.

After moving as much of the obstacle contracts as possible, the team then needs to look at making the tough decision on good players who are marketable.  DeAngelo, Provorov, Konecny, Tippett and Hart should all be shopped. These are good players with favorable deals that will provide the core of assets that will be used to rebuild the team, but starting from the ground up the Flyers will have wasted their prime years. The Flyers should trade them as they approach their peak for maximum return.

The Flyers should concentrate on grabbing draft pick. Picks take no cap space nor do they count against team’s 50 contract limit. Picks are going to be the life blood of the team. It should try to amass 10 picks in the top 100 for each of the next three years. That means the team gets a 1st, 2nd or 3rd pick when it trades, and accepts nothing lower.  Hopefully the Flyers will address their scouting and development issues, and get better, but the increased volume of picks should translate into more prospects.