After the opening day of free agency, Danny Briere said that ideally the Philadelphia Flyers would like to bring in a veteran player on the backend to help what will be a fairly young group. It’s what the team has done before with someone like Justin Braun. This time it will be Marc Staal, who the Flyers have signed to a one-year deal worth $1.1M.
DONE DEAL: We have signed defenseman Marc Staal to a one-year, $1.1 million contract. https://t.co/QKORGSnCvj
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) July 3, 2023
Staal is an experienced vet who has played over 1,000 games in the NHL as a part of New York Rangers (2007-20), Detroit Red Wings (2020-22), and Florida Panthers (2022-23). He will be reunited with John Tortorella, who was his head coach with the Rangers from 2008-13.
He’s not an offensive defensemen by any means, having posted just 52 goals and 229 points in 1,101 games. The most important thing he will bring to the Flyers is that veteran experience. To go along with the regular season games, Staal also has spent plenty of time in the playoffs as well, most recently as a part of the Panthers run to the Finals.
Marc Staal (1x1.1, PHI), destroyer of [some] offence. pic.twitter.com/wzu7EUFaCp
— Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath) July 3, 2023
Staal averaged around 18-minutes of ice time this past season and had a large role on the penalty kill. He is also a physical player, having laid out 152 hits and blocked 122 shots. He will likely be competing for a spot on the third pairing, potentially partnered with the likes of Nick Seeler or Egor Zamula. Having that previous experience with Tortorella likely means that Staal will be one of the players he counts on throughout the year.
For a team that has stressed how important character is to them in a player, this one falls off of that a bit, however. Along with his brother Eric, Marc was one of the players this past season that refused to wear the Pride warmup jerseys, citing his religion as the reason. The Flyers were a part of this as well, as Ivan Provorov was the first player to decline to wear the jersey. This has now led to the league banning speciality jerseys. Teams can still sell them, but can no longer wear them during warmups because of the actions of a minority group of players.
How can the Flyers stress culture and the importance of a player’s character and then sign Staal? That will be the continued conversation after this signing. But they have their veteran presence. We’ll see how this goes moving forward.