Philadelphia Flyers Fans Shouldn’t Fear Morgan Frost’s Stalemate

The lack of news on Morgan Frost’s new contract shouldn’t alarm Philadelphia Flyers fans just yet.

Contract negotiations can be a difficult thing. Most of the time, the team administration and the player, with their agent, keep most of the stuff under wraps. Sometimes when it starts to go sideways, it will leak out into the press and that can make things ugly quick. All Philly sports fans have to do is look at the 76ers and James Harden to see how bad things can get.

Despite some turmoil and tension this past year, the Philadelphia Flyers have kept things fairly quiet. Yes, they traded away Kevin Hayes and Tony DeAngelo, but even as disgruntled as they were, they never really went super public with it. Most of the angst was kept in house and was left for everyone to contemplate.

As of right now, the Flyers have signed all of their free agents except for one: Morgan Frost. For whatever reason, he didn’t sign his qualifying offer from the team. Is he upset with the team? Is he holding out for money? Does he want off the team? Who knows? Everything has been quiet. And actually, that’s not a bad thing when you look at it.

Yes, people want him to sign a deal now. If not another “prove it” deal, possibly a long term extension instead. He’s shown a tremendous amount of growth. After three seasons of subpar play and injuries, he broke out in 2022-23. His 19 goals were third on the team and his 46 points were good for fourth. Frost really seemed to take off after being paired with Owen Tippet for most of the season. In fact, you could argue that the two of them really pushed each other to become greater players this season.

Frost is only 24 and hopefully his best years are still to come. If his 19 goals this past season are any indication, he is showing that he is worth the investment the team has already put into him and that he is ready to make a return on that investment. It is wise for the Flyers to see how this year plays out before doling out the big bucks, but this team should have no problem locking him up long term.

Four years ago, the Flyers were in a similar spot with another young player. Travis Konecny had three good seasons, scoring a grand total of 59 goals. Just before the 2019-20 season began, there were rumors that he was considering holding out for a bigger contract. He was still an RFA and didn’t like the qualifying offer he received. In the end, he would sign a six-year, $33 million contract extension; of which two years still remain on the contract.

Now, at the time, a lot of people worried that Philly wouldn’t be able to sign Konecny or retain his services. Four years later, he seems to be the foundational piece of the team. He’s the franchise’s top player and has done a lot to aid in the development of some of the younger players, such as Joel Farabee, Tippett, and Frost.

Speaking of Frost, we’ll see how this plays out. Maybe a bridge deal for two years to make sure he is worth the commitment could be wise. The new contract, however, should be worth more than his current salary of $863,333 (to be fair, that’s about $100,000 more than Wade Allison and Tanner Laczynski).

I don’t think that the Flyers-Frost impasse will lead to anything bad. Konecny is proof of that. He is Mr. Flyers right now. Likewise, if the team and Konecny can put that behind them, Frost should be able to follow. Until anything becomes public and nasty, we shouldn’t have to worry. If it gets to that point, it’ll be a different story.