Rebuilds, retools, or re-whatever you want to call it, are funny things to manage. On the one hand, you are trying to build up a team in the meantime to evaluate young talent and see who is worth keeping around. Sometimes this includes keeping some veteran players around to serve as mentors and other times it means trading them away for more assets. On the other hand, you always have to have one eye looking at the future and trying to save financial resources and roster space to build a better tomorrow for team. This is the state that the Philadelphia Flyers are currently in.
While this year hasn’t started yet, it is that Daniel Briere is looking at next offseason as well as this upcoming season. As it stands, there are 10 players whose contracts will be up at the end of this season. Depending on what happens with Morgan Frost, that number could increase by one more. There are also another eight players, in the minors or elsewhere, that could also potentially be on the move.
That’s not a bad place to be, or at least not as bad as some of the other teams in our division. The Pittsburgh Penguins are loaded with lots of big contracts belonging to lots of players over 30. The Carolina Hurricanes have almost half of their roster up for grabs and they are cash strapped.
Let’s examine who the Flyers have as pending free agents after the 2023-24 season. This will allow us to see what some players are playing for. Likewise, we can see who the Flyers may or not be looking to retain.