The Philadelphia Flyers made their latest round of cuts on Wednesday afternoon, sending Ronnie Attard, Adam Ginning, Tanner Laczynski, Victor Mete, Cal Petersen, and Samu Tuomaala to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in the AHL.
Laczynski, Mete, and Petersen all had to pass through waivers to reach Lehigh Valley, but it was a foregone conclusion Petersen would clear because of his albatross $5 million cap hit. Because the former Los Angeles Kings netminder cleared, the Flyers managed to create $1.15 million in cap space as a result of Petersen’s AHL burial penalty. Once they put Ryan Ellis on long-term injured reserve, Philadelphia will have just over $9 million in their piggy bank to work with.
Attard and Ginning both made strong cases to make the Flyers’ roster, but ultimately their cuts reveal two things: Emil Andrae is seriously pushing Yegor Zamula, and both Bobby Brink and Tyson Foerster will make the Flyers.
Zamula is not waivers-exempt, so the safest play for Philly would be to send Andrae down at the end of the preseason in spite of his strong training camp. Assuming the Flyers choose one of Felix Sandstrom and Sam Ersson to back up Carter Hart rather than keeping three goalies, the Flyers will have 22 of a maximum 23 players on their roster. That spot will go to Foerster, assuming that Brink solidified his case already and that Foerster was the one on the outside.
That’s all semantics though, and the bottom line is that both wingers will make the team. It is a shame that Andrae likely won’t play for the Flyers right away, and that’s the downside of signing a player like Marc Staal without offloading Nick Seeler first. For now, those two cagey vets will lead the way for this young Philly team, while Andrae can look forward to building off of his strong camp showings.