The Philadelphia Flyers are a team in the middle of a rebuild that surprised the hockey world. They made a playoff push, taking a 3.8% chance and turning it into a series win and second-round appearance. Now, management faces the most important offseason in recent memory. Luckily for them, they'll at least have some increased cap space.
The Flyers have some budget relief coming in a few ways, but the NHL is also helping the cause with a pretty substantial salary cap bump. The NHL salary cap will climb to $104 million next season -- an $8.5 million increase. The salary floor is going to be at $76.9 million in 2026-27.
This rise in cap space is coming at a great time, especially with projections most likely looking like the cap will keep going up. With Trevor Zegras, Jamie Drysdale, Emil Andrae, Samuel Ersson, and Nikita Grebenkin all restricted free agents, they'll have to spend to make sure that they are all happy. It is going to take some creative accounting, but they should have the funds to do it.
Now they'll also have some UFA decisions in players like Carl Grundstrom, Rodrigo Abols, Noah Juulsen, Garrett Wilson, and Luke Glendening, but those won't be big-money deals. With the emergence of the Flyers' young roster and wanting to see those players work into becoming the core, you can expect that maybe one or none of them could be back.
However, the Flyers' cap relief is coming in more ways than just an increase in the salary cap. The Flyers' contract buyout slot is finally up. Cam Atkinson's nearly $1.8 million is coming off the books. Every little bit helps, but they'll have two more spots of relief coming up after that.
The salary the Philadelphia Flyers retained as part of the deals sending Kevin Hayes and Scott Laughton out of town totaled around $5.1 million. So between Atkinson's contract and then the Hayes/Laughton combination, the Flyers are looking at an extra $6.9 million dollars to play with.
So they'll have an extra $8.5 million from the cap increase, and then an extra $6.9 million from the retention and buyouts coming off the books, meaning that Danny Briere and company are going to be able to play with an extra $15.4 million going into the 2026-2027 NHL season. That could be huge for them.
Could They Create Even More?
Now that the Flyers are free to go ahead and use a buyout again, a player like Garnet Hathaway comes to mind. He's due $2.4 million next season, and his offensive production has fallen off a cliff. He's still a great agitator, physical presence, good teammate, and all-around standup guy, but it might be worth clearing his roster spot.
The Flyers are going to have some decisions to make, and they'll be mostly internal. We'll see how it plays out in the lead-up to the draft and then free agency, but expect the Flyers to be busy taking care of their in-house business very soon.
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