What the Hell Is Philly Doing?

It’s a good thing we have a new Collective Bargaining Agreement in the NHL, even though we sacrificed half of a season to get there. The aftermath of the 2004-05 lockout birthed those laughable long-term deals that dove into salary-minimum territory towards the tail end of the deals when the player who signed probably wasn’t expected to actually be playing anymore. Free Agency makes General Managers go crazy I guess.

To retroactively punish the teams that dabbled in this kind of creative accounting, the new CBA has built into it a “cap-recapture” clause which basically charges a team in future salary cap space the difference between actual salary paid and annual cap hit, or cap benefit, should a player retire before the end of their deal.  The result as we are starting to see is that teams are buying out otherwise serviceable players who are signed to these sorts of deals and allowing them to hit the market to sign more CBA-compliant deals.

But this doesn’t mean all sanity has returned to the NHL. Sure, some GMs make some questionable moves but no other GM has provided me with more WTSF moments then Paul Holmgren of the Philadelphia Flyers.

Let’s go back a couple years to really take a look at what this man has done. In the 2007-08 season, Holmgren signed Mike Richards to a 12-year, $69-million contract extension that took effect at the beginning of the following season when he would also assume team captaincy. In late 2010, Holmgren signed Jeff Carter to an 11-year, $58-million extension to take effect for the 2011-12 season with all the no trade/no movement bells and whistles. And to solve the Flyers’ goaltending woes that had plagued recent playoff performances, in the summer of 2011 Holmgren signed Ilya Bryzgalov to a 9-year, $51-million contract. And guess what? None of these men play for the Flyers anymore!

Now I know that GMs can pretty much do as they please as far as their assets go as long as it falls within the scope of the CBA but something has to be said when one in particular is building a reputation of signing players long term just to give them away shortly after the fact. It's one thing to part ways with a player entering the final years of a long deal who may not be as effective as at the start, but it's a real head-scratcher to see this occur more often than once in the infant stages of a contract. I honestly wouldn’t trust this guy with a handshake or my wallet.

When you sign a long-term deal to play for a team, you do it because you feel comfortable playing in the same sweater for an extended period of time and you want the security that comes along with it. I understand that down the road the player might not be the right fit for the team but Holmgren didn’t actually take the time to allow these relationships to mature before he got bored with his toys. During the offseason in 2011, Richards was traded to the Los Angeles Kings. In the same week Carter was traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets, before his contract extension took effect. And Bryzgalov was bought out on Wednesday of last week with only two seasons, one of which was shortened by way of lockout, as a Flyer.

And just to put the cherry on top, Holmgren came out to the media to state that it was a business decision due to the salary cap which is why Bryz’s $5.66 annual average salary comes off the books. But a week before, word came out that newly acquired defenseman Mark Streit would be signing a 4-year contract worth $21-million, averaging $5.25-million per year. This is the point I completely lost my sense of what reality is. To restate what just happened, buying out one contract to replace it with another that is a couple hundred thousand dollars less is purely a decision based on shrewd, business-minded logic. Cut the crap, Holmgren.

Of course there is some back-story here which, in a vacuum, makes this buyout perfectly reasonable. Bryzgalov came over to the Flyers from the small market Phoenix Coyotes as a Free Agent. Towards the end of his days there, he put up some pretty stellar numbers which were bolstered by Phoenix’s effective defensive style. Philadelphia, by comparison, is an untamed animal where everything from his play to his personality was put in the spotlight and scrutinized by the media, a much different beast than Phoenix where the ongoing ownership issue takes front and center. Bryzgalov had trouble not only repeating his past performance when back-stopping a more run-and-gun club but also justifying the big payday he received to play in a Flyers uniform.

But pull this situation back into the scope of the real world and you start to wonder if Paul Holmgren has a plan for the future of this team or if he is just shooting contracts like shotgun shells and hopes something sticks to the target. I will agree that by signing Mark Streit the Flyers addressed a need, defense, but it was at the expense of a goaltender that they had committed, at least on paper, a lot of time and money to. And the buyout came at the heels of a shortened season that netted subpar results from Philadelphia. With the new CBA in effect, all teams have through this next season which will feature full training camp and preseason to decide how to use two compliance buyouts. Just like I said about the possibility of Dan Bylsma losing his job, I don’t think the 2013 NHL Season is a reasonable sample size to judge a person who didn’t meet expectations but otherwise has a respectable resume.

It just seems like this franchise isn't looking to correct a problem but just creates more for itself. At present, the solution appears to be hand the goaltending reigns to Steve Mason, a young goaltender who won a Calder Trophy in a Blue Jackets sweater before going through play-affecting confidence issues. The beginning of free agency should see Holmgren bring in someone to split time with Mason, but what if the Flyers miss the playoffs by a sizeable margin for a second season in a row?

This team has missed the playoffs twice since the 1994-95 season so I don't understand why they keep hitting the panic button on big name players. Often with teams in "win now" mode depth guys get shuffled around and swapped out but the core group will remain mostly intact. Although Bryzgalov didn't establish himself as a core guy, you would think that when you throw a large amount of money at one player, you would invest in a couple role players to compliment your star's style. Sadly I would argue that Philadelphia did little to nothing to bolster their blue line after the departure of Chris Pronger in 2011. They did acquire Luke Schenn, a 23 year-old, 5-year NHL veteran with plenty of room to grow, and finally adding some veteran support in Streit only after Bryz knew he would be gone. You can only ask a goaltender to steal so many games for you when you don't replenish any support on defense.

If I were Ed Snider, owner of the Flyers, Holmgren would be on a very short leash. With the compliance buyout, Bryzgalov still makes a hair over $1.6-million from Philadelphia through the next 14 years. That is money that won't count against the salary cap but it's a check to cut each year for a player that is competing in another jersey. Comparing this situation to the fiasco in Vancouver between Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider over the past two seasons, I would say Philadelphia is further up s--- creek than the Canucks. With Schneider being traded to the New Jersey Devils, at least the Canucks decided to sleep in the bed it made for itself with Luongo's contract lasting through the 2021-22 season. The Canucks can now look to the future and forward from their goal crease while Philadelphia will constantly, literally, look over their shoulder.