Flyers named as team who could use offer sheets this summer
Offer sheets were often just pipe dreams from fans wanting their team to tread that aggressive path and get better, younger players. It was typically laughed off as something unrealistic since the NHL is full of general managers too cautious to pull off something like that, but after the recent Carolina-Montreal drama surrounding Sebastian Aho and Jesperi Kotkaniemi, and then the St. Louis Blues taking advantage of the Oilers not having enough cap room for Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg, and getting two good young players; offer sheets are becoming of a reality.
On Monday morning’s edition of 32 Thoughts, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman went over the possibilities about some offer sheet action this summer and one team immediately came to mind: the Philadelphia Flyers.
“Because in a couple years, everyone’s going to have cap room. But next year, not everyone will. Teams are looking like, who are the clubs that are going to be aggressive? And they kind of look a little bit at Philly.
“And Philly has in 2026, they have their first, they have their second, they have their third, and they have their fourth. They’ve got seven draft picks in the first two rounds this year, not relevant, but they can stock up whatever they need to do.
“It’s interesting, teams are starting to look around saying, ‘Is that going to be the offer sheet team this year?’ Like, who’s that team going to be? Because no doubt the way Holloway and Broberg have played, it’s changing it.”
Under the $95.5-million cap ceiling that will be implemented on July 1 for the 2025-26 season, the Flyers are projected to have approximately $26.6 million in cap space. They do have some key restricted free agents like Cam York, Tyson Foerster, and Noah Cates, but considering how the three of them are playing, they are most likely all signing shorter-term bridge deals (maybe Cates is the only player we could see the Flyers wanting to sign for more than two seasons), the Flyers should have a sizeable amount of cap space to still play with.
For the Flyers to be the first team that Friedman mentions when thinking about offer sheets is not out of the blue. General manager Danny Briere has said that they want to improve this summer and could certainly go the more aggressive route sending out offer sheets to younger restricted free agents than trying to either trade for them or sign older guys in free agency.
As Friedman noted, the Flyers do have the picks necessary to dish out offer sheets this summer. According to PuckPedia, the offer sheet compensation for any contract with a cap hit between $4.85 million and $6.87 million is a first- and a third-round pick. And then the next level is between $6.87 million and $9.16 million, where it is a first-, second-, and third-round pick. That is probably the two ranges the Flyers are dealing with.
Who are these restricted free agents that the Flyers could target? They need help down the middle and there are some interesting restricted free agent centers this summer. Marco Rossi and Mason McTavish are at the upper tier, but solid options like Ryan McLeod, Mavrik Bourque, and Dmitri Voronkov round out a class where we could see the Flyers go for any one of these players.
Of course, giving up unprotected draft picks is not easy without knowing if your team is going to be better or not. If it ends up being a top-10 pick next summer and the acquired center isn’t as good in Philadelphia as he was elsewhere, it could be close to a disaster.
If the Flyers do go this route, they would have to be confident that they improved the goaltending enough to not ruin absolutely everything. And even further, hired the right head coach and coaching staff to fix the power play and get the offensive juices flowing. If not, then they could potentially give up some very good draft picks and waste the first season for this new acquisition no matter how well they play.
It could be a risk if they don’t pair this move with some others, but it is also a much more aggressive and enticing option that the Flyers could have at their disposal. Certainly could be an interesting summer in Philadelphia....
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