Earlier this week, Chuck Fletcher spoke with reporters via conference call after the Flyers made a series of free agent signings geared solely for AHL roster upgrades and potential NHL depth in case of injuries. After discussing the players signed, Fletcher was asked about what may be next for the NHL roster. The transcript is courtesy of the Flyers.
Chuck, were you close on anything regarding an NHL player [on July 1], either through free agency or via trade?
No. We didn’t jump into those waters.
Is it likely beside signing the RFAs that there won’t be any more moves that will impact the NHL roster?
That’s hard to say. We’ll continue to have conversations with teams. As I’ve mentioned it to you guys a few times, it really isn’t a priority for us to add additional pieces. If we can find a clear upgrade, we will. Today I think what you saw, the majority of the forwards signed today were signed to multi-year, multi-million-dollar deals. Frankly, we didn’t want to get into those types of commitments right now. Over the next 24 months, we’ll have several young forwards knocking on the door of the NHL. I don’t think it’s a very smart thing to box these kids out and take on additional cap responsibilities when we’re going to have a lot of really good pieces that could mature and grow through the system.
Going into the day knowing that you weren’t going to spend big money, did that feel differently than what you are used to on July 1st?
Well, it’s always the way on July 1. Believe me, I’ve been an active participant on July 1. We’ve had other years when we haven’t done much. This year, we were proactive. We identified the players we wanted to get and we went out and got them early. Again, we felt our priorities were adding a number two center, adding a couple quality defensemen and finding a goaltender to play with Carter Hart. When we went through the list of all those available players, we quickly realized there were very few centers and defensemen in the free agent marketplace.
Rather than getting into a bidding war over very scarce commodities, in a market where there just weren’t a lot of players, we felt if we could get ahead of it and get the guys that we wanted, that would be a smart thing to do. Look, there was over $550 million dollars spent [leaguewide] on UFA contracts. Obviously, there’s many teams that significantly reduced the amount of cap space they have available to them this year and going forward.
Just looking quickly at some of the cap numbers, there are several teams in the league that will be over the cap when they fill out their roster and re-sign their RFAs. It’s going to be an interesting summer. There’s a lot of teams with a lot of work to do. I like the position we’re in right now. We have some cap space left. We feel it will be enough to cover our RFAs.
Our hope is to get into camp, we have a new coaching staff and a lot of new players, and let things sort themselves out in camp. From there, we always make adjustments. Right now, we’ll just focus on our RFAs. Don’t forget everybody, we have three RFAs this summer, but we have two RFAs next summer and two more the summer after that. Those are top young players that our staff has worked hard to draft and develop. They are high priorities for us. You have to be mindful of your future obligations when you go through a day like today.
With all the goaltender injuries last year, was the signing of J.F. Berube kind of along those lines of having a little bit of veteran depth in goal? Conversely, if everyone is healthy, is there enough playing time in Lehigh for Sandstrom?
With Sandstrom, our goal is to get him a lot of games. We’ll find a path for him. I don’t think the goal for Sandstrom was to be a backup goalie in Lehigh Valley. He hasn’t played a lot of games the past three seasons. We needed to develop him, but we used eight goalies at the NHL level last year. We just thought it would be prudent to bring in J.F. and we now have four guys that are quality professional goaltenders. All four of them have played games in the NHL. I just think we’re in a better position to deal with any uncertain that may come our way next season.
Do you think that the door has opened a little more for Joel Farabee or Morgan Frost to make the team or do you see another move as we get closer to camp?
I don’t foresee another move as we get closer to camp, but again, there are a lot of teams that are going to have significant challenges this summer. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many teams over the cap or at the cap. That’s when you factor in future signings that they have to make here with their RFAs and to fill out their roster. There could be opportunity.
I spoke with Alain Vigneault at length today and he’s excited about our team. I think we all want to get in and see what we have and how the pieces fit together. We’ll have plenty of time to make adjustments if necessary.
Do you think that Frost’s and Farabee’s chances increased with what happened today?
It’s more than Farabee and Frost. I think Rubtsov had a tremendous prospect camp here. Ratcliffe is a quality young player. Vorobyev is a young man that we feel is going to come back next year a little bit stronger. There are several players down there that can play games. Never mind Andreoff who’s a player that will make a very strong push to make our team this season. Kurtis Gabriel is a player that’s played games in the NHL the past few seasons. We have a lot of options. That’s what training camps for. It’s an opportunity for players to come in and show that they belong. It should be an exciting camp.
How much of off-season plan was that the young guys on the roster slotted more comfortable spots in the lineup?
It was a major factor. It’s how we develop the young players going forward and not just the first-year players down in Lehigh Valley, but also the young players we have on the NHL roster. That will be a major determining factor in whether we can win a Stanley Cup. We have some high-end talent. We not only have to slot them properly but surround them properly and to create the best environment possible, not only to develop them but to win games. I think we accomplished a lot of what we set out to accomplish.
With the rate of contract inflation on a day like today, did that impact your plans?
Well that’s hard to say. We went out and added Kevin Hayes, Matt Niskanen, Justin Braun and Brian Elliott. We certainly added some players. I don’t think July 1 is the day you should be building your team. I think it’s a day to supplement your roster. We added some pieces we thought we needed to add prior to July 1.
Really, the best teams, the teams that win Stanley Cups, draft and develop the key parts of their team. Our staff has worked hard the past several seasons to accumulate a lot of top young talent. I think it’s incumbent upon everyone in our organization to make sure we do our best to develop those players. We have an exciting future ahead of us. We have a lot of good young players.
Again, I am not just talking about the prospects that participated this past week. You look at our team, we counted today, there’s eight players on that NHL roster that haven’t come close to hitting their peak and to having their career season. That’s our exciting thing. That’s our growth. I think we’ve added some quality pieces that will help our team. Make no mistake, our future success is going to depend on a large part of how far these young players do, how much they develop and that’s the exciting part of the group.
Did the buyout of David Schlemko to get more of those veteran guys in there?
Yeah, it does. There is certainly a $600,000 liability that we incurred by doing that for next season. David’s a guy that spent a lot of time in the NHL. Frankly, I didn’t feel that his opportunity to make our team coming out of camp was strong. I thought it was the best thing for both him and the Flyers to sort of deal with the situation upfront. We did. We’re confident that we would be able to sign some players today and we did. I think it was a combination of factors, but again we clearly added depth to defense today. I think we are well covered in that part.
The guys you added this summer are obviously good players. Did you guys feel you were fine with the high end and needed to fill out the roster more?
I’m not sure how many top of the roster players were available (on July 1). You guys can form your own opinions on that, but there were very few. We felt that Matt Niskanen and Justin Braun would compare favorably with all the defensemen in the free agent class. Kevin Hayes was clearly one of the top two centers available in the projected free agent class. We felt we’ve added quality players.
Obviously, we gave Kevin Hayes term, he’s 27 years old. He’ll be 33 at the end of the contract. We gave him a 7-year deal, but with Braun and Niskanen, they’re on shorter term deals that allows us some flexibility going forward to make the adjustments we need to make and the decisions we need to make. We felt that was a tremendous benefit to acquiring those players. They’re players we wanted and players that where we are not locked into lengthy deals. …‹