Quick Hits: September 3, 2021
1) Yesterday, the Flyers announced that they have signed 21-year-old winger Joel Farabee to a six-year contract extension that will kick in for the 2022-23 campaign and run through 2026-27. When the contract takes effect in a year, Farabee's cap hit will be a $5.0 million average annual value (AAV). The AAV on the remaining year of his entry-level deal is $925,000.
There is a risk on any deal. By virtue of signing Farabee now to such a long-term deal -- and locking him through what would have been two potential unrestricted free agent offseasons -- the Flyers are paying more in AAV in the short term than they would have if it'd been a bridge deal. They are banking that the deal will be a significant bargain in the long term, which is will be if Farabee continued to progress at the same rate he has through his first two NHL seasons.
It takes a lot of confidence in a player as young as Farabee to give him long-term contractual security. Not every player can handle that or the expectations it raises. The Flyers clearly have faith in both Farabee's on-ice game and his off-ice character, work ethic and mental maturity.
Over on the Flyers official website, I wrote an
analysis article on the signing. One point I did not raise is my curiosity over whether other NHL teams will follow suit with some of their top young players who are on the brink of their first RFA offseason.
The offer-sheet that the Carolina Hurricanes signed Montreal Canadiens forward Jesperi Kotkaniemi to this past week -- notwithstanding the revenge factor for the Habs having done the same to Sebastian Aho back in 2019 -- seems to have made quite a few NHL teams with salary cap issues nervous about themselves being vulnerable to the flat cap. While fear of an offer sheet next offseason may not have been a direct motivator for the Flyers to get Farabee's deal done a full season ahead of him becoming an RFA, it might be something that other teams emulate as a way to give themselves a head start on salary cap planning beyond the immediate next season and to create higher cost-certainty on young players they expect to become part of the nucleus moving forward.
After doing a remote press conference with the media-at-large following the announcement of his new contract, Farabee did a 13-minute
one-on-one interview with Jason Myrtetus for the Flyers Daily podcast on the Flyers Broadcast Network.
2) Today, the National Hockey League and the NHL Players Association announced that they have reached an agreement with the International Ice Hockey Federation for participation in the 2022 Winter Olympics. There will be a multi-week break in the NHL schedule in February to accommodate the Olympic tournament in Beijing.
Correspondingly, the Flyers will have a 21-day break in their game schedule come February. The team has a home game against the Winnipeg Jets on Feb. 1 and then will not be back in game action again until they face the Detroit Red Wings on the road on Feb. 23.
The agreement with the IIHF contains an out-clause related to status of COVID-19 between now and early next year. If the NHL/NHLPA deems participation by NHL players to be impractical or unsafe due to the pandemic, they can change their minds about going to Beijing.
3) I personally enjoy Olympic hockey for its own sake and enjoy international hockey in general. However, I can say with certainty that, if the late Ed Snider were alive today, the Flyers co-founder and longtime chairman would have been adamantly opposed to the NHL's announcement made today.
Back during the 2005-06 season, there was a media scrum with Snider in the Flyers locker room at the Wells Fargo Center. He made it crystal clear that he was no fan of NHL participation in the Winter Olympics.
"I wish we weren't doing it. I love the World Cup (of Hockey). It's great hockey. But I think the Olympics is bad for us as a league. We do it because the players want it. To me, it's not a good thing to shut down the league for several weeks mid-season," Snider said.
"It plays hell with the (NHL) schedule. It kills all your momentum as a team, and you're kind of starting all over after the Olympics. Your players who go to the Olympics get worn down. Guys get injured. Other guys on your team are sitting around for a few weeks when they should be playing. Your building is empty with no games. The revenues it brings [to the NHL] aren't good enough to be worth it. So I just don't like it. I know a lot of the players like it, and we have to live with it."
That same season, the Flyers had the NHL's best record at the statistical midpoint of the campaign in early January (27-8-6 through 41 games). The team, largely due to injuries (most notably to Peter Forsberg, who did play in the Olympics in Turin, Italy), fell apart in the second half and ended up losing in the first round of the playoffs to the Buffalo Sabres.
For the remaining 10 years of his life, Snider felt that the participation of many Flyers players in the 2006 Olympics had a detrimental effect on the club down the stretch and the playoffs.
4) In case you missed the Flyers' four-day Development Camp, which wrapped up on Wednesday, here are day-by-day synopses and reactions from prospects participating in camp plus a player development-related feature on Mike O'Connell.
* Day 1 synopsis and comments from Egor Zamula, Morgan Frost, Wade Allison, Cam York and Samu Tuomaala:
click here.
* Day 2 synopsis and comments from guest coach Cara Morey and players Tyson Foerster, Tanner Laczynski and Linus Sandin:
click here.
* Day 3 synopsis and comments from Isaac Ratcliffe, Samuel Ersson and Mason Millman:
click here.
* Final day 3-on-3 scrimmage synopsis and comments from Elliot Denoyers, Connor McClennon, Owen McLaughlin and free agent invitee Jackson van de Leest:
click here.
* Development Camp Player Blog by Isaac Ratcliffe:
click here.
* Development Camp Player Blog by Tanner Laczynski:
click here.
* On Tuesday, Flyers senior advisor Mike O'Connell spent about 25 minutes discussing the player development process, various Flyers prospects and his decision to leave the LA Kings organization after 15 seasons to come back east and come to work for the Flyers. As someone with 44 years of experience as an NHL player (860 games played), AHL and NHL assistant and head coach, NHL general manager and NHL director of player development, he had a lot of insights to offer:
Click here.
* On the latest edition of the Prospect Pipeline podcast on the Flyers Broadcast Network, Brian Smith and I ran down the happenings at Development Camp and some of the players who will have important seasons in their development track in 2021-22:
Click here.
5) September 3 Flyers Alumni birthdays: Gerry Meehan (1946), Matt Konan (1991).
6) More and more Flyers veterans have arrived early in Voorhees to get a jump on skating with teammates ahead of the start of full training camp the third week of September. Today, new defenseman Ramus Ristolainen joined the on-ice workouts. Another participant this week has been center Kevin Hayes.
7) When I was working on the English edition of the "Behind the White Mask" biography on Pelle Lindbergh back in 2006 to 2009, I interviewed several of Lindbergh's old Flyers teammates who were with the team at the time of his fatal car crash. To a man, they all said that being on the ice was cathartic for them while they in throes of mourning their friend and teammate. It was the one place they could go to get away from the grief and feel like themselves again for a few hours a day.
At the same time, then Flyers head coach Mike Keenan pushed his players extra hard each day (beyond the first day back on the ice, which had initially been scheduled as an off-day and was more about being together as a group than hockey preparations). He pushed so hard, in fact, and became so adamant that no one use Lindbergh's untimely passing as an excuse that it probably contributed to the team experiencing mental burn-out, which Keenan later admitted to the late Jay Greenberg hit even the head coach himself by late that season.
I had the privilege of transcribing Jay's interview with Keenan about that time period, and it was both fascinating and moving. Keenan the human being tried to submerge his own grief over Lindbergh's death -- he was legitimately fond of Pelle as a person as well as recognizing what the defending Vezina Trophy winner had meant to the team -- by even further immersing himself into "coach mode".
In hindsight, it probably hastened the rift and later near-mutiny that developed one season and especially two seasons later among the players. At the same time, Keenan felt he had no other choice but to double down on being "Iron Mike" in his handling of his players. Keenan himself realized that Lindbergh's loss did grave damage to the Flyers' Stanley Cup aspirations, at least until Ron Hextall came along a year later.
Side note: Keenan felt that Lindbergh and the young Hextall were legitimate Vezina and Cup-caliber goalies. However, he believed that Bob Froese's NHL All-Star and Vezina runner-up season in 1985-86 was a reflection solely of the caliber of team in front of him and not the player's actual ability level. Keenan felt that the performance discrepancy in the playoffs between the Rangers' John Vanbiesbrouck and the Flyers' Froese in 1986 was the main issue that caused the Flyers' upset loss in the first round; not the burn-out factor.
Although Jay got ill before he was able to finish the project with Keenan, their planned book will come out next year with a second co-author at the helm. There were so many good stories already told -- the one above doesn't even scratch the surface -- that I am looking forward to reading it. Keenan and Jay became good friends over the years, and Jay was able to get Keenan to open up to a degree that very few others could.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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