The ownership of the Philadelphia Flyers has endured heavy criticism after a disastrous fall from grace over the past three seasons. However, Comcast Spectacor, led by CEO and franchise governor Dan Hilferty, provides an incredible advantage to the newly-constructed front office led by President of Hockey Operations Keith Jones and general manager (GM) Danny Briere. Corporate revenue translates to deep pockets, and financial advantages have already helped the Flyers kickstart their rebuild and take the first steps toward fixing a salary cap situation in ugly shape.
Ownership Providing Resources
After Ed Snider founded the Flyers in 1967, he quickly became one of the most respected owners in the NHL and in all of professional sports. The proud history of the organization has unfortunately crumbled with an embarrassing three-year stretch and a lack of playoff success spanning over a decade. Frustrated fans have consistently called out Comcast Spectacor for allowing traditions to fall by the wayside since Snider passed away in 2016.
The outrage stems from the presence of corporate ownership, which will always encourage a negative perception for a long list of reasons. However, the backlash against corporations doesn’t properly tell the story of Comcast’s ownership. Jones spoke on 97.5 The Fanatic on May 30 about how ownership can affect the upcoming rebuild. He pointed to advantages provided by Comcast that many other NHL franchises simply don’t have.
“We’re in a large market. We do have ownership that’s going to spend. It’s been made clear to me, so that part I appreciate a lot, and we’re going to be able to go out and do some things to make sure we speed up the process…We’re going to have the resources to try to make sure that we get this thing right,” he said.
The purpose of the salary cap is to prevent the big-market teams from outspending the competition at extreme rates. The Flyers have struggled to adjust to the reality of the salary cap era when outspending teams with lucrative player salaries is no longer possible. The new rules have gone a long way toward evening the playing field in the NHL, but the cap doesn’t eliminate financial advantages.
“We have the resources to do what we need to do. We’re going to spend. So in a cap world, you can spend on different things, right? Even when you’re bumping up against the cap, which we have been for a long time, we’re going to reduce that. That is going to change, but at the same time, we have and I’ve been given the okay to do whatever it takes to get us better.”
-Keith Jones
Teams operating on bigger budgets have the opportunity to spend more on coaches’ salaries, scouting costs, attractive team facilities, and other costs that aren’t directly tied to the salary cap. In the case of the Flyers during the 2023 offseason, Comcast Spectacor has also indirectly provided Jones and Briere with the flexibility to creatively repair their cap situation.
Briere, Jones Utilizing Freedom
The salary cap has risen minimally since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. It’s increased the amount of expensive contracts unloaded on rebuilding teams with the ability to sacrifice salary cap space for the sake of acquiring draft compensation. When the Flyers dealt Ivan Provorov to the Columbus Blue Jackets in June, they increased their return by including the Los Angeles Kings as part of a three-team trade. The Kings shed the salaries of Sean Walker and Cal Petersen.
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Walker carries a $2.65 million cap hit on the final year of his contract in 2023-24, and Petersen carries a $5 million annual cap hit over the next two seasons. The average annual value (AAV) that determines a player’s cap hit will typically dominate the conversation among fans and media. It’s not their money, after all. However, ownership pays acquired players their remaining salary owed, not the AAV of their contracts.
Both former Kings will take home more than their respective cap hits to finish their contracts. Walker will make $3.35 million in 2023-24. Petersen will make the equivalent of his $5 million cap hit this season, but his actual salary in 2024-25 jumps to $6 million. The Flyers have become a short-term broker for contending teams because of the financial flexibility provided by Comcast Spectacor.
The recently nixed trade between the Flyers and the St. Louis Blues was supposed to include Torey Krug, who has four years left on his contract with a $6.5 million annual cap hit. However, in 2023-24 and 2024-25, Krug will earn $8.5 million in actual salary. If he hadn’t enacted his no-trade clause to stop the deal, Comcast would’ve taken on the responsibility to pay $5.7 million in additional salaries that don’t count against the cap over the next two seasons. They’re staying true to Jones’ statement about the financial freedom to do whatever it takes to execute the rebuild.
The Provorov deal also included a caveat that the Kings would retain 30% of the Russian defenseman’s salary. The collective bargaining agreement that took effect after the lockout at the beginning of the 2012-13 season permitted teams three retention spots to pay up to 50% of a traded player’s salary. The Flyers avoided burning one of those spots and kept the flexibility to take care of some expensive contracts of their own.
After the Krug deal fell through, the Flyers still executed a trade with the Blues. They unloaded Kevin Hayes and his hefty $7.14 million with the maximum 50% retention through 2025-26. Briere clearly intends to move Tony DeAngelo, who carries a $5 million cap hit in 2023-24, and a reported deal in place also included 50% retention. If he moves this offseason to any new destination, the trade is most likely going to come with a significant amount of retention.
The Flyers would theoretically still hold one retention slot in that scenario. The slots can become especially valuable around the trade deadline, when rebuilding teams look to sell veteran players to contending teams that might be willing to overpay for a player if their trade partner retains salary.
Flyers Solving a Salary Cap Conundrum
The Athletic ranked the Flyers’ cap favorability as the 19th-best situation in the NHL on June 21, which was six days before the Hayes trade (from The Athletic, Ranking every NHL team’s salary-cap situation, from best to worst, 6/21/23). The ranking improved from the 31st spot last offseason. The progress is encouraging for a franchise plagued by bad cap management in the modern era of the NHL.
Paul Holmgren remade the Flyers back into contenders with an aggressive start to his tenure in 2007, but he showed a lack of awareness for cap management when he significantly overpaid players like Ilya Bryzgalov, Andrew MacDonald, and Vincent Lecavalier. The financial handcuffs ended his tenure as GM in 2014 and continued to have a negative effect on the era of his successor Ron Hextall.
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The lack of flexibility contributed to the sluggish era of mediocrity under Hextall. By the time he made his first major free agent acquisition by signing James van Riemsdyk in 2018, his job was already in jeopardy. The salary cap reached a relatively manageable point by the time Chuck Fletcher began in Philadelphia. However, lucrative spending on Hayes, DeAngelo, Travis Sanheim, Rasmus Ristolainen, and Nicolas Deslauriers set the organization back once again.
“We want to build it from the inside, and then we want to have some cap availability to recruit. That’s something the Flyers have always been able to do prior to the salary cap was bring in players. It’s a spot that’s desirable to play in. We need room to do that. We need the cap space, and that’s going to be a few years down the road,” Jones said on May 11.
Poor management of the salary cap cannot plague another front-office regime. Jones and Briere have shown the necessary awareness of this issue early in their tenure. Although lucrative long-term contracts for Sanheim and Ristolainen and difficult circumstances with Ryan Ellis might still weaken the cap flexibility in upcoming seasons, the Flyers are moving in the right direction.
All salary information is according to CapFriendly.