Flyers acquire Filppula, hope he boosts playoff run
VOORHEES, N.J. >> Having already committed a chunk of next year’s salary cap space to contract extensions for Michal Neuvirth and Pierre Edouard-Bellemare Wednesday, the Flyers committed a bit more just prior to the 3 p.m. league trade deadline by acquiring veteran forward Valtteri Filppula from the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Heading for Tampa was veteran defenseman Mark Streit, a pending unrestricted free agent at 39 who had spent a lot of time in recent days talking about how much he wanted to stay in Philadelphia. Before he was able to get a sniff of the spring training
breezes, however, Streit was diverted to Pittsburgh, who sent the Lightning a fourthround pick to hijack Streit for a playoff run.
That done, the Flyers still had the fourth-round draft choice and seventh-round selection (contingent on whether Pittsburgh would opt for Streit) in this year’s NHL Draft with which to be satisfied.
And, oh yeah, that Filppula guy, who turns 33 later this month. So turn on the hype machine...
“Valtteri is a very good two-way player,” Flyers general manager Ron Hextall said after the deadline expired without any other Philly fuss. “He’s got a good skill level and we feel it gives us really good stability in the middle. This was a guy that we’ve liked for years.”
He comes with a $5 million price tag hanging around his neck for next season, and although Filppula only has seven goals this season, Hextall called his cap hit, “very reasonable.
“What I see is another guy that can play in all situations,” Hextall said of a player who likely will become the No. 2 center here. “He competes. He’s a very intelligent player and he’s going to make us a better team.”
In losing Streit, Hextall said, “We lost a really quality person. You’ll go a long ways before you find a better person, a better example for your young players.”
Yet he said Filppula, who should be in the lineup Thursday night against the Florida Panthers, is a “very similar” character player.
“We did our homework on him,” Hextall said. Besides that, this guy at least used to know how to do what most Flyers forwards don’t do enough of ... score goals, that is.
Now in the fourth year of what had been a 5-year, $25 million free agency deal that Tampa had signed him to in 2013, Filppula had only seven goals and 34 points in 59 games with the Lightning this season. His best season came in 2011-12, when he scored 23 goals and 66 points with the Detroit Red Wings, who drafted the 6-0 Finnish forward in the third round in 2002.
An 11th-year player, Filppula scored 25 goals and 58 points in his first year in Tampa, but has steadily tailed since then.
Together with the new salaries for Neuvirth and Bellemare, the Flyers added just under $9 millon to their salary cap for next season. Ah, but the offseason isn’t even here yet. Well, not really, anyway. “If we could have gotten a scorer for Mark ... certainly we would have looked at it,” Hextall said. “But there wasn’t a lot out there. We’re in a tough spot, I understand that. Can we make the playoffs? Yes, I believe we can. Do we have to go on a lights out run? Absolutely, and we did last year. So we’re not going to mortgage part of our future for that.”
Instead, they’ll overpay for one season for a player
that the numbers say is in serious career decline, but of whom Hextall says will greatly enhance the Flyers’ efforts on both ends of the ice. No matter what his numbers say.
“I don’t know if you can say 32 is the same as a 26-year-old or whatever,” Hextall said. “But I think he’s a good player who’s going to fit into our group. He’s an upgrade and I feel the cost was very reasonable.”
Filppula waived his nomovement clause to come to Philadelphia. That waiver carries over, so he will need to be protected in the expansion draft in mid-June, thanks to the entrance of the Las Vegas Golden Knights.
“Trust me, we looked at that,” Hextall said. “We’re comfortable protecting him.”
Prior to the trade, the Flyers belatedly released the news that they had extended the contracts of fourth-liner and penalty killer Bellemare, and Neuvirth, who had been signed as a backup goalie in 2015 and is now Steve Mason’s crease equal, even if he doesn’t make as much money.
But signing Neuvirth, 28, to a two-year extension that carries an annual cap hit of $2.5 million also makes it feasible to protect prospect goalie Anthony Stolarz in the expansion draft. The though being Neuvirth would be guinea pig instead.
Not that Hextall would word it that way.
“We have two choices now (for the expansion draft),” he said. “We had one
choice before, now we have two. We have a goalie we feel very comfortable with. Neuvy’s done a good job.”
Both Neuvirth and Mason came into the season as pending unrestricted free agents. Hextall said he “didn’t like having two guys that were UFAs.” But he also wouldn’t rule out the possibility of resigning Mason, who will likely be in net Thursday against the Panthers. But with an expiring contract calling for a $4.1 million salary, and Stolarz and juniors Felix Sandstrom and Carter Hart waiting in the wings, Mason can’t be feeling good about his future here.
“It’s not easy,” he said of the trade deadline. “I think it’s fun for the fans and people that don’t have to go through it. But it’s a stressful time ... when you have families involved; people with kids that have to uproot and move.
“But I’ve been here for a handful of years now and I kind of feel there’s unfinished business, you know?”
*** NOTES >> Hextall indicated Michael Raffl’s season might be over. He’s expected to miss six to eight weeks with a lower-body injury he suffered in the win over Colorado Tuesday . ... Travis Konecny, out with a leg injury, practiced in full Wednesday and might be ready to play again early next week . ... Jordan Weal was sent back to the AHL in a paper transaction move, just so he can be on the Phantoms’ playoff roster. But he’ll be in the lineup Thursday against the Panthers.