Flyers bring back van Riemsdyk on 5-year deal
VOORHEES » James van Riemsdyk, showing off his wall sketch of Abe Lincoln while twice Skyping with frothing Canadian TV guys Sunday, spent much of the first hour of NHL free agency talking about how excited he was to be re-joining the Flyers.
Meanwhile, the Flyers made the deal official ... hours later. Hey, Ron Hextall is still getting used to playing this free agency thing.
No matter what the Flyers’ official timeline, van Riemsdyk, the celebrated Flyers draft pick of 11 years ago and one of the better pure goal scorers in the league now, had made official a five-year, $35 million contract. The native of Middletown, N.J.
“First and foremost, I look at the team they have, the players they have, the guys they have coming up,” van Riemsdyk said in the televised Skype interview. “I’m really excited about that.”
Van Riemsdyk said he stayed close to the Flyers, which he considered “a classy organization” even after Paul Holmgren pulled the trigger on a trade near the end of the 2012 NHL Draft in which van Riemsdyk went to the Maple Leafs in exchange for defenseman Luke Schenn.
Arguably, it could be called one of the worst trades in Flyers history. But “JVR” was still taken by the way the Flyers handled the trade, referencing a phone call he received on the day of the trade from then-owner Ed Snider.
“That really resonated with me,” van Riemsdyk said.
There are still four of his old teammates with the Flyers, captain Claude Giroux, Jake Voracek, Wayne Simmonds and Sean Couturier. That forward core group needed another scorer, and van Riemsdyk would seem to fit the bill, coming off a career-best 36 goals.
“Obviously there’s some guys I’m familiar with from when I played there the last stint,” van Riemsdyk said. “And obviously I can’t say enough about the organization.”
It was an organization that was close to him from the start: Despite his seeming Canadian accent, van Riemsdyk grew up in Middletown, N.J., an affluent shore community north of Asbury Park. His parents still live there. Greetings again, JVR. “I think my parents are doing backflips right now,” van Riemsdyk said.