Neuvirth’s new deal leaves Mason on the outs
VOORHEES, N.J. >> The NHL’s celebrated trade deadline show seemingly offered the Flyers a chance to clear up some foggy roster issues they’ve had for some time. This was a team clogged with several expiring contracts, a few or more real prospects who are either here or supposedly almost ready to be here, and an aging core group of forwards in between that for the most part haven’t been playing up to speed.
Then there was the goaltending. Imagine, the Flyers and their general manager who was the last real franchise goaltender here, acting a little uncertain when it came to a goaltending growth plan?
“I did not want to go into July 1 with no goalies,” Ron Hextall said. “We felt that was a recipe for disaster. We felt like, this one is a reasonable deal, a reasonable term and so we’ll do this. It doesn’t suggest we won’t sign Mase ... but I wanted to get something done before the deadline.”
“This one” was a move Wednesday by Hextall to hand Michal Neuvirth, who had been brought here 20 months ago as a highly regarded but frequently injured goalie accepting a backup role to Steve Mason, to a contract extension that presumably is meant to officially make him the No. 1 guy going forward.
But don’t jump to conclusions. For although there had been speculation Hextall would be accomodating Mason and his expiring contract with the $4.1 million salary hit with a pat on the back and a trade to a contender, said trade never happened Wednesday.
Nor did pending UFA defensemen Michael Del Zotto and Nick Schultz wind up going elsewhere. Instead, fellow pending UFA defender Mark Streit found himself in Pittsburgh via what amounted to a three-way trade that landed forward Valtteri Filppula with the Flyers. And is that about it? “We tried to do some other things looking towards the future,” Hextall said, “but we weren’t going to give players away for nothing, so to speak. Quite frankly, it’s a hard market right now. We have other things going and the salary cap for other teams wouldn’t allow us to do them. We had a lot going today.”
Although he would spend a lot of time promoting the addition of Filppula, this would be another Flyers trade deadline day that didn’t yield a lot. Hextall is proud of his patience with this team, of his conviction that his forward core group can hold out until the prospects — current NHL promising projects Travis Konecny and Ivan Provorov, along with a couple of Phantom bright lights on defense and a couple of standout juniors in goal — can catch up with them.
You also wonder how good people like Claude Giroux and Jake Voracek and Wayne Simmonds will be when they’re into their 30’s, but hey, why worry about the future when there’s plenty to frown about now?
“Our goal is to get better this year and get younger,” Hextall said. “So hypothetically if we don’t finish with as many points as last year, yeah, I would be disappointed. In saying that, to get younger and better is the goal.
“Is it easy? no. But we have two kids in our lineup (Konecny and Provorov) and they’re both doing well . ... We’re not going backwards. That’s not what we’re about.”
That’s fine for a forward plan, but what about what’s happening in goal?
Coach Dave Hakstol is rather predictable in that he rides a hot-handed goalie ... provided he has one. Mason pitched a fairly impressive shutout of lowly Colorado Tuesday, so it would stand to reason he’d be back in net Thursday against the Florida Panthers.
Then again, Neuvirth’s new deal at the very least paints him as a starting successor, providing he’s healthy enough to ever take that job and run.
Either way, Mason now has to be wondering what his future holds. He’s a pricey veteran goalie who has had success here, though it’s been spotty. And while there has been no talk of a new deal for him, he has to figure potential trade talks Hextall had Wednesday had a lot to do with his available veteran goalie.
So in summing up his busy deadline day, perhaps Hextall recognized the importance of making Mason feel wanted as best he could.
“I didn’t want to go to July 1 without two goalies and again, it doesn’t mean we won’t sign Mase (later).” Hextall said. “We’ll wait and see on that one . ... Mase is a good goalie. Neuvy’s a good goalie. I said that all year. But this was a good deal for us right now, so we went with it. I don’t think it changes anything with Mase.
“It could have been done differently. I guess we could have signed both or signed one (earlier), I don’t know . ... Mase has played pretty good hockey at times for us, but he hasn’t been as consistent as we’d like and Neuvy’s been the same. Until Neuvy’s last game, take the Edmonton game out and he’s played some pretty good hockey in there. But last year, they did a little better job in picking each other up. One guy will be a little cold and the other guy would rise up and vice-versa. When you get two really good goalies that’s kind of what you hope for. This year it’s been a little bit of the opposite.”
So Hextall picked one, and Mason will likely pick up his career in another city next season while Stolarz finally starts seeing some NHL action.
Presumably, that’s the Flyers’ goaltending vision as they head into the offseason.
Not that the best-played plans in goal here haven’t gone awry before.