Philadelphia Flyers buy Andrew MacDonald



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June 15 is the first day of the hockey calendar on which teams can put plans in motion to buy a player from his current contract, and Chuck Fletcher decided that he would lose as little time as possible to do so. with the Flyers. "Most obvious clear redemption candidate.

By the team, this afternoon:

The move does and means a few things.

First, the last year of Macdonald's infamous $ 30 million six-year contract is now over and he is no longer on the list. The Flyers (courtesy of CapFriendly) will pay $ 1,166,667 this year for redemption, which means they will save $ 3,833,333 from this year's cap from MacDonald's previous cap. . In return, they will bear a charge of $ 1,916,667 on their 2020-21 salary cap.

While MacDonald was slowly losing favor with the team last season, often finding himself in good health and seeing his minutes reduced compared to previous seasons, there was good reason to believe that it was only possible not be in the team's plans this year. It has been suggested that perhaps sending MacDonald into the AHL while respecting the essentials of his NHL strikes may have been the most cautious option from the point of view of the limitation, so to avoid the charges against the team's ceiling for 2020-21, but taking this torch to release $ 3.8 million of additional seats this year strongly suggests that Chuck Fletcher wishes to have the largest area of wage ceilings this summer.

Secondly, this (of course) means that MacDonald – whoever, whether or not he is the oldest defender on the team – will no longer be on the team next year. It will not be available for the Flyers to play, or put in the press box, or send to Lehigh Valley, or anything of that nature. He will not play with Ivan Provorov, Shayne Gostisbehere or Travis Sanheim. He will not be on the Flyers.

MacDonald arrived at the Flyers on the trade deadline in 2014, in a move that some have liked and some have immediately and strongly questioned. MacDonald, then, in the eyes of the reception in place at the time (and certainly not all observers), have played fairly well to secure a contract extension of $ 30 million over six years, a contract that may embody what the Flyers have been in the last five years more than anything that has been on their orbit during this period.

It is reasonable to say that there were "ups and downs" during the MacDonald Flyers period, but doing so in a vacuum could probably overestimate the highs and minimize the lows. MacDonald was sent to Lehigh Valley in the second year of this agreement after being legitimately crushed by seven other players from the training camp. He received almost incomprehensible credit for Ivan Provorov's strong rookie year, when he was in fact widely proven to be likely to retain Provorov this season. He came back early after a six-week injury early last season and was almost unbearably bad to the point that the team had to sit him down and not play against him for a while. And all the while, his underlying numbers were largely poor, which was not surprising for those who paid attention. MacDonald – and his contract – have become an easy hitting bag for fans during his stay here.

None of this is Macdonald's fault. He played a role with the Islanders who was above his abilities during his stay there and the Flyers thought they could play this role successfully with them, and they gave up the assets and the contract to force him to try to do it long term. Some people took longer than others to admit, but just about everyone finally agreed that it did not work. The acquisition of Matt Niskanen on Friday, as well as the purchase of an additional $ 3.4 million for the Flyers, appeared to speed up the process, but with or without this trade, it was necessary to move on to this decision, and the credit in returns to Chuck Fletcher. recognizing that.

With another body in defense, it remains to be seen what Fletcher's plans are. Does he see a seventh defender position that has just opened? Or will there be a bigger change coming on the blue line? We will see.

See you soon, Andrew.

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