The Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Vegas Golden Knights Sunday night, winning their second Stanley Cup in franchise history and giving former Flyers Sean Walker, Shayne Gostisbehere, and Nic Deslauriers their first Stanley Cup rings. The season is officially over, but the offseason is on the cusp of starting.
The first buyout window for contracts begins on Tuesday evening, 48 hours after the final game of the playoffs. That buyout window will start Tuesday night and carry on for two weeks, concluding on June 30 prior to free agency beginning on July 1.
Good morning. The NHL offseason is officially underway. Some notes:
— NHL News (@PuckReportNHL) June 15, 2026
* buyout window opens 48 hours after end of final, thru Jun 30
* Draft, of course, is Jun 26-27 in Buffalo
* RFA qualifying offers due June 29 at 5pm ET
* Free agency: noon ET July 1, as always
* eligible RFAs…
Every team has contracts they’d like to take off their books. The Flyers are now clear of any retained contracts (Kevin Hayes, Scott Laughton) and buyout cap hits (Cam Atkinson). It took some time, but they are rid of those salaries. However, that doesn’t mean Flyers general manager Danny Briere wouldn’t look at buying out some current Flyers out of their deals. It’s highly unlikely in one particular case, but could be an option regarding two other veterans. We take a look at three Flyers who might fit that buyout notion.
Garnet Hathaway
Briere gave Hathaway a two-year extension on July 1, 2024, rewarding the fourth-line winger for his rather impressive first year. The veteran had 17 points but led all National Hockey League forwards in hits (326) and was essentially a pain in the ass to play against. He relished post-whistle scrums and needling opponents into taking retaliatory penalties. The extension was given midway through Hathaway’s first two-year deal, with the belief that Hathaway would still be able to deliver quality minutes and have a smidgeon of offensive oomph.
Hathaway’s extension was only $25,000 more than the original two-year deal ($2.375 to $2.4 million Average Annual Value). So, it’s not like it was a huge, additional financial commitment. But Hathaway’s first three quarters of the season was a disaster. He couldn’t do much at all offensively, and looked like a shell of his former self most nights. Only after the trade deadline, and with the additions of Sean Couturier and Luke Glendening to the bottom line, did Hathaway look alive. He was strong during the homestretch, and was extremely effective in the opening round against Pittsburgh, scoring a short-handed goal thanks to a great play by Owen Tippett.
It’s not a given that Hathaway would be an automatic buyout, as his last two months were his best of the year. However, if there’s a younger, slightly cheaper player — whether in the National Hockey League or in the Flyers’ pipeline — that fits the role Hathaway offers, it might be work a look at. Not a huge buyout, but one which might be considered.
| 2026-27 | 2027-28 | |
| Buyout cap hit | $1,000,000 | $700,000 |
| Savings | $1,400,000 | -$700,000 |
The buyout would mean Hathaway’s cap hit would be $1,000,000 against the Flyers’ 2026-27 budget. And in 2027-28, the hit would be just $700,000. So, while the buyout would naturally extend over two years with a year left on his deal, it would save the Flyers $1.4 million this season.
Nick Seeler
Defenseman Nick Seeler’s life got a little easier when fellow Flyers blueliner Egor Zamula’s play fell off a cliff during the exhibition season. Seeler maintained his strong, rugged, shot-blocking approach to defending. Meanwhile, Zamula was heading to Pittsburgh by the end of the calendar year. Seeler signed a four-year, $10.8 million deal after the Flyers sent Walker to Colorado during the 2024 trade deadline. The contract didn’t seem like a huge overpay, and slotted Seeler into a second pairing or third pairing unit for the next few seasons. Seeler had a mishmash of partners throughout this past season, with five blueliners sharing 180 minutes or more of ice time with him five-on-five (Travis Sanheim, Emil Andrae, Rasmus Ristolainen, Noah Juulsen, and Jamie Drysdale). Drysdale and Juulsen were the players who were with Seeler the most (322:07 and 229:43, respectively).
Seeler filled a role and served as the primary “enforcer” on the ice after Nic Deslauriers essentially was not playing most of the year. But, with the amount of blueliners Philadelphia might have waiting in the pipeline (Oliver Bonk, Hunter McDonald), and David Jiricek needing to make the club to avoid being claimed off waivers elsewhere, Seeler might be looking at being a possible piece in a trade. Or, a buyout.
| 2026-27 | 2027-28 | 2029-30 | 2030-31 | |
| Buyout cap hit | $900,000 | $900,000 | $900,000 | $900,000 |
| Savings | $1,800,000 | $1,800,000 | -$900,000 | -$900,000 |
The buyout might be alluring for the simple fact it would just count for $900,000 for each of the next four years, which works out to less than one per cent of the Flyers’ salary cap moving forward. The buyout would save the Flyers $1.8 million off the cap this year and next, but would cost them $1.8 million combined over 2028-29 and 2029-30. It might be, along with Hathaway’s, one of the buyouts that might make the most amount of sense if the Flyers want to clear up a roster spot and it wouldn’t be that much of a financial burden to do so.
So, after looking at two relatively simple buyouts, may we present the elephant in the room.
Sean Couturier
The optics on a Sean Couturier buyout might not be pretty. Philadelphia could spin it as giving the veteran center a shot at a team that is closer to a Stanley Cup than the Flyers currently are. He would definitely fill a defensive, two-way player who is strong on the faceoff dot. And it would be a nice gesture to see Couturier having that chance over the second half of his eight-year contract. However, the contract might be one of the few in National Hockey League history that is almost effectively buyout-proof. The only other contracts which this writer could compare it with was the seven-year contract Edmonton gave Milan Lucic worth $42 million. And the horror that David Clarkson’s seven-year deal gave Toronto before he was inexplicably and successfully shipped off to Columbus.
Couturier’s season ended on a good note, with the playoffs seeing the captain playing some of his best hockey all season. He found a synergy with both Hathaway and Glendening. And he looked like a physical force, something he rarely resembled earlier in his career. But Couturier isn’t getting any younger. Hence, the four years left could be a bit of a problem moving forward. His contract has a full no movement clause the next three seasons, with a modified 10-team list in the final year of the deal. If Philadelphia decided to buyout Couturier this summer (or before June 30, which seems remote), they would be saving just $1,229,167 this season of the $7,750,000 he’s owed in 2026-27. So basically, they would still be on the hook for about 80 per cent of his 2026-27 cap hit.
| 2026-27 | 2027-28 | 2028-29 | 2029-30 | 2030-31 | 2031-32 | 2032-33 | 2033-34 | |
| Buyout cap hit | $6.52M | $6.77M | $6.77M | $6.77M | $520k | $520k | $520k | $520k |
| Savings | $1.22M | $979k | $979k | $979k | -$520k | -$520k | -$520k | -$520k |
The downside? Well, that percentage gets worse for Philadelphia the following three seasons. The cap hit for Couturier in the sixth, seventh, and eighth years of the contract would be $6,770,833. That’s with the buyout, or a savings of just under a million per season.
From there, Couturier’s cap hit for the four additional years beyond the current deal would be just over half a million ($520,833) until 2033-34. The buyout would conclude 12 years after the contract began. The question becomes is Couturier’s presence that much of a deterrent that Philadelphia would basically pay him in full to simply open up a roster spot?
It might be a more logical consideration in the last two years of the deal, as a $6.75 million cap hit in each of those seasons (and $500,000 in 2030-31 and 2031-32) might be a smaller percentage of the cap in 2028-29 and 2029-30. At that time it’s only two seasons, and could be seen as simply addition by (roster spot) subtraction.
Couturier’s game might decline between now and then, but it seems by putting him on the fourth line, with reduced minutes, Philadelphia could be squeezing the most out of him the next season or two. Regardless, unless the Flyers land two top-end centers this summer, Couturier’s buyout window will probably be kicked down the road for another year or two.
Stats courtesy of Capwages.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
