On Sunday afternoon, the San Jose Sharks and forward Alexander Wennberg agreed to a three-year, $18- million contract extension. For the 31-year-old center, it was a nice payday for a player with 26 points in the first 41 games of the season.
Considering the similar statistical profiles, the extension of Wennberg prompted some discussion about what a potential Christian Dvorak extension might look like with the Philadelphia Flyers, and it appears there may be real truth to those discussions.
According to Daily Faceoff’s Anthony Di Marco, the Flyers and Dvorak are gaining “traction” on a potential extension on Monday night. But, what differs from Wennberg’s deal is that the Flyers and Dvorak seem to be zeroing in on a much longer contract at a slightly lower cap hit, a five-year extension worth $5 million per year.
Sides still talking, but it sounds like PHI and Dvorak could be closing in on a 5 year, ~$25M contract.
— Anthony Di Marco (@ADiMarco25) January 5, 2026
Still not done, but that appears to be where things are at.@DailyFaceoff
Flyers re-signing Dvorak for five years is risky
While the deal is not done, and Di Marco noted that the Flyers and Dvorak were still talking, five years is quite the term for the 30-year-old center. It would be two more years than Wennberg got, but maybe that’s the price the Flyers were willing to pay for a slight cut in average annual value. Extending a 30-year-old for five more seasons, especially a middle-sixer that has never had over 38 points in a season, is almost never a good idea though. By conventional wisdom, those players are bound to fall off in their early thirties, as their puck skills are often not enough to compensate for their physical decline as they age. Dvorak is probably not an exception to that rule, but the Flyers are clearly willing to bet the opposite here.
Dvorak, who has put up nine goals and 16 assists in 39 games this season, is on pace for 52 points this season, a career-best mark. He’s been stapled to the resurgent Trevor Zegras all season long, and it’s fair to wonder just how much Dvorak has been carried by Zegras so far this year. The pair has worked together incredibly well, and it appears the Flyers are betting on the Dvorak-Zegras combo to continue to be dynamic as the next five (!) years pass by.
This deal also might tell us a whole lot about what the Flyers organization thinks about its roster. For one, a Dvorak extension might indicate a belief that Zegras’s upside is highest on the wing, and an admission that they’ll probably never try him as a pure center. In addition, you wonder what this means about the Flyers’ perception of Jett Luchanko.
Luchanko, the top center prospect in the organization, is coming off a poor World Juniors performance that has only reinforced doubts about the player within the fanbase. He’s had a decent season so far in Canadian juniors, but it’s getting harder and harder to project Luchanko as anything more than a middle-six guy. The Flyers likely see that too, and this deal might be an indication of the Flyers’ growing lack of faith in the prospect. And finally, it tells us what the Flyers think about potential available centers in the next couple years of free agency and the trade market. Signing Dvorak to a five-year deal might indicate the Flyers’ worry about the growing scarcity in the center market, even amongst centers of Dvorak’s caliber.
We’ll see if Dvorak actually gets the five-year term in the coming hours and days, but it’s looking extremely likely that Dvorak will be in the Orange and Black for years to come.
