The Flyers did their first dive into free agency this year, signing former Vancouver Canucks defenseman Noah Juulsen to a one-year, one-way $900,000 contract.
Juulsen, 28 and a native of Surrey, B.C., is a bigger blueliner at 6’1″ and 201 pounds but only played 35 games for the Canucks last season. Having played 157 career NHL games and three goals to his credit, it’s safe to say he’s a stay-at-home defender. In 2024-25 Juulsen had a clean sheet, no goals and no assists.
The reason for the small sample size this past season was injury. Juulsen underwent surgery in late February for a lower-body problem to repair a sports hernia and was out 12 weeks, effectively ending his 2024-25 season. Ideally, the time off should give Juulsen time to recover and rehab in order to make a case for either the sixth or seventh spot on the back end. With Rick Tocchet having coached Juulsen the last few seasons in Vancouver, it’s probably clear that Tocchet believes Juulsen can help the Flyers as a depth defenseman.
Whether Juulsen is slotted in the spot to replace Rasmus Ristolainen (currently injury-riddled) or to possibly take the place of Egor Zamula as a fill-in seventh defenseman — much like Erik Johnson was last season before he was sent to Colorado — time will tell. The one-way contract ensures that Juulsen will remain with the big club in some capacity. He’s not heading down to Lehigh Valley to play for the Phantoms anytime soon. It’s also a rather low-risk move by the Flyers and general manager Danny Briere. It’s only a year, so if Juulsen doesn’t pan out, there’s no great anchor tied to the team in terms of the salary cap. If Juulsen somehow becomes a steadying presence or surprises some people with his play, he could end up being traded at the deadline to a contending team for a possible draft pick. He won’t be mistaken for Sean Walker, but the end result of a draft pick (middle round probably) would be nice.
Juulsen started his career with Montreal who drafted him in the first round (26th overall) in the 2015 draft. He was later sent to Florida (who he played four games for) before joining the Canucks in the 2021-22 season. He’s played 109 games for the Canucks since that time.
It appears Briere isn’t done today, as he’s also signed center Christian Dvorak to a one-year deal.
