[UPDATE: The source of this original rumor, Tony Marinaro of TSN 690, said on Tuesday morning that Andrei Markov going to the Flyers will not happen.
Andrei Markov to Flyers will NOT happen. He is interested in them, they are not interested. Teams not interested in terms & $ Markov asking.
— Tony Marinaro (@TonyMarinaro) July 4, 2017
So there’s that. Oh well. Original post below.]
***
Alright, so here’s a late-night 4th-of-July Eve surprise:
Andrei Markov is talking contract with one team right now. The Philadelphia Flyers #TSN690
— Tony Marinaro (@TonyMarinaro) July 4, 2017
First, the source. Tony Marinaro is a radio host on TSN 690 (the Canadiens’ flagship station) and seems to be at least fairly plugged-in around the Montreal Canadiens. So even if you don’t know who he is, let’s take this rumor and discuss it a bit.
Just this past Sunday, Ron Hextall had the following to say about his team’s roster following a fairly low-key free agency period, specifically regarding whether the team has any interest in bringing in any additional players:
Yeah, I don’t suspect we’ll bring in anybody else. I mean, you certainly have to keep an eye and an ear out there for something that’s out there that might make you a better team, but we’ve got other restrictions that … y’know, you can’t just do whatever you want. There’s a salary cap, there’s a roster limitation. And again, as I stated a few days ago, we don’t want to box our young players out. Three years ago we set a course, and we’re staying with that course. And part of that course is draft and develop. Part of drafting and developing is yes, making your players earn it, but also not boxing them out with older veterans. We feel like there’s opportunity on our hockey club for young guys to step up, and quite frankly we expect them to and we have multiple players that can step up.
Hextall’s right about a few things here. First of all, the salary cap: by our most recent calculations, the Flyers are probably going to break camp with around $2.5 million in cap space, barring significant changes. Roster-wise, there are, feasibly, as many as nine in-house options competing for seven spots on the blue line next year. And on top of that, Hextall’s been clear for a while about the fact that, once the team has young defensemen that are ready, the Flyers aren’t going to let veterans and older players block those young guys from making the team.
Signing Andrei Markov — a 38-year old defenseman who is reportedly looking for a multi-year deal worth up to $6 million per season — would take all three of those points and at least complicate them, if not outright contradict them. So at first glance, the idea that the Flyers are negotiating with the Russian vet seems like a hard thing to believe.
Still, Hextall did say the team will keep its eyes peeled for something “that might make you a better team”. On the surface, Markov certainly qualifies as that. Even at his ripe age, Markov is coming off of a very strong year in which he was a no-doubt top-4 defenseman. He played 21:50 per game for the Canadiens, third-most among Montreal skaters behind Shea Weber and Jeff Petry. (For perspective, Ivan Provorov led the Flyers this past season with 21:59 per game.) He played on both special teams units for the Canadiens, he was fifth in the NHL among regular defensemen in 5-on-5 points per 60 minutes, and he was a positive possession player both at an overall level and relative to his teammates.
Even if you factor in the potential (heck, let’s call it the likelihood) of a decline next season, Markov is probably still going to be a solid player next year, likely one worthy of a top-4 spot on an typical team. Plus, a veteran presence (one that can also play hockey well!) would be nice to have around a bunch of young defensemen learning the lay of the NHL land. In a vacuum, his addition to the Flyers’ blueline would be more than welcomed.
Of course, we don’t do any of this in a vacuum. (Can you imagine? Hockey? In a vacuum? No one would ever be able to get the puck.) And the above questions regarding salary-based fit, roster-based fit, and fit relative to the young guys on the cusp of the NHL are all still present. So without some sort of accompanying move to offload salary, it’s just about impossible to see how the Flyers could fit Markov onto this team, do so without blocking any youngsters, and still meet his allegedly lofty contract demands.
Since we’re here, though, let’s ask: what would that accompanying move look like? Looking at the defense, the move that in theory would make the most sense would be to send Andrew MacDonald and his $5 million cap hit to another team without bringing any NHL players back, and then turn around and give Markov that money and roster spot. Of course, the likelihood that the Flyers could offload MacDonald’s salary in full, at this point in time, seems to be low, unless they’d like to attach some sort of sweetener to a team willing to receive it.
If that doesn’t work, the team could look to offload an expensive forward, where the Flyers are still looking at a bit of a roster crunch. If they did that, then they could use the leftover money to sign Markov, then either waive a leftover defenseman (Brandon Manning seems like the most likely option there) or roll into the season with 13 forwards and eight defensemen.
Which forward would it be, though? Valtteri Filppula, who the Flyers traded for thinking he’d be a 2C or 3C this season until they stumbled upon Nolan Patrick in the draft, has a $5 million cap hit, and it’s possible that some team out there in need of a center would be willing to bring him on for this year (provided he’d waive his no-movement clause). Jori Lehtera is making $4.7 million against the cap, but good luck dumping that deal off without giving up something else. Matt Read and his $3.625 million cap hit could get you some extra room, but would it be enough, and is anyone willing to take him?
There are a lot of potential salary dumps whose departure could get the Flyers close to where they’d need to be to sign Andrei Markov, but all of them seem like long shots at this time, which further reminds us that the odds of all of this coming together seem slim.
But let’s say the Flyers were somehow able to clear an expensive player off their cap and could use that money to sign Markov. Would it be enough to woo him away from Montreal? He’s been with the Habs for his entire 16-season NHL career and hasn’t won a Cup yet, and his chances at winning one in the next year or two are probably higher with the Canadiens than they are with the Flyers.
And with Monday’s news that Alex Radulov was leaving the Canadiens to sign a five-year deal with the Dallas Stars, Montreal now has around $14 million in cap space. Even with RFA center Alex Galchenyuk still unsigned and even with the team potentially needing a replacement on the wing for Radulov, that should be enough space for those two players, and it seems likely that they want to bring back Markov.
Our friends over at Eyes on the Prize penned a piece a few days before free agency headlined “Marc Bergevin has no choice but to sign Andrei Markov”, and the case they made there was pretty straightforward:
The biggest issue is that Marc Bergevin has painted himself into a corner where he has no option but to re-sign Markov. His trades have left the left side of the defence without many options in the short- and long-term in terms of productive defenders and there aren’t many other options available.
Markov is among the NHL’s best playmakers in terms of assists on defence, and even at his age he hasn’t missed significant time in nearly half a decade. Based on that alone, it’s worth bringing back Andrei Markov.
If Mikhail Sergachev or Nathan Beaulieu were still in Montreal, moving on might be easy, but as it stands now Markov should be pulling on a Habs sweater next season even if it means giving him more money. Especially if the choice is between Markov and a free agent like Karl Alzner.
Of course, that all happened before the Habs did go ahead and sign Karl Alzner to a five-year contract, and Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin has since said that the team has made its “final offer” to Markov, whatever that means. If they’re in a position that they don’t want to commit that much money to their blue line, it may be time to bid Markov adieu.
And yet, even if Markov left Montreal and the Flyers found the cap room for him and he found the Flyers to be a more attractive suitor than any other team that could use an upgrade on defense, how much term should the Flyers be willing to give him? Hextall will almost certainly have to offer him more than one year to keep him. Would they be willing to give him a two-year deal, knowing full well that come training camp 2018 as many as three if not all four of Samuel Morin, Robert Hagg, Travis Sanheim, and Phil Myers may be NHL-ready and that one of them could be temporarily blocked by Markov’s presence? The Flyers’ cap picture is pretty clear up until the summer of 2019, so it seems possible, but is this the way that the Flyers really want to use that space?
Andrei Markov’s a darn good defenseman, even at his age. And I’d love to see the kind of gymnastics Hextall would have to pull to get him on this team, because Markov would improve the Flyers now, he wouldn’t require a long-term contract, and he would probably help a lot of the young guys on the team, provided he’s not blocking any of them.
Still, at this time it just seems like there are just too many roadblocks standing in the path between him and the Flyers. If some salary gets dumped within the next couple of days, we can revisit the idea, but for now it seems like a pipedream.
