The Christian Dvorak Era in Philadelphia is here to stay, for better or — more likely — for worse.
Rumors have been swirling for weeks surrounding Dvorak’s potential next contract with the Flyers, and it never seemed like a great idea to extend the forward. When it started gaining traction as a five-year deal? It got even worse.
And just as quickly as fans could start panicking about the report, the Flyers made it official, signing Dvorak to a five-year extension with a cap hit of $5.15 million.
He has been a great player during his half-season in Philadelphia, but signing a veteran forward with Dvorak’s track record to a five-year deal during a rebuild sure doesn’t seem like a great idea.
Maybe a short-term extension would work to bridge the gap until the Flyers’ center prospects were ready for the NHL, but extending Dvorak was never a need, and it always seemed better to try to sell him at the deadline than extend him. And if they were open to extending him, why settle on the one-year deal?
Dvorak extension sparks questions around one-year deal
Let’s start there. Ignoring the five years of it all. Ignoring the cap hit. Christian Dvorak was signed by the Flyers to a one-year deal in the summer. They specifically overpaid Dvorak at a $5.4 million cap hit to accept the one-year term in Philadelphia. The forward had other offers on the table at lower cap hits, but for more years. He elected to come to Philadelphia, though, partially due to his connection to new head coach Rick Tocchet.
If the Flyers knew that extending Dvorak was even a possibility, why not consider paying a bit less for a longer contract? One that specifically lines up a lot better with the Current timeline.
The Canucks’ reported offer to Dvorak was a three-year deal with a cap hit of $4 million per year. At first glance, not knowing what we know about the forward now, that may have been a bit much to swallow for Flyers fans.
Dvorak came to Philadelphia for Tocchet, and you have to think that the head coach was going to get the best out of him yet again. Even if his play was more in line with what his career numbers have been so far, $4 million wouldn’t be too high a cap hit at this point in the rebuild, and three years would arguably be the perfect length for a plug-and-play forward.
In fact, a lot of fans would probably be happy with this extension if it were for another two years at $4 million, or even around his current cap hit of $5.4 million.
Flyers should’ve dangled Dvorak at trade deadline
While the Flyers made it clear that they wouldn’t be sellers at this deadline, Dvorak should’ve been a known piece to move.
The trade market is rather thin this season, and we already saw Briere work his magic to land a first-round pick and decent fourth-line forward (Nikita Grebenkin) for Scott Laughton. Dvorak should’ve easily fetched a similar return, whether that’s in the form of roster players or picks.
Ideally, they’d have been able to trade Dvorak for a younger player who needed a change of scenery along with another draft pick, but a first-round pick is never bad to acquire.
Yes, the Flyers don’t need picks for players who aren’t going to be in the NHL until possibly 2030, but first-round picks are never bad assets to have. First-round picks are the only real thing that has a true known value around the league, and they’re necessary to have when you want to trade for the next big fish to hit the market.
That’s one of the key issues with this whole Dvorak situation. The assets they could’ve acquired for Dvorak would have made a much bigger impact on helping this team reach its goal of becoming a true contender and winning a Stanley Cup in the next, say, five to 10 years. Instead, Dvorak is here for another five years in a role that could’ve easily been filled by one of the many young forwards already in the system, while adding assets in a deal for the center.
Even if the Flyers didn’t trade or extend Dvorak, using him as an own rental of sorts in the final months of the season would’ve been just fine. There was no need to extend him now, and there was certainly no need to give him the terms of the contract that the Flyers did.
Dvorak’s career-year numbers buoyed by Zegras
Christian Dvorak has absolutely been a breath of fresh air for Flyers fans this season. He has lived up to and surpassed most people’s expectations, which is probably why the Flyers made this move now, but it’s not hard to see this being the peak of the 29-year-old’s career.
Through 39 games, Dvorak has 9 goals and 16 assists for 25 points in 39 games. That’s an 82-game pace of 18.9 goals and 33.6 assists for 52.6 points. That would be, by far, the highest point total of Dvorak’s career.
He set his previous career high of 38 points in 50 games (62 points in an 82-game pace) back in the 2019-20 season with the Coyotes, when he scored a career-high 18 goals. Over the course of his career, he’s never hit the 40-point mark, and his career 82-game average is 39 points (16 goals, 23 assists).
If Dvorak suddenly found something in his game in Philadelphia as a 29-year-old (30 in February), more power to him. But that’s highly unlikely given the NHL’s aging curve, and there’s a very real, tangible reason for Dvorak’s sudden offensive outburst.
That, of course, is the Flyers’ other, more important, offseason addition: Trevor Zegras.
Of Dvorak’s nine goals, four of them were assisted by Zegras and Travis Konecny, with three by Owen Tippett. Two of them, including one assisted by Zegras and Konecny, were scored on an empty net.
I’m not completely dismissing Dvorak’s ability to score; there’s obviously some talent, hockey IQ, and chemistry needed to find the back of the net. But I have to imagine that a handful of other players on the team would probably thrive with Zegras and Konecny as well.
And, of course, it is important to note that Dvorak has provided a two-way presence in the middle for those two wingers. Just to reiterate: not dragging Dvorak, here. He’s been a great player so far in Philadelphia, and one deserving of praise, just maybe not a five-year extension.
It’s also worth noting that four of Dvorak’s six assists have come on empty-net goals. That’s six of 25 points coming via an empty-net goal.
Maybe there is some magic chemistry between Zegras and Dvorak. If the two can form a dynamic duo and put up 80 and 50 points, respectively, then maybe this is a fine signing. There’s just not a ton of evidence to show that players can flip that switch in their age-30 season. In fact, there’s plenty of evidence against it.
Extending Dvorak feels like the same old Flyers
Perhaps one of the most frustrating parts of this extension for Flyers fans is that it reeks of old regimes. Briere, Jones, & Co. have touted this as a New Era Of Orange. And, up until this point, it’s felt like one.
The front office has done a great job of clearing out bad contracts, trading away pieces when they needed to, and finding the right group of players to move forward with, while making savvy moves along the way. This is a bit biased, but it didn’t feel like there were any moves before this extension that were unanimously viewed as bad. There is always going to be a group of fans that doesn’t like a move, but it’s never been this locked in — and yes, we do see you Dvorak defenders out there; it’s never actually unanimous.
Signing a soon-to-be-30-year-old forward who has never scored 40 points in his career to a five-year extension feels exactly like a move that Chuck Fletcher or Paul Holmgren would do. The Flyers are overreacting to a half-season sample size rather than looking at what Dvorak has done throughout his career.
On top of that, they essentially bid against themselves by not coming to terms with Dvorak on a short-term deal in free agency. That’s one of the most puzzling things here. Instead of having to maybe pay $4 million to a fourth-line center for a few years if he didn’t pan out, they paid $5.4 million this season (not that the salary cap matters this season) to extend him for a few years too many.
And to bring this little segment full circle, it’s very possible that the whole history of the Flyers has played a hand in what has happened in the last year or so, or at least with the decision to keep — and less so — extend Dvorak rather than trading him.
The Flyers tied the longest franchise drought by missing the playoffs for the fifth-straight year last season. There is no way that any regime wants to be the one to stand alone with six — or more — years without playoff hockey in Philadelphia, even if they were only brought in halfway through.
Dvorak contract clogs up forward group & cap space
The Flyers looked like they were setting themselves up nicely for the transition from a team in the bottom-third of the standings to one that might be able to compete for the playoffs, and beyond. The dead weight was shed. The young players were seasoned, with a few more on the way.
Dvorak was meant to be a one-year stopgap for the Flyers’ forward group. Jett Luchanko couldn’t cut it, and the other Flyers’ prospects never really had a true chance of making the team. Porter Martone, Alex Bump, and Denver Barkey highlighted a group of prospects who would be ready to make the jump to the NHL as soon as the end of this season. And the Flyers don’t exactly have any forwards that they’re moving out.
Rodrigo Abols, Nicolas Deslauriers, and Carl Grundstrom are pending unrestricted free agents, and Garnet Hathaway has one more year on his deal. Those three are nowhere near who Dvorak may impact, though.
The Flyers now have nearly a full lineup of NHL forwards who are either restricted free agents or under contract beyond this year. In cap hit order: Konecny, Couturier, Tippett, Zegras (RFA), Dvorak, Cates, Foerster, Hathaway, Brink (RFA), Michkov. Then there are guys like Barkey, Bump, Grebenkin (RFA), Luchanko, and Martone, who should undoubtedly be on the Flyers roster as soon as Michigan State’s season ends.
The problem is that not a ton of those players are centers. Couturier and Cates held down two of the spots down the middle as the Flyers seem to be fine with Zegras on the wing. So it’s not a bad idea to try to keep Dvorak around for another year or two. Again, though, think of that in the offseason, or negotiate this deal down to a shorter term.
On top of that, and arguably more importantly, the salary cap is going to be something that the Flyers need to worry about again quite quickly. It didn’t really matter when they were tearing it down and starting the rebuild, but even with the salary cap increasing, spending $5.15 million on Dvorak could very well make crunching the numbers a bit harder when Foerster needs his next contract, or Michkov, or Martone down the line.
And it’s not as if the Flyers can just dump Dvorak if he doesn’t live up to expectations. They handed him a no-movement clause in the first two years and a modified no-trade clause in the third year.
All in all, this might be one of Danny Briere’s worst moves as Flyers GM, or at least his worst move so far.
He’s previously only taken some real risks at the draft. First, with not exactly knowing when Matvei Mickhov would come over to North America from Russia, and then again in each of the last two years with trading down and then up to grab a center — but those are discussions for another day.
This certainly feels like the first NHL roster decision that not only makes you scratch your head at first, but leaves you pulling your hair out as you go over all the downsides of the deal with limited upside.
