April 10, 2017

Stay or Go: Which Flyers do you want to see back for 2017-18 season?

By Matt Mullin
PhillyVoice Staff

Derik Hamilton/AP

Philadelphia Flyers forwards Claude Giroux and Wayne Simmonds celebrate a goal earlier this season.

The Philadelphia Flyers' 2016-17 season ended quietly on Sunday night with a 4-3 home shootout loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.

And because this season, unlike head coach Dave Hakstol's first year at the helm, ended after 82 games and without a trip to the postseason, Flyers fans will get a jump start on the offseason, one that should prove interesting as the team decides whether to take another shot with the current core or to shift focus to their younger players and begin building around them.

There's still some time before free agency and the draft, but before general manager Ron Hextall can add any players – and, yes, we realize that's where the real fun starts – he's going to need to make room for them on the roster. The Flyers have a decent amount of free agents, both restricted and unrestricted, so Hextall will some of that much sought-after optionality.

Unfortunately, the unrestricted free agent class isn't that great this summer, but as Dave Isaac of The Courier Post points out, that may not matter all that much because for the first time in a while, the Flyers are going to be able to fill most of their holes with players already in the organization, from the late-season call-ups we saw this season to others like Oskar Lindblom and Cole Bardreau.

That's good news, but it doesn't change the fact that there needs to be some roster turnover in order for the organization's top prospects to make the jump to the NHL.

With that in mind, let's take a look at the current state of the roster, including which players are going to be free agents this summer:

	POS	AGE	2016-17 STATS	2016-17 $$/PT*	2017-18 CAP HIT*
P.E. Bellemare	LW	31	4 G, 4 A, 8 PT	$89,062	$1.45M
N. Cousins	C	23	6 G, 10 A, 16 PT	$52,500	RFA
S. Couturier	C	24	14 G, 20 A, 34 PT	$127,451	$4.33M
M. Del Zotto	D	26	6 G, 12 A, 18 PT	$215,278	UFA
V. Filppula	C	32	5 G, 3 A, 8 PT	$119,048	$5M
C. Giroux	C	29	14 G, 44 A, 58 PT	$142,672	$8.275M
B. Gordon	C	33	1 G, 0 A, 1 PT	$950,000	UFA
S. Gostisbehere	D	23	7 G, 32 A, 39 PT	$23,718	RFA
R. Gudas	D	26	6 G, 17 A, 23 PT	$145,652	$3.35M
R. Hagg	D	21	0 G, 0 A, 0 PT	---	$894K
T. Konecny	C	19	11 G, 17 A, 28 PT	$31,935	$894K
S. Laughton	C	22	0 G, 0 A, 0 PT	---	RFA
T. Leier	LW	22	1 G, 1 A, 2 PT	$389,808	RFA
R. Lyubimov	LW	25	4 G, 2 A, 6 PT	---	RFA
A. MacDonald	D	30	2 G, 16 A, 18 PT	$277,778	$5M
B. Manning	D	26	3 G, 9 A, 12 PT	$81,250	$975K
S. Mason	G	28	26-21-8, 2.66 GAA	---	UFA
C. McDonald	C	32	1 G, 0 A, 1 PT	---	$638K
S. Morin	D	21	0 G, 0 A, 0 PT	---	$863K
M. Neuvirth	G	28	11-11-1, 2.82 GAA	---	$2.5M
I. Provorov	D	20	6 G, 24 A, 30 PT	$29,806	$894K
M. Raffl	LW	28	8 G, 3 A, 11 PT	$213,636	$2.35M
M. Read	RW	30	10 G, 9 A, 19 PT	$190,789	$3.625M
B. Schenn	C	25	25 G, 30 A, 55 PT	$93,182	$5.125M
N. Schultz	D	34	0 G, 4 A, 4 PT	$562,500	UFA
W. Simmonds	RW	28	31 G, 23 A, 54 PT	$73,611	$3.975M
A. Stolarz	G	23	2-1-1, 2.07 GAA	---	RFA
C. VandeVelde	C	29	6 G, 9 A, 15 PT	$47,500	UFA
M. Vecchione	RW	23	0 G, 0 A, 0 PT	---	RFA
J. Voracek	RW	27	20 G, 41 A, 61 PT	$135,246	$8.25M
J. Weal	C	24	8 G, 4 A, 12 PT	$54,167	UFA
D. Weise	RW	28	8 G, 7 A, 15 PT	$156,667	$2.35M

* Dollars per point (via capfriendly.com)

And now that you've seen their numbers and costs side-by-side, we invite you to go through the roster one player at a time and tell us whether or not you think that player should be back for the 2017-18 season in our annual Flyers Stay or Go poll:

We'll leave the voting open and provide you with an update of the results in a week or two.

Follow Matt on Twitter: @matt_mullin

Like our new PhillyVoice Sports Facebook page.