July 26, 2024
Travis Konecny's contract extension is done and over with.
The 27-year old right winger has signed on for eight more years in Philadelphia at $8.75 million per – $70 million in total – first broken by teammate Travis Sanheim in comedic fashion on Thursday, then confirmed by the organization soon after.
So there it is. The Flyers are committing to Konecny through their rebuild ambitions, and in turn, he's committing to fully seeing this thing through.
But now that negotiations are over and the pen has been put to paper, he was free to say that it wouldn't have gone any other way. He didn't want it to.
"It was just, to me there was no other option," Konecny said Thursday in a Zoom call with the media. "If I get the opportunity to win a Stanley Cup, which I believe we can do in Philly, that just wouldn't feel any...that wouldn't feel like an accomplishment unless it was the Flyers and the team that believed in me. I wanted to show the same respect when I had an opportunity to venture out and do my own thing.
"I believe in the Flyers as well, so I've always been in it for the long haul, and I'm really, really excited for the next chapter here and to see what we can do."
What that next chapter will look like for the Flyers is a bit clearer, and maybe has the most optimism surrounding it yet now that Russian phenom and top prospect Matvei Michkov is here well ahead of schedule.
But there is still a good degree of skepticism, too.
As it concerns this upcoming season, the Flyers are set to run it back with mostly the same roster as the year prior, though with the addition of Michkov.
Maybe that's an improvement on its own – after all, the Flyers were battling until the very end for a playoff spot as they were last season – or maybe the results in the standings take a step back, as the front office has been hinting to possibly brace for all summer, and the signs of progress have to be found elsewhere.
But short- and long-term, where the team has a lot of its money invested right now does present some notable weaknesses in its construction that aren't so easily fixed.
Konecny's deal kicks in for the 2025-26 season at the aforementioned $8.75 million cap hit. Owen Tippett is locked in for the next eight years at $6.2 million per. Joel Farabee has four more years left at $5 million annually, Bobby Brink will hit at $1.5 million for the next two seasons, Tyson Foerster's next contract will be on the horizon soon, and the clock just started on Michkov's entry-level deal.
Those are some considerable resources tied up at the wings, all with a defensive core that is still a work in progress and will have its own signings due up soon – Cam York after this coming season and Jamie Drysdale after 2026 – and a long obvious lack of elite center talent and depth, with the only real path to stocking that up right now being in the hopes that prospects Jett Luchanko and Denver Barkey pan out.
There's still a long way to go and a lot of work to be done here.
But none of that negates Konecny's value to the organization, nor the role he'll have in where they go down the line.
The Flyers wanted him here, which has been plainly stated since his eligibility for a contract extension came into view.
Once drafted to be a complementary piece to the old core of Claude Giroux, Jake Voracek, and Wayne Simmonds, and who simultaneously fell into a downswing as that era of the Flyers crashed and burned in complete apathy, Konecny has since been a different, more engaged, and more versatile skater once current head coach John Tortorella stepped behind the bench in 2022.
There's the obvious in that he's been a 30-plus goal scorer and borderline point-per-game player over the past two seasons, but it has also been that when Konecny is on the ice, you know that he's out there.
He's taken up a greater share of 5-on-5 play, plus added responsibilities on the penalty kill and the (albeit woeful) power play, averaging 19:58 of ice time over the past two years, which has been by far the highest of his eight-year career so far.
He's been a high-tempo force skating up the wall with the puck on his stick, and a constant advantage-seeking one, too, as his league-leading six shorthanded goals proved last season.
Not to mention, Konecny has been an increasingly greater presence in the locker room, marked by the alternate captaincy on his sweater, and at a time when re-establishing a strong culture has been one of the key points the Flyers have highly prioritized getting right.
He means something to the Flyers and is in the prime of his career right now at 27. But at the point that the team is at right now in its trajectory – still likely to be a few years away from true contention – there was, and still is, an argument that re-upping Konecny doesn't make sense for their timeline, especially now with how much money is tied up.
But Konecny should have a few more good years of hockey left in him, which the Flyers are banking on as the roster hopefully gets younger and more talented as he moves into his 30s to balance things out.
In the best-case scenario: He serves as their Brad Marchand or Chris Kreider equivalent once the Flyers' contending window does open.
And all things considered, going back to early rumors on where contract negotiations stood and where salaries were expected to be going with the salary cap increasing, the Flyers might have done pretty well keeping the annual cap hit under $9 million.
"I just wanted to get this over with and make sure that there was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to be a Flyer for life," Konecny said. "What we've been working towards and what I believe that this team can be, this is where I wanted to be."
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