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Flyers Lock Up Trevor Zegras with a Totally Reasonable Deal
By Matt Schultz
Published:
The Trevor Zegras deal is done:
After plenty of speculation over whether the price would be too high, the Flyers got the deal done by making Zegras the team’s highest-paid player. For the time being. This extension comes one week after Philly failed to pry Leo Carlsson away from the Ducks, who matched the Flyers’ record-setting offer sheet to keep him in Anaheim. Danny Briere may not have been able to overhaul the offense and rocket its ceiling with Carlsson this summer, but at least he was able to lock up Zegras after trading for him last summer. This is good news.
Of course, there’s already tons of chatter online about whether this is a good deal. Flyers fans seem pretty universally pumped to keep the high-ceiling, playmaking 25-year-old in orange and black for the next four years of his prime, while outsiders are calling it a pretty big overpay for a guy who’s not one of the best players in the NHL and never will be. It’s a fair enough criticism, but I couldn’t disagree with it more. To me, Danny had to get this extension done.
Identifying Zegas as a distressed asset after some down years in Anaheim and trading for him was one of the best moves (probably the best one, flat out) of the Danny era. Watching his bounce-back season was a blast: In Philly, Zegras’ scoring rate jumped to a career-high 0.82 points per game from 0.66 in Anaheim. He led the Flyers in assists (41, tied for 55th in the NHL), was second in points (67, tied for 57th in the NHL), and third in goals (26, tied for 65th in the NHL).
He’s also one of the best shootout guys in the league. He led the NHL with 7 shootout goals (on 13 attempts, second-most in the NHL) for a 53.8% conversion rate in his first year as a Flyer, and did stuff like this:
Zegras is the exact kind of elite complementary piece you’d want on a good team. He’s not the superstar, franchise-defining guy to build around, but he’s a clear-cut top-6 offensive player with high hockey IQ, a creative table setter that makes your top line better. It also would’ve been a real gut-punch to the fans to see him leave after the Carlsson letdown. Imagine how rudderless this franchise would’ve felt again if this extension couldn’t get done, after the fanbase finally got a taste of meaningful playoff hockey last season. Nightmare…
Is the money a touch high? Yeah, maybe. But the NHL cap is going up over the next few years, so $9.1 million AAV won’t look as drastic in 2029 as it does now. Currently, you’ve got guys like Nikita Kucherov, Matt Barzal, Jakob Chychrun, and Jake Guentzel in that ~$9 million range, but Zegras is on the front-end of an extension as the Flyers emerge from the rebuild and the salary landscape begins to shift. It’s a shorter deal, hence the higher AAV, which gives the team some flexibility in a few years when they’re (hopefully) closer to contention.
Well done, Danny. Let’s watch some more Zegras highlights now:
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com