According to a report from NHL insider Elliotte Friedman, the Washington Capitals, a Metropolitan Division rival of the Philadelphia Flyers, have reached an agreement to purchase the renowned interactive salary cap website CapFriendly, with full control starting on July 5.
As of the time of this writing, neither the Capitals nor CapFriendly have commented on this matter.
It is also worth noting that the July 5 timeframe will allow the site to remain available for public use through the 2024 NHL Draft and the dawn of NHL free agency, after which it will go dark and be turned over to Washington.
With scarce public alternatives, the Capitals have seemingly secured a competitive advantage over the Flyers and other NHL teams at the price of some cold, hard cash. It is unclear if the Flyers have an agreement with CapFriendly to use its API for their own work, but if they do, the contract will be promptly terminated in the coming weeks, pending the completion of the sale.
Just as CapFriendly succeeded CapGeek, another website will eventually rise to the top for millions of hockey fans to turn to in the wake of the Capitals’ purchase. As far as I can tell, this points to none other than our good friends, PuckPedia, who have already publicly promised further improvements in addition to their March interface overhaul.
Flyers fans can find all of their basic Flyers salary cap information on PuckPedia in addition to other unique, free features, such as the agent leaderboard, agent client lists, career stats in tandem with contract info, and soon, a new and improved interactive armchair GM feature.
In addition, PuckPedia also boasts a cap relief calculator and a draft pick value calculator, created with the help of former Arizona Coyotes Director of Hockey Analytics Matt Perri. With the amount of wheeling and dealing the Flyers have done with bad contracts in the last year, namely with Ryan Johansen, Cal Petersen, Kevin Hayes, and Tony DeAngelo, these tools will only grow in popularity over time.
The Flyers, as well as the other NHL teams, have a few weeks to plot their next move on the proverbial chess board.
