Flyers Letting Jakob Pelletier Go Was a Clear Mistake

Jakob Pelletier was a superb checking forward for the Flyers. (Photo: Kyle Ross, Imagn Images)

The Philadelphia Flyers have lost one of their most effective players from the end of this past season in Jakob Pelletier for no good reason.

Pelletier, 24, signed a three-year, $2.33 million ($775K AAV) contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning that will pay him league minimum in each of the three seasons.

With these kinds of players - former first-round picks who bounce around looking for opportunities - a three-year deal is very uncommon. Comparatively, the Flyers could have retained Pelletier on a one-year deal, at minimum, had they extended him a qualifying offer of $840k.

By failing to do so, the Flyers relinquished Pelletier's signing rights, and the fact that a team like Tampa Bay swooped in before sunrise on Day 2 of free agency to sign him for multiple years indicates Pelletier had value around the league, or at least to them.

Instead, the Flyers let him walk for free. The optics of that don't look great, considering Maxim Shabanov passed on the Flyers for the New York Islanders on Wednesday.

Plus, the team has known for a few weeks now that there is a possibility Tyson Foerster might not be available come opening night due to injury.

Yes, Pelletier is only 5-foot-11, and yes, he scored eight points in 25 games in Philadelphia, but he was actually much more effective than the raw stats indicate.

Pelletier played 16 games under John Tortorella after arriving via trade, posting an on-ice scoring chance percentage of 52.73% (58-52), trailing only Owen Tippett, Egor Zamula, Rasmus Ristolainen, and Erik Johnson, per Natural Stat Trick.

In terms of high-danger chance creation under Tortorella, Pelletier was the clubhouse leader at forward as the Orange and Black out-chanced opponents 21-15 (58.33%) with him on the ice.

Of the 14 players that played in 16 or more games from Pelletier's arrival to Tortorella's dismissal, Pelletier played the second-fewest minutes ahead of only Nick Deslauriers.

After Tortorella was dismissed by the Flyers with nine games to go in the regular season, Pelletier still played the least 5-on-5 ice time of the 15 skaters who played in all nine remaining games, but led the Flyers in scoring chance percentage (40-32, 55.56%) down that stretch.

Additionally, Pelletier was the only Flyers player to have a positive high-danger scoring chance differential (17-15, 53.13%) during this period. Defenseman Travis Sanheim was the only other Flyers skater to reach 50%.

This is all to say that the Flyers got the job done with Pelletier on the ice much more often than not and still chose to let him go for free despite having perceived value on the market.

In the wake of Foerster's injury and Shabanov's heel turn, the Flyers will now be forced to pivot towards unproven (but exciting, nonetheless) options like prospects Alex Bump, Porter Martone, and Nikita Grebenkin.

The NHL free agency market has been extremely unkind to buyers this summer, and the Flyers have paid the price after signing Christian Dvorak and Dan Vladar - literally.

It limits how high they can go on salary with RFA defenseman Cam York, it limits their ability to make injury call-ups if they suffer another injury in addition to Foerster given their unwavering desire to avoid using LTIR, and it limits their ability to further remedy the winger situation.

But an error or a misstep only becomes a mistake if it isn't learned from or fixed. The Flyers' next step from here will decide that.