After signing a massive new contract on Thursday afternoon, Travis Konecny has effectively become a member of the Philadelphia Flyers for life.
Konecny, 27, signed an eight-year, $70 million contract extension ($8.75 million AAV) that will kick in following the conclusion of the 2024-25 season and will keep him in the Orange and Black through his 36th birthday.
Long-term contracts, in all sports, inherently carry risk, and it goes without saying that the risk varies by player for a number of reasons. For Konecny and the Flyers, the two greatest risks are age and style of play.
For Konecny and the Flyers, both of those things significantly adversely affect the likelihood that this contract will age well as the years pass.
Indeed, Konecny has scored 64 goals and 129 points in his last 136 regular season games, but no playoff games have been played during that time. In the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons, Konecny produced just 82 points combined.
The year before those, in 2019-20, Konecny had 61 points in 66 games, but zero goals and seven assists in 16 games. That regular season production is quite similar to where the 27-year-old is at right now. But at his age, does Konecny have another gear to even hit? After all, it looks like the Flyers are paying him based on what he could do, not what he has done.
The eight-year contract won’t even start until Konecny turns 28, and he’ll be 29 before the end of the 2025-26 season–the season it starts. The London, Ontario, native is assuredly worth more than the $5.5 million cap hit he carries now, but the issues will start after now. As in, the future.
After all, this is a rebuild, isn’t it?
Now that he’s here, Matvei Michkov is the de facto No. 1 right wing of the Flyers’ future. So, paying Konecny $8.75 million a year is a pretty big chunk of change for a No. 2 right wing.
Of some comparable, sizable contracts that have been signed in the last few years, Konecny’s $8.75 million cap hit trumps those of players like Jesper Bratt ($7.875 million), Nick Suzuki ($7.875 million), Robert Thomas ($8.125 million), and Brady Tkachuk ($8.22 million).
The Flyers forward is inarguably a great player, but better than those five? It’s a tough argument, especially with how far away the Flyers are in respect to competing for a Stanley Cup. Oh, and they’ve had the NHL’s worst power play for three years running.
Jake Guentzel got a seven-year, $63 million contract from the Tampa Bay Lightning on July 1, which also has him signed through his age-36 season. The difference is that Guentzel has scored no fewer than 73 points in each of the last three seasons and has crossed the 40-goal threshold in the past.
Additionally, Guentzel has been a 70-point, point-per-game player since 2018. Konecny doesn’t have that track record and, as I mentioned above, it’s not exceedingly likely he finds a second wind in his late 20s.
Grade: C+
I like the money more than I like the term on Konecny’s new contract with the Flyers, but I don’t like that all that much either. The bottom line is that the Flyers had to pay Konecny for optics, for hockey reasons, and for sticking to the plan they set out for themselves.
They don’t want Michkov to be playing on an island, so this is how the team makes sure that doesn’t happen.
In a few years, though, you’re going to have to consider Konecny’s rough-and-tumble playing style in tandem with the age. He has a full no-movement clause for the first six years, meaning he cannot be waived or traded without approving the move. Further to that point, Konecny has a modified no-trade clause in the last two years of his deal, so unless he’s still playing at a high level and the Flyers agree to a trade with a team not on the list, Konecny is likely a Flyer for live.
Even a buyout is mostly out of the equation; Konecny is getting a massive portion of his money in signing bonuses each year, and the Flyers cannot save that money in a buyout.
We talked about risks, and this contract is a big one. The Flyers are hoping Konecny evolves as a player even further, without the threat of trades or buyouts, and without a past precedent of being a truly elite player on a playoff team. They are all in.
