Fly away pretty bird

in honor of danny briere showing what tungsten balls he has

anaheim declines: the philadelphia duck rehabilitation center

we get carlsson, we give up our four first round picks. sad, but also if we're going to be good, those first round picks won't be that good anyways. and we still potentially have toronto's for next year.

but what about our beloveds???? take a deep breath. take my hand. let's feel the warm breeze on our face. do you see the orange globe of a sun in the sky? that's the size of danny briere's balls.

the flyers have 29 million in cap space right now. take out 18 million, that's 11 million. 11 million to sign both zegras and drysdale seems unrealistic, but—

carlsson's contract is extremely top heavy structured. these players don't need to get all the money in equally divided amounts every year, that's the magic of a good gm and contract negotiation. we've heard rumblings that jamie's contract is ~6.5 million, but it's not official so we have no idea how that's allocated throughout the years. and we have no clue about trevor.

most players, if you told them that there's a possibility their new contract will be more backloaded because of an offer sheet, would balk and make negotiations miserable.

let's remember, though. this is trevor "shoved out the door" "that's how quick the phone call was" zegras and jamie "left stranded on the east coast" drysdale. if you have two players who WOULD be willing to deal with the "sacrifices" they have to make for the flyers front office to navigate this, then it's them, 110%

you do not throw an offer sheet like this without getting every single egg in order. my theory is that we won't hear about any contract signings with the flyers until we hear anaheim's response, because that will determine the format of the jdtz contracts, but i would bet money that danny has checked that either scenario is A-OK for both parties.

harder part: what about the other blorbos? take my hand again. look at the sunset. see how it disappears at night. sometimes you have to say bye.

carlsson signing here would mean someone is getting shipped out. not just for the cap, but that is way too many cooks in the kitchen. perhaps a scary situation for cates or risto, tippett a bit less so.

personal opinion here is that listen. i love the flyers and i love the 2025-26 team, but we got swept in round two for a reason. you can't keep everyone.

and also, they might be dead men walking regardless of either outcome*(see below)

anaheim accepts: funkytown

contract details: obviously the crazy bonus setup which i've elaborated on. but also the fact that the term takes him straight to ufa, which is a nightmare signing scenario for the original team. also, he has a no trade clause for the last year, so the ducks couldn't even ship him off for a different team to deal with his new ufa contract if that was a route they wanted to take. and let's remember bob murray. yep, the guy that gave trevor zegras the number 46 who used to be on ducks management and is now on the flyers. absolutely he had a say in this to make it as fucking miserable as possible for anaheim. also also remember, the first 19 million signing bonus kicks in the moment a contract is signed, so they'd better be getting that ready within a week!

so that establishes if anaheim matches (in my opinion like 60% yes), it will mess them up, but that's their problem now. what does it mean for the FLYERS!!

danny has established himself as a "lol don't fuck with me i'll actually fucking do it" gm: potential options i see, in no particular order

option a: danny knocks on the blue jackets' door and says hey fantilli looks really nice, mind if we— their gm frantically says haha w-wait l-let's talk about it! we have a blockbuster trade with them, that involves* perhaps some beloved (but sorry, expendable in this situation) players. perhaps fantilli for risto/cates and next years' first and a few later picks?

option b: another type of major trade for a young star. danny knows he's playing with house money right now. he started this, and soon this won't be a new insane negotiating tactic. they have to act on the shock factor this offseason before other gms start copying and front offices start preparing ahead of time for these insane scenarios.

option c: nothing major goes on. again, danny has basically come out and said "i will actually use the fucking gun they gave all of us because all of you gms are cowards and fuck your gentleman's agreement because yes we are all part of a boys' club but the flyers are perceived weirdly even within that boys' club so i will haunt your dreams every day so forth. don't fucking fuck with me or philadelphia. others may copy soon, but you all will remember me as the guy that fired the first shot heard around the league." maybe some things will fall into place without even much effort on our end

this has also established philly as oh wait. the flyers are owned by fucking comcast and can play with their money however they want. all teams may be limited the same with the cap, but how you deal out the money is determined through the owners, and this is signaling that the flyers have the ability to give extremely player-friendly deals, whereas other owners (see: samueli's of the ducks) are more stingy with how their millions are managed.