The Philadelphia Flyers are signing veteran defenseman Marc Staal to a one-year, $1.1MM contract, the team announced.
The signing reunites Staal, 36, with his former coach John Tortorella, who coached Staal during the entirety of Tortorella’s tenure coaching the New York Rangers. Now, he’ll join a rebuilding Flyers club to likely be one of Tortorella’s most trusted veteran leaders.
Flyers GM Daniel Briere told the media, including The Athletic’s Charlie O’Connor, that his team would “like to add a little bit more of a veteran presence ” while also keeping spots open for some of the organization’s younger players to make their mark. (subscription link)
Staal joins a left side of Philadelphia’s defense that already includes Travis Sanheim and Cam York, two players likely to play major roles for the club moving forward.
As a result, Staal is likely to compete for third-pairing minutes with fellow veteran Nick Seeler, as well as younger names such as Yegor Zamula, Emil Andrae, and Adam Ginning.
Now well past his prime years, Staal clearly isn’t the player he once was. The longtime Ranger was a steady presence in New York’s top four for over a decade, and he even made it to an All-Star Game earlier in his career. Now the most valuable things Staal brings to the table are his 1,101 games of experience and the guidance he can offer to the Flyers’ younger players.
Staal has extensive playoff experience as well, most recently in the Florida Panthers’ run to the Stanley Cup Final. He played in all 82 games for Florida last year and averaged over 18 minutes of ice time per night, with over two-and-a-half minutes per night spent killing penalties.
Staal’s role as a defensive specialist on the Eastern Conference Champions has earned him a nice pay raise from the $750k he earned last season. Now he’ll shift from playing in high-leverage defensive moments for a Stanley Cup contender to more of a mentorship role with a rebuilding club, where his off-ice contributions will be just as important as what he brings on the ice.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Why would the Panthers not bring him back for that deal? Seems odd to me.
@Gbear – Do you get the feeling that some of these guys are taking basically lateral move deals just to play elsewhere? Moving anywhere is a PITA, but so many of these guys changing sweaters for roughly the same $$$ is weird.
Likely they want an upgrade and cant promise him the ice time he wants.
@Mac – Makes no sense to me. Seems that if Team A offers $100,000 more than Team B, away they go.
1.1 seems like a lot especially when Reilly got 1 (he’s 6yrs younger) and Kulikov got 1 (he’s 4yrs younger) and Mahura got 925k (he’s 11yrs younger) and all those players had better offensive numbers and better dCorsi numbers then Staal
@birdmansns – I’m thinking bigger picture here. That may very well be true of Marc Staal, but it can’t be the same reason for all of the others. It just looks wrong.
It is a little extra, that’s why he went to flyers. They want a few older veterans to teach their young players what really needs to be done to win one day. I think it’s smart by flyers and obviously he likes Tort.