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Cal Petersen

Flyers Considering Buying Out Cal Petersen And Cam Atkinson

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This past season was a tough one for Flyers winger Cam Atkinson who found himself a healthy scratch on several occasions while underachieving offensively.  Meanwhile, it was even worse for goaltender Cal Petersen who spent most of the season in the minors and struggled in his brief action with Philadelphia.

On top of that, cap space is at a premium for the Flyers as CapFriendly projects them to have barely $500K in regular cap room this summer which isn’t enough to try to make any sort of upgrade to their roster.  Accordingly, GM Daniel Briere acknowledged to NHL.com’s Adam Kimelman that the team is considering all of its options when it comes to opening up cap space, including buying out the veterans when the window to do so opens up later this month.  However, no decision has been made at this time.

Atkinson is coming off the quietest full season of his career.  The 35-year-old notched just 13 goals and 15 assists in 70 games while seeing his ice time drop to a little under 16 minutes a night.  While he was a legitimate top-line threat earlier in his career, he has become a secondary scorer but one that carries a hefty price tag with a $5.875MM AAV.  That would be a difficult contract to move without incentivizing a team to take it on which makes the idea of a buyout more palatable.  They’d save a little over $3.5MM for 2024-25 if they went this route with Atkinson but would add a $1.76MM dead cap charge to their books in 2025-26.

As for Petersen, he was acquired in a salary dump from Los Angeles this summer.  At one point, it looked like he could start as the backup and allow Samuel Ersson to spend more time in the minors but instead, the 29-year-old was waived and spent most of the year in Lehigh Valley.  He didn’t have a particularly strong campaign there either, posting a 2.71 GAA and a .902 SV% in 28 regular season appearances.  Meanwhile, in five games with the Flyers, Petersen notched a .864 SV% while allowing 18 goals in five games.  A buyout for him would reduce his cap charge from $5MM to just $1MM for 2024-25 but add $2MM onto the 2025-26 books.

It’s worth noting that Philadelphia does have other cap room available to them as Ryan Ellis is set to remain on LTIR for next season, freeing up a potential $6.25MM in extra flexibility.  However, going deep into that would prevent them from banking any in-season cap room so ideally, they’d like to try to avoid it.

There’s also the uncertainty with Ryan Johansen’s situation.  Briere indicated to Kimelman that there’s no clarity yet when it comes to the center:

He’s going through some kind of rehab. He had an injection; claims he has a hip injury. At this point, honestly I’m not too sure where it’s at. We’re not sure if he’s going to need surgery, or if he’s going to be ready for camp. We don’t really know at this point.

Johansen has one year left on his deal with the Flyers being responsible for a $4MM cap charge.  If he’s unavailable to play at all, he would then be LTIR-eligible, giving them more wiggle room if they opted to use that.  However, the fact there is some lingering uncertainty about Johansen’s health takes a buyout off the table as injured players can’t be bought out, making Petersen and Atkinson the potentially viable options on that front.

The first buyout window will open up two days after the Stanley Cup ends and run through June 30th so while there is still time for Briere to make a decision on what to do with Atkinson and Petersen, he’ll have to move quickly once the window opens if they do indeed decide to part with one or both of them.

Flyers Not Expected To Buy Out Cal Petersen

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The Flyers had a pair of strong buyout candidates this summer, but it looks like they won’t execute one on either. They’re not expected to buy out the final season of goaltender Cal Petersen’s contract, reports The Fourth Period’s Anthony Di Marco. They’ll also likely be prevented from buying out the final season of center Ryan Johansen’s $4MM cap hit as he continues to recover from a hip injury.

Petersen, 29, will likely remain in the organization for a second straight season after Philly took him on as a cap dump from the Kings in the Ivan Provorov three-team trade with the Blue Jackets last offseason. He spent most of the campaign on assignment to AHL Lehigh Valley, where he put up a respectable but unimpressive .902 SV% and 2.71 GAA with two shutouts in 28 games.

The Iowa native once looked like a goalie of the future for the Kings, who plucked him from Notre Dame after he didn’t sign with the Sabres, who selected him in the fifth round in 2013. By 2020-21, he was challenging to take over the starter’s crease from future Hall-of-Famer Jonathan Quick and had logged a career .916 SV% and 19-25-6 record in 50 starts and four relief appearances by the end of the season.

Entering the final season of a cheap three-year deal with a $858K cap hit, Los Angeles general manager Rob Blake opted to lock him into a three-year, $15MM extension to have him backstop the Kings through the mid-2020s. His play immediately regressed upon signing, though, and in the final season before the extension kicked in, he conceded nearly 12 goals above average and put up a .895 SV% in 37 games.

That remains a career-high in appearances for Petersen, who started the extension so poorly (.868 SV%, 3.75 GAA in 10 GP) that he was demoted to the AHL. After putting up average numbers in the minors with the AHL’s Ontario Reign, the Kings were able to get out of the final two seasons of the extension by dumping the contract on the retooling Flyers.

Petersen did make a few NHL appearances this season, backing up Samuel Ersson for small stretches after Carter Hart took personal leave to face sexual assault charges, but again struggled with a .864 SV% and 3.90 GAA in four starts and one relief appearance.

While buried in the minors, Petersen’s cap hit is reduced from $5MM to $3.85MM. Buying him out would have incurred a $1MM cap charge next season, saving them $2.85MM in space immediately, with a $2MM penalty in 2025-26. Overall, the Flyers will forego $2MM in actual cash savings and a higher cap charge this season in order to get him off the books sooner.

He also still has some value to the organization as a serviceable minor-league netminder, even if his days in the NHL are likely over. The Flyers have a lot of dead money on the books next season aside from Johansen and Petersen, though, including $3.57MM worth of retained salary on Blues center Kevin Hayes and a $1.67MM penalty for buying out defenseman Tony DeAngelo last summer. They also have three seasons remaining of injured/retired defenseman Ryan Ellis at a $6.25MM cap hit, although he can be placed on long-term injured reserve for some temporary spending flexibility.

The Flyers have most of their roster already signed for next season, but they do have a few open spots on defense and just $500K in projected cap space, per CapFriendly. Without the buyouts, they’ll need Ellis’ LTIR flexibility to round out their blue line and remain cap-compliant.

Flyers Place Jamie Drysdale On IR, Recall Two

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The Flyers have announced multiple roster moves, including recalling defender Ronnie Attard from AHL Lehigh Valley. To open up a spot on the active roster, the team moved Jamie Drysdale to injured reserve. He’s been listed as week to week with an upper-body injury sustained Sunday against the Penguins.

In another pair of moves, the Flyers said they’ve loaned netminder Calvin Petersen to Lehigh Valley and recalled Felix Sandström as starter Samuel Ersson’s backup. However, this transaction cannot be registered until Petersen clears waivers later today.

The IR placement doesn’t reflect Drysdale’s timeline for a return; it’s solely to create roster space for an additional recall on defense. He’s expected to miss more than the seven days required for an IR stint. Concerns remain that his upper-body injury is related to the torn labrum that sidelined him for nearly all of last season, although the team hasn’t disclosed any specifics.

Drysdale hasn’t exactly been impressive since coming over in a blockbuster swap with the Ducks for top forward prospect Cutter Gauthier early last month, recording four points and a -9 rating in 17 games while averaging 18:37. The 2020 sixth-overall pick still carries high upside, however, and experience logging important minutes down the stretch while the Flyers attempt to secure their first playoff berth in four years would have been beneficial.

The Flyers are slowly losing their grip on third place in the Metropolitan Division, however, and the gap could continue to close between them and the Devils and Capitals as long as leading scorer Travis Konecny remains sidelined with an upper-body injury. They’re expected to deal one or both of their high-end shutdown defense pairing of Nick Seeler and Sean Walker before the March 8 trade deadline, too.

Drysdale missing extended time leaves the Flyers with only one right-shot blue-liner in the lineup in Walker, so it makes sense that Philly would want to summon another righty option to compete for minutes with depth defenders like Marc Staal and Yegor Zamula. In comes the 24-year-old Attard, who leads Phantoms defenders in goals with 10 and has added 15 assists in 46 games, along with a +2 rating.

A third-round pick in 2019, Attard signed his entry-level deal with the Flyers after wrapping up his collegiate career at Western Michigan in 2022 and has since become a top-four fixture for Lehigh Valley. He hasn’t seen NHL action yet this season, although he’ll likely draw into the lineup at some point over their next few games, given head coach John Tortorella’s penchant for rotating his cast of third-pairing defenders.

After representing the United States at the World Championship last year, Attard inked a two-year, $1.7MM deal to remain in Philly after reaching restricted free agency. A two-way deal this year that sees him earn $775K in the NHL and $125K in the minors, it shifts to a one-way deal in 2024-25 and will pay him $925K no matter which league he’s assigned to.

The Flyers hope Sandström can provide a tad more relief for Ersson than Petersen, who struggled with a .864 SV% in his five appearances this season. Sandström’s .880 SV% in 20 games last season doesn’t offer much more optimism, though, nor does his .882 SV% and 3.23 GAA in 20 games for Lehigh Valley this season.

In fact, both Petersen and Sandström have been significantly outplayed by 30-year-old ECHL mainstay Parker Gahagen, who’s played a career-high 14 AHL games for the Phantoms with a 5-6-3 record and .908 SV%. He’s not signed to an NHL contract, however, and can’t be recalled by the Flyers unless that changes.

Philadelphia Flyers’ Cal Petersen Clears Waivers

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2/29: Petersen has cleared waivers, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.

2/28: The Flyers placed netminder Cal Petersen on waivers Wednesday, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.

It’s been a tumultuous first season in Philadelphia for Petersen, who failed to make the Flyers out of camp but shuffled frequently between leagues in November and December with then-starter Carter Hart battling illness and injuries. He’s been rostered as the backup to Samuel Ersson over the past month after Hart took leave from the team to surrender to London, Ontario, police in connection with sexual assault charges against him and four other members of the 2018 Canadian national junior team.

This is Petersen’s second time on waivers this season, passing through unclaimed at the beginning of October when the Flyers assigned him to AHL Lehigh Valley to start the season. The 29-year-old once looked like the goalie of the future for the Kings, but they were forced to trade him, and his $5MM cap hit to Philadelphia last summer to clear cap space after a disastrous showing last year that saw him sent to the minors a few months into the season.

Things haven’t changed for Petersen in the City of Brotherly Love, as he’s been borderline unplayable through four starts and one relief appearance. While he has a 2-2-0 record, he’s posted a .864 SV% and 3.90 GAA, slightly worse than last year’s numbers with Los Angeles that got him demoted for the first time since 2020. His last appearance was Sunday’s 7-6 loss to the Penguins, in which he allowed all seven goals on 32 shots.

As such, he’s nearly guaranteed to pass through waivers again. The Flyers can give him a non-roster designation over the next 24 hours if they need a roster spot, otherwise, he can be assigned to Lehigh Valley and his cap hit can be reduced to $3.85MM after 1 p.m. CT tomorrow.

Carter Hart Granted Indefinite Leave Of Absence

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In a rather shocking announcement coming from the Philadelphia Flyers, the team has granted goaltender Carter Hart an indefinite leave of absence due to personal reasons.

It is an unfortunate development for both the player and the team, as Hart is in the midst of yet another quality season for the Flyers. Including this season, over the last three years, Hart has produced a 47-56-20 record in Philadelphia, carrying a solid .906 SV% and 2.99 GAA. Although the amount of wins is likely not where he would like them to be, the strong play of Hart this year has helped put the Flyers squarely in a position to make the playoffs for the first time since the 2019-20 season.

Given that speculation surrounding the specific reasoning for Hart’s leave of absence would be inappropriate, if Hart has broken a team conduct rule within the organization, it is more than likely the team will announce that in the near future. If Hart is dealing with a separate family matter away from the arena, that would inherently deserve privacy.

Moving forward, in Hart’s absence, Samuel Ersson should assume the starting role, as he has put together an impressive season by all accounts. In 22 games played for the Flyers this year, Ersson carries a 12-6-3 record while producing a .909 SV% and 2.36 GAA. Furthermore, even though Hart has garnered the majority of starts in net for Philadelphia, Ersson leads the team in shutouts with three.

In a corresponding roster move, the Flyers have announced they will be recalling goaltender Calvin Petersen from their AHL affiliate, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. Acquired as a salary dump from the Los Angeles Kings this past offseason, Petersen has only managed two games in Philadelphia in his first season with the club. Playing primarily for the Phantoms, Petersen has not done particularly well, earning a 5-8-2 record in 15 games with a very modest .890 SV%.

Flyers Assign Cal Petersen And Rhett Gardner To AHL

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After a wild game against Detroit on Friday, the Flyers have reached their holiday break.  Accordingly, they’ve made a pair of transactions this morning, announcing (Twitter link) that they’ve assigned goaltender Cal Petersen and forward Rhett Gardner to AHL Lehigh Valley.  Since both players were recalled after December 11th, they were allowed to be sent down even though the roster freeze is in effect.

Petersen has been shuffled back and forth in recent days with Carter Hart briefly missing time but Hart did return to action last night meaning Petersen’s presence on the roster is no longer needed.  Petersen was acquired as a salary cap dump from the Kings over the offseason and after clearing waivers for the second straight year, the 29-year-old has spent most of the season with the Phantoms where he has a 3.20 GAA and a .898 SV% in 11 games.  He made a pair of starts with the Flyers back in November, stopping 60 of 67 shots.

As for Gardner, he was recalled back on Tuesday but didn’t get into any game action with Philadelphia.  The 27-year-old is in the first season of a two-year, two-way deal but has struggled with the Phantoms.  After putting up 40 points in 70 games with AHL Texas last year, he has just three goals and one assist in 21 contests with Lehigh Valley so far.

The Flyers aren’t back in action until Thursday so if they are going to recall Gardner or another forward, they can wait until then to do so.

AHL Shuffle: Petersen, Day, Meyers

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The Philadelphia Flyers have recalled netminder Cal Petersen back to their NHL roster, indicating that netminder Carter Hart isn’t quite ready to return and back up Samuel Ersson for the Flyers’ game tonight against the Nashville Predators. Petersen was the Flyers’ backup for their last game as well, though he has spent most of the year with the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms.

The former Los Angeles Kings $5MM man has played in 11 games for the Phantoms, going 4-6-1 with an .898 save percentage and 3.20 goals-against-average. Those numbers are certainly a decline for Petersen, though they are not entirely out of line with his 2022-23 season as he went 16-20-4 with a .904 save percentage and 2.88 goals-against-average last year.

Some other AHL “paper” transactions:

  • The Tampa Bay Lightning have recalled defenseman Sean Day from their AHL affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch. Day has been recalled to serve as the team’s seventh defenseman, which is a role he’s played relatively frequently over the last week or so. Day did play in the Crunch’s contest last night against the Laval Rocket, but otherwise, he has been on the NHL roster for a decent stretch this season. What he hasn’t done so far this year is dress for an NHL game, and he last played in the NHL in 2021-22.
  • The Colorado Avalanche sent forward Ben Meyers back down to the AHL after their most recent game, but today the team recalled him, making the move effectively a paperwork-only transaction. Meyers, 25, has been involved in numerous transactions of the sort so far in his young career. He’s played in four NHL games this year and 17 AHL contests, and has scored 13 points in 21 games across both levels combined.

Flyers Loan Cal Petersen, Victor Mete To AHL

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Nov. 14: It took quite a while, but the Flyers confirmed the loan of Petersen and Mete to the Phantoms Tuesday morning in a team statement.

Nov. 13: The Philadelphia Flyers returned goaltender Cal Petersen and defenseman Victor Mete to the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms on Monday, Dylan H. Robillard of Olde City Sports Network reports.

Petersen, 29, was brought up from the AHL at the beginning of the month in the wake of a mid-body injury to starter Carter Hart. Acquired over the summer from the Los Angeles Kings in the Ivan Provorov three-team trade with the Blue Jackets, the Notre Dame graduate started two games for the Flyers, both against his former team, going 1-1-0 with a .896 SV% and 3.50 GAA.

It has been a difficult past few seasons for Petersen, who has lost his grip on a full-time NHL job after signing a three-year, $15MM extension with the Kings in advance of the 2021-22 season that didn’t begin until 2022-23. In hindsight, it’s turned out to be a premature gamble from Kings GM Rob Blake, as Petersen has started just 46 NHL games since signing the deal with a .890 SV%, 3.08 GAA and three shutouts.

Petersen’s extremely poor start to 2022-23 earned him a demotion to the minors, where he spent most of the season with the AHL’s Ontario Reign. There, he posted a .904 SV% in 40 games and earned a spot on Team USA at the 2023 IIHF World Championship, where he excelled with a 0.72 GAA, .956 SV% and 3-0-0 record, leading some to believe he could rebound in the City of Brotherly Love after the trade went through.

That hasn’t been the case, though, as Petersen finished training camp fourth on the Flyers’ netminding depth chart behind Hart and his young backups, Samuel Ersson and Felix Sandström. Petersen has struggled through four games with Lehigh Valley, where he returns to improve on his current 1-3-0 record and .884 SV%.

Mete has now been recalled and returned to the Phantoms for the second time since passing through waivers during the preseason. Serving as a healthy scratch twice after his second recall on November 5, Mete made his Flyers debut on Saturday against the Kings, posting zeroes across the board in less than 11 minutes of ice time.

The Flyers signed Mete, 25, to a one-year, two-way deal with a $775K cap hit in July. He’ll be an unrestricted free agent at season’s end and has one assist and a -3 rating through five games with the Phantoms.

Flyers Loan Victor Mete To Minors, Recall Cal Petersen

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November 5th: Without playing in either of the two games for the Phantoms over the weekend, the Flyers have announced they have recalled Mete from his loan.

November 2nd: The Flyers have loaned defenseman Victor Mete to the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms, per a team announcement Thursday. In a corresponding transaction, they’ve recalled goaltender Calvin Petersen from the Phantoms, who will be the backup to Samuel Ersson for the time being while starter Carter Hart is out longer-term with what the team calls a “mid-body injury.”

Mete, 25, did not make the Flyers’ opening-night roster after signing a one-year, two-way deal with a minimum guaranteed salary of $500K during the offseason, clearing waivers in early October. With injuries to both Rasmus Ristolainen and Marc Staal causing strain on the Flyers’ defensive depth last month, though, the team recalled Mete from Lehigh Valley last week to offer some additional veteran insurance on the roster. He did not appear in a game during this call-up, however, serving as a healthy scratch for four contests dating back to last Thursday against the Wild. He returns to the Phantoms, where he has just one assist and a -3 rating through five games.

A two-way defender by trade, Mete’s offensive game has never translated to the pros after notching 44 points in 50 games with the OHL’s London Knights in 2016-17. He largely managed to stick in the NHL full-time after turning pro in 2017, even spending a handful of seasons in a top-four role for the Montreal Canadiens, but found himself relegated to the minors for a good portion of last season with the Maple Leafs. He missed most of 2022-23 with injury, however, suiting up in just six games for the AHL’s Toronto Marlies and 11 games for the NHL club.

Petersen, who looked like the Los Angeles Kings’ goalie of the future just two seasons ago, isn’t doing much to rebuild his value in the minors after an offseason cap-dump move that saw the Flyers take on his $5MM cap hit in the three-way Ivan Provorov trade that also included the Columbus Blue Jackets. He’s won one out of four appearances for Lehigh Valley so far, posting an unimpressive 3.76 GAA and .884 SV%. It’s likely that Felix Sandström will replace him on the NHL roster once he completes his current conditioning stint in the minors. Sandström made the NHL roster to start the season as the Flyers opted to carry three goalies, but he’d yet to appear in a game, causing the Flyers to assign him to Lehigh Valley last Tuesday.

Flyers’ Carter Hart Leaves Game And Will Not Return

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Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Carter Hart left tonight’s game with an apparent mid-body injury and will not return. The Flyers tweeted the news just moments ago after Carter left the game in the first period against the Buffalo Sabres. Hart allowed two goals on five shots to start the game after he appeared to injure himself early in the first period. He stayed in the game and looked as though he would try to gut it out, but ultimately decided better of it and exited around the ten-minute mark.

It’s always hard to pinpoint exactly when an injury occurred but the likeliest event in this case was when Sabres forward Kyle Okposo appeared to fall on Hart. The 25-year-old received a visit from the trainer but remained in net and was slow to get up off the ice on several occasions before he was removed from the game.

Sam Ersson took over duties in the Flyers net and could end up seeing a lot more playing time if Carter is out for any length of time. Ersson has struggled in back-to-back starts after winning the backup job in training camp. The 24-year-old is currently sporting a .760 save percentage and 5.91 goals against average entering action tonight. If the Hart injury is of the serious variety, the Flyers could also call up Felix Sandstrom from his conditioning stint with AHL Lehigh Valley and have Cal Petersen stashed in the AHL as well.

This is an important season for Hart as he looks to bounce back from three consecutive disappointing seasons after starting his career with such promise. The Sherwood Park, Alberta native has been terrific for the Flyers in this young season posting a 4-3 record with 2.30 goals against average and a .921 save percentage. He has been largely responsible for the Flyers surprising, albeit unspectacular start to the season.

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