The Philadelphia Flyers—who missed the playoffs last year—were last seen doing everything they could to get under the salary cap. They used their two lockout-authorized buyouts on Danny Briere and Ilya Bryzgalov, who was in only the second year of a big-money nine-year deal.
Financial prudence? Not quite: They bought the pair out in part to afford the four-year, $21-million contract they just gave to Mark Streit, a 35-year-old defenseman. But the three moves did give Philly, all told, a reasonable $4.1 million in cap space, per CapGeek. That'd be enough to assemble a little depth for the forward corps and to marshal a decent backup goalie. But is that what general manager Paul Holmgren (above, at the draft, lit like a Batman villain) did? No, of course not!
Instead he gave recently bought-out 33-year-old center Vincent Lecavalier a five-year, $22.5-million deal, with a full no-movement clause. The Flyers are BACK ... over the cap again.
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