The Philadelphia Flyers have signed center Ryan Poehling to a two-year contract extension with a $1.9 million cap hit.
Poehling, 25, is currently on a one-year, $1.4 million contract, and was set to become a restricted free agent with arbitration rights in the 2024 offseason before this extension. He gets a raise of $500,000 per year with this new deal, which also comes in at the highest cap hit of his career. His new contract comes in at the same cap hit as Washington Capitals winger Sonny Milano and Vegas Golden Knights center Brett Howden.
Poehling is having the best season of his career so far, with 5 goals and 9 assists for 14 points in 44 games. He needs just four more points to surpass his career-high of 17, something he should easily do with a full season point pace of 26.
Poehling has also become one of the better penalty killing forwards in the league since getting more consistent playing time in the NHL in 2021-22. In the past three seasons, his 0.655 shorthanded goals above replacement per 60 minutes ranks 44th in the league among forwards with at least 1500 minutes of ice time.
Poehling was a former 25th-overall draft pick of the Montreal Canadiens in 2017, and spent four seasons in the Habs organization, most notably scoring a hat trick in his NHL debut in 2018-19. He was then dealt to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2022 offseason in the trade that sent Jeff Petry to Pittsburgh and Mike Matheson to Montreal. After the Pens opted to not give Poehling a qualifying offer in the 2023 offseason, he went to unrestricted free agency, where he signed his current deal with the Flyers.
Poehling’s extension is the second signing of the day for the Flyers, as they also locked up winger Owen Tippett to an eight-year contract with a $6.2 million cap hit. They have just three incoming unrestricted free agents and two restricted free agents remaining this offseason, with one of those restricted free agents’ future being up in the air in goaltender Carter Hart. They’re projected to have just over $8.5 million in salary cap space next season to bring back all those players should they choose to.
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