Breaking Down Christian Dvorak’s Extension With the Flyers

Fans and players alike see a young team with a 21–12–7 record and have a lot of hope for the future. If they’re a playoff team now, who knows what happens later?

Dvorak has been a serviceable second-line center for the Flyers this season. It’s not exactly easy to acquire those, so keeping him in town at a reasonable $5.15 million cap hit is objectively good for the short-term future of the team.

The Bad: Dvorak’s Worst Years Will Be During Flyers’ Best

Let’s get to the bad. In a recent post for The Hockey Writers, I took a stab at projecting the Flyers’ Stanley Cup window. The first season of said window I landed on was 2029–30, as that’s the point where young stars Porter Martone and Matvei Michkov should start to really make an impact.

But that window corresponds, to put it bluntly, horribly with this extension. By the time the regular season in 2029–30 ends, Dvorak will be 34. Here’s a recent forward aging trend graphic and piece from The Athletic‘s Dom Luszczyszyn:

It’s very possible that, when the Flyers are legitimately competing, Dvorak will be playing some of his worst hockey as a pro. At a $5.15 million cap hit, while not totally catastrophic, that’s not great.

The Ugly: $34.1 Million Committed to Five Aging Players Long-Term

Then, we get to the ugly. Dvorak’s contract adds to a wider organizational trend: committing big money to several aging players. For the following exercise, let’s keep the 2029–30 timeline in mind.

For that season, they’ve already committed $34.1 million into Sean Couturier , Dvorak, Travis Konecny, Travis Sanheim, and Owen Tippett, who will be, on average, 33 years old when the regular season starts, and 34 years old when the playoffs start. Take a look:

About a calendar year ago, the NHL released its salary-cap projections for the next few seasons. In 2027–28, their listed figure is $113.5 million—an increase of about 19% from today’s maximum salary cap. Using that 19% increase, we can estimate that the maximum in 2029–30 will be about $135 million.

So, in essence, the Flyers have one-fourth of the 2029–30 salary cap locked up in five aging players. They may still be useful by that point, but aging trends suggest that they could be a shell of what they are today. Father Time is undefeated, after all.

While a rising cap makes $34.1 million not seem that bad, it also means that star players will demand more. So, while the team will technically have more wiggle room, they aren’t making this easy. There may be some cap trouble during the Cup window—and it was entirely unnecessary.

Bottom Line: More Moves Must Be Made

Aging trends would suggest Dvorak will only be hanging on by a thread in the last year or two of his deal. Seeing as you probably could have gotten a first-round pick (or somewhere close) for him, that’s objectively poor asset management. Especially when said first-round pick will be 23 in five years, potentially better and cheaper than Dvorak by that point.

But it’s not the end of the world. Worst-case scenario, the team has to buy him out, or they attach picks to him in the final year and dump him off (there’s no trade restriction in Year 5). While not ideal, you can theoretically work around the gloomiest outcome.

With that said, moves have to be made. Assuming Trevor Zegras isn’t viable, the Flyers do not have a first-line center. They do not have a second-line center. They do not have a No. 1 defenseman. There’s a ton of work left to be done, and at this stage, some action is necessary. Making the playoffs is not the goal—winning the Cup is.

The Dvorak deal is, on its own, a bit of a head-scratcher. But if the Flyers are aggressive and smart enough, it doesn’t have to matter. That’s a big “if,” though.