Flyers sign former first-round pick to eight-year extension

The deal, which carries a cap hit of $8.75M, will begin in the 2025-2026 season and keep him under contract in Philly through 2032-2033. It’s a significant raise from his previous $5.5M cap hit.

It’s the most lucrative deal in Flyers franchise history, beating out the 12-year, $69M pact they gave Mike Richards in 2008. The commitment demonstrated here to the 27-year-old, who’s coming off a strong season in 2023-2024, is massive.

Konecny scored a career-high 68 points in 76 games, fueled by 33 goals and 35 assists, while averaging 19:50 per game. Per usual, he was an even-strength monster, posting 52 of those 68 points at 5-on-5, 4-on-4 or 3-on-3. His six short-handed goals last season also led the league, and the 5-foot-10, 192-pound winger ranked eighth on the team with 90 hits.

It wasn’t technically his best season offensively, though. That came the year before when Konecny notched 31 goals and 61 points despite injuries limiting him to 60 games. That worked out to 1.02 points per game compared to last season’s 0.89.

Konecny was entering a contract year in 2024-2025, and there was a wide belief the pending UFA may end up as trade bait with the Flyers still in the throes of a rebuild. 

But last season quelled most fears about his year-to-year offensive consistency while also reiterating he can be an effective penalty-killer, a role he only took on when John Tortorella took over behind the bench in 2022. He’s had strong relative possession impacts on the PK, too, painting a picture of a better all-around player than most would consider him to be.

Back in May, The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz expected Timo Meier’s eight-year, $70.4M extension with the Devils to serve as a solid comparable in negotiations. Evolving-Hockey also projected a max-term extension for Konecny to carry a cap hit in the $8.8M neighborhood. While there may be some early sticker shock on this rich of a deal, this shouldn’t be viewed as an overpay on his market value.

Beginning next season, Konecny will carry the highest cap hit on the Flyers roster. That honor currently belongs to captain Sean Couturier, who costs $7.75M against the cap through 2030.

Konecny will make $7M in actual cash in 2024-2025 before his extension kicks in as part of his existing contract, which awards him a $4M base salary and $3M signing bonus in its final year. This is the second significant long-term deal for Konecny, who inked a six-year, $33M pact in 2019.

It’s the fourth max-term extension handed out since the league calendar flipped to 2024-2025, joining Predators goalie Juuse Saros, Canadiens rising star Juraj Slafkovsky and Hurricanes stalwart defender Jaccob Slavin. Konecny’s is the richest of them all, beating out Saros’ $61.92M total value.

Accordingly, it’s the most consequential move of the Flyers’ offseason, although getting 2023 seventh overall pick Matvei Michkov inked to his entry-level contract and brought over to North America sooner than expected is a close second. Michkov will likely slot in behind Konecny on the Flyers’ right-wing depth chart come opening night.

With the extension, the Flyers have already racked up a projected cap hit of $73.55M for 2025-2026 with a roster size of 18, per PuckPedia. The salary cap is projected to jump to around $92M after increasing to $88M this season, which would still leave them with around $18.5M in space. That’ll be important with young building blocks Noah Cates, Tyson Foerster, Morgan Frost and Cameron York all due for new deals.

Since being drafted 24th overall by Philadelphia in 2015, Konecny has racked up 174 goals, 226 assists and 400 points in 564 career games with a -26 rating.