Philadelphia Flyers sign Rhett Gardner to two-year contract with $775,000
The Philadelphia Flyers made another signing on July 1st, bringing in forward Rhett Gardner on a two-year contract with a $775,000 cap hit.
Gardner was an unrestricted free agent after finishing a two-year contract with a $750,000 cap hit that he signed with the Dallas Stars. He saw a $25,000 increase in average annual value, although it’s still not as high as his entry-level contract from 2019 to 2021.
Gardner spent the entirety of his season with the Texas Stars in the AHL, having a career year in 2022-23 with 10 goals, 30 assists, and 40 points in 71 regular season games, as well as four goals, four assists, and eight points in eight playoff games as the Stars lost in the Central Division Finals in five games to the Milwaukee Admirals.
Gardner has played 40 games in the NHL over the course of his five-season professional career, with 28 of those games coming in the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season, where he scored his only NHL goal and assist to date. He has yet to play a game in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Gardner was a fourth-round pick by the Stars in 2016, but decided to play four seasons with the University of North Dakota before signing his entry-level contract in 2019. He spent the entirety of his career with the Stars organization until signing with the Flyers this offseason.
The Flyers had a quiet first day of free agency, as the only other signing they’ve made was adding forward Ryan Poehling on a one-year, $1.4 million contract. That isn’t the only move they’ve made this offseason, as they dealt Ivan Provorov, Kevin Connauton, and Hayden Hodgson to the Columbus Blue Jackets and brought in Cal Petersen and Sean Walker as cap dumps from the Los Angeles Kings, along with a first round pick, two second round picks, and Helge Grans in return for all that. They also had one of the bigger steals of the NHL draft, nabbing one of the top prospects in Matvei Michkov with the seventh-overall pick.
The Flyers currently have just under $9 million in cap space, and have just Morgan Frost, Noah Cates, and Cam York to sign as restricted free agents.