Flyers Re-Sign Leighton

The Philadelphia Flyers have decided on giving Michael Leighton what was owed to him for his good work in the Stanley Cup playoffs in the Spring.  Leighton was signed to a new 2-year deal with the Flyers, worth $3.1 million, which works out to be a $1.55 million cap hit for each year.  I don't think this is the Flyers giving up on a big name goalie quite yet, but at least they now have some insurance if they cannot land a Marty Turco or Evgeni Nabokov on Thursday.


Leighton only made 34 appearances in the regular season between the Hurricanes and the Flyers, picking up a record of 17-9-2 with the Flyers, also picking up 1 shutout and an assist for 37 pool points in 2010, ranking him 32nd among all goaltenders in the league.  Leighton was claimed off of waivers from Carolina in December and became very handy to the Flyers when all of their injury woes were happening in the crease.  In the playoffs, Leighton went 8-3-0 with 2 shutouts and helped guide the Flyers to the Stanley Cup Finals.  It was a pretty good run for himself, gaining a little more notoriety for his name.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Mike Richards	Chris Pronger	Michael Leighton
Jeff Carter	Kimmo Timonen	Brian Boucher
Daniel Briere	Matt Carle
Scott Hartnell
Simon Gagne
James Van Riemsdyk
Ian Laperriere
Blair Betts
Ville Leino
Riley Cote

Now the Flyers have two goalies on their current roster, keeping both Leighton and Brian Boucher, who were probably the team's better goalies in the 2010 season anyways and their roster is beginning to take some sort of shape. As you can see, the Flyers have 10 forwards, 3 defense and both their goalies now for an annual salary cap hit of $48.7 million, not including any buyouts or penalties at the moment.  In theory, this would give the team $10.7 million to work with to fill in their defense and add depth players up front.  Not sure if that's the way they are going to make a championship team, but it's a start.


It sounded like the Flyers took a good run at both Nabokov and Turco already, before the Free Agent Frenzy actually begun, so the rejection obviously made the Flyers brass think a little bit more about what actually got them to the Finals and it wasn't the marquee goalie in the end.  Their money might certainly be better served on their blueline anyways, giving both Chris Pronger and Kimmo Timonen a hand.  This frenzy is going to be a good one for the Flyers.