Flyers Sign Emery

The Flyers announced on Wednesday that they have indeed signed goaltender Ray Emery to a 1-year deal, but the salary number was not announced in the release. The deal is believed to be worth $1.5 million for the one season. With both of their 2009 goaltenders going to unrestricted free agency this summer, the Flyers wanted to make sure they had a cost-efficient goaltender for 2010 and they are willing to give Emery a chance.

Emery, 26, has a winning record in the NHL with his time in Ottawa, going 71-40-14 with a career 2.71 GAA and .907 SV%. Those aren't terrible numbers and we haven't included his one stop to the Stanley Cup Finals, albeit behind a pretty offensive Senators team. In Russia in 2009, Emery played in 36 games and came away with a record of 22-8 with a 2.12 GAA and .926 SV%. Those are some improving numbers, but they could be spun into saying it was done in a lesser league, but good nevertheless.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Jeff Carter	Kimmo Timonen	Ray Emery
Mike Richards	Braydon Coburn
Simon Gagne	Matt Carle
Scott Hartnell	Randy Jones
Joffrey Lupul
Claude Giroux
Daniel Briere
Aaron Asham
Daniel Carcillo
Darroll Powe
Riley Cote

Now, when it comes to the Flyers, assuming that the deal is worth $1.5 million, they've just done themselves a huge favour going forward. Their numbers are getting awfully scary, as they have now hit the approximate cap mark of $49.7 million with only the 16 players listed above. If the cap was to somehow stay the same (which is highly doubtful), the Flyers would only have $1 million on average to spend on their depth players. With the cap likely going down, some movement may still need to be made.

This move has some good potential, but we all know the reasons why Emery didn't mix well in Ottawa. Emery also had his blow-ups in Russia, which were well documented when they happened, so there is some big question marks over top of this deal because of that. I'm sure the Flyers are hoping for a calming return to the NHL for Emery, which would pay off in spades for the Flyers.

The question does become, how good of a goalie will he be and should I pick him in my fantasy pool next year? Well, first things first... you have to wait and see if the Flyers end up signing a real back-up or another goalie to help push for the starting job. If he looks like the clear favourite to start, I would say, he's worth the gamble, but not too early. After his best season in Ottawa, he only finished 46th in pool scoring (2006/'07), so I wouldn't be pushing too hard for him. If someone else picks him too early, don't feel too bad... just pick a more reasonable goalie at a more reasonable time.