Carter Signs Monster Extension

A little late to the party on this one... haven't really mustered up the time to get the writing done for this one.

On Saturday, the Flyers announced that they had signed scoring forward Jeff Carter to a monster contract extension, 11 years worth $58 million, which works out to be a $5.273 million cap hit per season for the duration of the deal.  Carter was scheduled to become a restricted free agent on July 1st, 2010.

Carter has been a staple of the Flyers offense for a few seasons now and has been a key component of the team's early success in the 2011 season as well.  In the first 17 games this season, Carter has 8 goals and 7 assists for 15 points, which is good enough to be ranked 51st in league scoring through Week Six.  Carter is known as a 40-goal scorer and the general expectations do suggest that he should be again and now with this new contract, he will be paid like one.

The Flyers have been busy with their soon-to-be free agents already in the early part of the 2011 season, already signing on Claude Giroux to a contract extension and the team was the first one examined for their future salary cap hit.  With the addition of Carter, the Flyers now currently stand at 14 players signed on for $52 million against the future (and yet-to-be-determined) cap number for the 2012 season.  That is a huge chunk of change already distributed to a team that is 11 months from taking to the ice.

Well, my weekend was a pretty busy one and Monday at the office was no better, so since I'm only getting to this now should tell you something.

I don't think this is a terrible deal, especially if Carter can be the player we all know he can be during this span.  Carter will be 37 years old when this deal expires, which could be just in time for his retirement or could put him into a position where he is ready for his retirement-like contracts at only $1 million per year.  Hard to predict the future like that, but if he can be a 30-goal scorer for eight or nine of the 11 seasons, I think this works out to be a pretty good deal.