Philadelphia Flyers fans were irate yesterday after general manager Chuck Fletcher declared the team "out" on remaining free-agents yesterday afternoon.
And when asked about South Jersey native Johnny Gaudreau, who reportedly wanted to play for the Flyers, Fletcher explained that the team does not have enough cap space and wasn't able (or willing?) to create it.
"We don't have the cap space to pursue those high-end type of free agents," Fletcher told the media on Wednesday afternoon. You'd have to move multiple contracts to be able to do that and you have to have a team, as well. In some cases, contracts are extremely hard to move. In other cases, there are players that we don't want to move, we feel they're a big part of our future."
Gaudreau ended up signing a seven-year, $68.25 million deal with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Back in January, before the hiring of new coach John Tortorella, Fletcher said, "We're going to try to aggressively retool."
After acquiring defenseman Tony DeAngelo, the Flyers added forward Nicolas Deslauriers to a four-year contract. And now seem to be done aggressively retooling.
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