"What if I told you...that the Philadelphia Flyers...would offer a defenseman named Andrew MacDonald...a contract that will forever be known as "6 years, $30 million?"
Flyers’ Andrew MacDonald has been as bad as advertised
The Flyers have a bad defenseman who is being paid a lot of money and there is no hiding it.
Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
When the Philadelphia Flyers traded for Andrew MacDonald in the spring of 2014, Flyers fans knew it was bad idea from the get-go.
With the playoffs set to start, the Flyers dropped the news that they extended the contract of Andrew MacDonald. Was it short term? Was it long term? What was the cap hit?
Cap Hit
For those counting at home, that’s $5M annually.
Statistics
As a member of the Flyers, he has played 113 games, scoring 4 goals and logging 22 assists in those 113 games. That is not very good for a player who is accounting for $5 million cap space per year.
You can see here that save for a short-term ride above 50% possession metrics for a 10-game average, he has been living in the sub-50% territory.
Here is how MacDonald’s possession numbers over that same time period stack up compared to the rest of the Flyers defense corps:
As you can see here, every Flyers defensemen from the previous two seasons, as well as the start of the 2016-17 season have put up better numbers than MacDonald, with the exceptions of Nicklas Grossmann and Nick Schultz. That’s not exactly great company.
The Eye Test
There is a laundry list of things we could dig up to point out how bad Andrew MacDonald is, as I’m sure any Flyers fan will be happy to tell you. For the sake of time, we’re just going to dig up three instances from within the Flyers last handful of games.
Andrew MacDonald against the Montreal Canadiens
In this game, we discovered a potential new role for Andrew MacDonald, as an offensive net-front presence. He set a perfect screen in front of Steve Mason.
There is a lot to unpack here beyond the screen. A soft attempt at checking Alexander Radulov leads to MacDonald falling down behind the net. Once he is able to get up, he loses Radulov again. By the time Radulov feeds Shea Weber the puck, MacDonald is camped out in front of the net in a perfect position to screen the goalie.
I mean, this honestly couldn’t have been any worse for Mason.
Andrew MacDonald against the Arizona Coyotes
Early in the game, the Flyers give up a goal, primarily because MacDonald showed no desire to attack the puck carrier and simply backed up, just giving more time and space.
This is dreadfully bad. He was in position to at least step up and block the lane, but instead just simply backed further and further.
Later in the game, as the Coyotes were breaking out of their own zone, MacDonald was again in position to challenge a puck carrier but hesitated too long, and then was playing from behind the 8-ball.
Wait, what happened there?
Giving the puck carrier the middle lane from the start is what creates the whole problem, before it gets worse.
At this point, MacDonald is likely to take a penalty or award the Coyotes a penalty shot if anything.
MacDonald ends up in the back of the net, but the worse news for him is that the puck was already in there.
Amazing 'WOWY' for you tonight:@NHLFlyers with AMac on ice 5v5: 11 vs 18 (37.9%)
— Alexander Appleyard (@avappleyard) October 28, 2016
without AMac on ice 5v5: 38 vs 18 (67.9%) #Flyers
That is so bad that you almost have to respect it.
Where to go from here?
Who knows. Last season, Philadelphia placed him on waivers and he was playing in the AHL with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, giving the Flyers a tiny bit of cap relief. But it seems to me that the biggest benefit of MacDonald playing in the AHL was the fact that he wasn’t playing in the NHL.
Is a trade possible?
I know that in the NHL, you should never say never, but this one, I imagine would take some crafty work from Ron Hextall (which we have seen him do, so that wouldn’t surprise me). Perhaps some retained salary could get it done, but the Flyers, being a team that annually spends to the cap aren’t in a great position to retain salary on a contract for the next 3 seasons.
Is a buyout possible?
Again, due to Philadelphia’s cap situation, it’s unlikely. At this point and time, they’re up against the cap as it stands, using LTIR relief.
What would a buyout look like, if it were to come to fruition?
Using the buyout calculator tool at Cap Friendly, we can see what it would look like for the Flyers salary cap situation if they opted to buy out MacDonald during the summer coming up.
You’re looking at between $1 million and $1.5 million of dead money on the salary cap for 6 more years, instead of $5 million on the cap for 3 more years. A problem would become a smaller but longer lasting problem.
My guess as to how it is solved?
My honest answer; I think MacDonald will be able to be traded at some point.
Dave Hakstol already has scratched him from the lineup this season, as he was not in the lineup on Saturday night against the Pittsburgh Penguins. If Hakstol needs to send a message to his GM that he isn’t going to play MacDonald, Hextall will need to make a move.
"Yeah, but he has a bad contract, there’s no way someone will trade for him," you may say. My rebuttal: Rob Scuderi was traded twice in a year, and one of the GMs who traded for him was Stan Bowman.
Ron Hextall has done a really good job since taking the reins in Philadelphia, but Paul Holmgren left him with one hell of a going away present. I think he will find a trade suitor at some point, and my guess is that it will take him sweetening the deal with a prospect or a pick to be able to get it done, but it will be worth it, because MacDonald is that detrimental to the Flyers blue line and salary cap situation both.
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