Ristolainen extension another sign of the Flyers' dysfunction

Chuck Fletcher doubled down on a mistake, signing the underwhelming defender to a five-year extension when the Flyers are clearly in need of a reset.

Video Transcript

JUSTIN CUTHBERT: Last thing here before we move to a betting tip and the Power Five. Someone needs to take the power away from Chuck Fletcher. The Philadelphia Flyers general manager signed Rasmus Ristolainen into a contract extension on Thursday. Rasmus Ristolainen, he of Buffalo Sabres' fame or infamy, was acquired for a first round pick 14th overall last summer. And after another bad season, another failed season, another failed season at both the individual and team level.

This is a player who has never played in the playoffs in nine seasons, has never had a positive goal-- or shot attempts share in nine seasons, and has declining offensive numbers. And yet $25 million over five years was just added to his personal bank account ledger. That makes sense. With Ristolainen, the top four in Philly-- which is not doing a great job clearly, team is non-competitive-- are locked in for a bit. And Ristolainen and Ryan Ellis in particular, locked up through 2027 while taking up over $11 million on the salary cap.

The Philadelphia Flyers are clearly a team that needs to be torn down and yet they continue to add questionable assets on long term deals. Ryan Ellis should be better-- dealt with injury all year-- but he's going to be 37 at the end of that deal. Ristolainen, at least it's his primer. What we thought it was going to be his prime, but he's already nine years into his career. Five more years [? will ?] be 14 years. I wonder if he gets a playoff game in.