Suter’s Suitors: Will the Defenseman End Up in Philly?

This is the first in a series of posts addressing potential targets the Flyers may look to acquire this offseason to upgrade the team in free agency or via a trade.

The consensus among Flyers fans is that the team needs to upgrade its defense. After Chris Pronger was lost for the season (and possibly his career) with a concussion early last year, the defense struggled, prompting the Flyers to add Nicklas Grossmann from Dallas and Pavel Kubina from Tampa Bay at the trade deadline. Grossmann played well and was rewarded with a contract extension, while Kubina struggled and was a healthy scratch by the end of the postseason. The Flyers have Braydon Coburn, Grossmann, Kimmo Timonen, Erik Gustafsson, Andreas Lilja, and Pronger (if he’s healthy) under contract for next season. Marc-Andre Bourdon is a restricted free agent, and the Flyers are expected to re-sign him. Matt Carle is an unrestricted free agent, but reports are that the Flyers have already worked out a deal with him that will pay him somewhere in the neighborhood of $4-5M per season. Kubina is expected to leave in free agency. If these moves are made and the status quo is kept, it would leave the Flyers with a group of solid, but unspectacular defensemen. Carle and Timonen provide offense from the blue line, Coburn and Grossmann shut down opposing top lines, and Gustafsson and Bourdon form a solid 3rd pairing. But with the struggles of Ilya Bryzgalov for much of last season, the Flyers could be looking to add someone else to the defensive corps. And who better to add than Nashville defenseman Ryan Suter, the premier blueliner on the market?

Suter is 6’1, 200 pounds. He’s 27, an unrestricted free agent, and coming off his 7th season in the NHL, all with Nashville. This year, he was an all-star selection and put up 7 goals and 39 assists to tally 46 points in 79 games. He had a +15 rating and formed arguably the best defensive tandem in the NHL with RFA Shea Weber (more on him another day). Suter is more of an offensive-minded defenseman, but he more than holds his own defensively and would be a great addition to any team’s defense. Sounds perfect, right? Throw in the fact that he plays for Nashville, who has been notorious for struggling to retain their own free agents (they traded the rights to Scott Hartnell and Kimmo Timonen to the Flyers in the 2007 offseason because they couldn’t re-sign them), and we should probably just fast-forward to July 1st (when NHL free agency begins) and wait for Suter’s press conference in Philadelphia. There are a few problems with this, however.

First and foremost, there are reports that suggest Suter isn’t interested in playing in Philadelphia. Flyers insider Tim Panaccio reported that Suter and his agent, Neil Sheehy, have prepared a list of teams that Suter would be willing to negotiate with if Nashville traded his rights to them, and Philadelphia is not on that list (Link here) . However, Suter’s agent said there is no list and Suter is open to any and all possibilities. I’m not sure which side to believe, but I do know that I wouldn’t want a player whose heart isn’t in it to be playing in Philadelphia. If he isn’t comfortable here, his play will most likely suffer, and the fans would be quick to turn on him, making a bad situation worse.

To complicate the above scenario, Suter is going to be expensive. Very expensive. Speculation says that he’ll command somewhere

around $6-8M per year on the open market. That’s a lot of money to pay for a player, even with the salary cap expected to increase this offseason. That salary is especially high for a player who some believe isn’t as good as his numbers would suggest. There are whispers going around the league that Suter has only thrived as an offensive defenseman because of Shea Weber playing shutdown defense (and very good offense as well) alongside him. They say that Weber makes Suter look better than he is offensively and covers for him defensively. I’m not sure if that’s the case, but I’d rather not find out the ugly truth about Suter in the first year of a 6 year, $45M contract.

Finally, Matt Carle is a good defenseman, and he’s very similar to Suter. They are both slightly undersized, offensively-minded defenseman. Suter is a little bigger, has a better shot, and is somewhat better defensively, but those differences may not be worth paying Suter $2M+ more than Carle would get on the open market.

For all these reasons and more, I think it would be wise for the Flyers to pass on Ryan Suter if his price tag goes above $5M per year this offseason. Suter seems to want to avoid the spotlight, as all of the teams on his “wish list”, per Panaccio, are in the Western Conference. In Philadelphia, the spotlight burns bright, particularly on the goaltenders and the defensemen who play in front of them. While Suter is a very good player and will be a great addition to any team, the combination of the factors listed above means that he might not be a good match with Philadelphia.