That fact isn’t changing for the 2015-16 campaign, but there’s still a major difference: He’s finally starting the season in the National Hockey League.
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That was Andrew MacDonald’s reaction, according to Flyers general manager Ron Hextall, when told Monday morning he was being waived.
But who wants to think of next season when we haven’t even begun this season? And the past two years, while Mason worked hard to improve his work on the game-deciding shootout, he failed much more often than passed.
MacDonald, coming off a mistake-prone season, still has five years left on a six-year, $30 million extension he signed in 2014. Yet, that’s mostly true when that player’s team is already log jammed at the players’ position, and they don’t get proper playing time to contribute to the team’s success.
Hextall on MacDonald: “I think he was shocked”. Yet, let me play devil’s advocate here, and say Hextall made the wrong move in doing that. “So that’s all I’m focused on right now”. The Flyers had eight defensemen on one-way contracts and had five defensive prospects figuring to push the envelope.
This move guaranteed a roster spot for the 21-year-old Laughton, who Hextall said deserved to be here.
MacDonald was weak spot for the Flyers in the first year of his surprisingly lucrative contract.
Even the lines aren’t much different under rookie coach Dave Hakstol than they were under Craig Berube a year ago.
The Flyers would be about $670,000 under the $71.4 million salary cap if MacDonald clears waivers Tuesday and goes to the AHL’s Phantoms. Clearly, Manning is in Hakstol’s plans this season.
“We tried to do a few things but you can only do what you do”, Hextall said. “If anyone else doesn’t believe in us, that’s their problem”, Simmonds said.
These not-so-deep Flyers have to stay relatively clean of injuries, which they’ve done as a young team growing together in recent years.
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Jakub Voracek, who played in all four season series games against the Rangers had one goal, two assists and was the Flyers standout player in the series. “That went a long way, too”. “You combine that with one guy who will get up ice more with a little more offensive instincts”. It may not be the most noticeable play, maybe a chip-out here, a chip-in there, but if you don’t do that correctly, the other team could pick that up and have an odd-man rush going the other way. They are both expected to be in the lineup on opening night. Hakstol said the seventh defenseman in tomorrow’s game in Tampa Bay will probably be Radko Gudas or Luke Schenn. We do, however, seemingly have a great defenseman in Evgeny Medvedev, but he can’t save this corps by himself.
