Flyers sign Hayden Hodgson to NHL deal

Philadelphia rewards a solid depth player with a contract.

Oh, you thought the transactions were done after Monday’s NHL Trade Deadline? Well, you would be terribly wrong because the excitement continues.

Announced by the team on Tuesday morning, the Philadelphia Flyers have signed 26-year-old forward Hayden Hodgson to a one-year NHL contract for next season, with a $750,000 cap hit.

According to Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravelli, multiple NHL teams were “sniffing” around Hodgson and the Flyers certainly did not want to lose the forward to another team that wanted to pony up the full-time deal. And they would be justified in doing so, as Hodgson is currently tied for the team lead in goals scored for the AHL Phantoms and outside of uber-veterans Cal O’Reilly and Adam Clendening, the newest Flyer leads the team in points as well.

This season is the first time that Hodgson has even stepped in the AHL since 2018, having played exclusively in the ECHL and was just passed around from team-to-team, appearing in games for six different teams at that level since 2017. Through 44 games this season for the Phantoms, Hodgson has 18 goals and 29 points.

With both Connor Bunnaman and German Rubtsov being included in the Claude Giroux trade with the Florida Panthers, the Flyers suddenly have a lot of room for more contracts, having now just 44 of their allowed 50 with the Hodgson signing. This certainly means that the team is gearing up to offer entry-level deals to either college free agents or their drafted prospects that are finishing up their collegiate seasons — the likes of defenseman Ronnie Attard, ultra-productive winger Bobby Brink, and center Noah Cates, might get some NHL contracts in the next few weeks.

There will be more transactions to come, so we can at least look forward to that.