Philadelphia Flyers re-sign defenseman Mark Friedman
The Philadelphia Flyers have signed defenseman Mark Friedman to a two-year, one-way extension on Monday, hours after the first official day of Phase 3 began. The deal is worth $725,000 a year which is quite the raise for Friedman.
Friedman was drafted by the Flyers in the 3rd round of the 2014 NHL Draft and played three seasons in college for Bowling Green State where he appeared in 121 games and recorded 68 points for the school. Since 2016-17, Friedman has played in parts of four seasons with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms where he’s racked up 60 points in 186 games.
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Before this season Friedman had only appeared in one game for the Philadelphia Flyers, but that changed this year as he was able to make his way into playing six games for an outstanding Philadelphia Flyers squad with one of the best young defense corps in the league.
During his time with the big club, I would say that Friedman more than held his own and one could even argue he belongs at the very least as a seventh defenseman on the squad.
Friedman possesses the coveted right-handed shot that seemed so rare for a Flyers defenseman to have until recently. With the Flyers this year he really didn’t stand out in a negative way, which I think is all you can ask for from a bottom pairing defenseman.
However, Friedman did somewhat stand out to me as he appeared to always make the correct play with the puck and never seemed panicked while playing at the NHL level.
This is a very smart and potentially sneaky signing by Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher as I believe Friedman could have the potential to play on the second D pairing on a lot of NHL clubs and to have him locked in for two years at $750k is outstanding. Since joining the Flyers as GM, Chuck Chuck Fletcher has made all the right moves and this one, although it appears small, is a classic example of just how great a job Fletcher’s done with this roster.
The Flyers now find themselves with five defensemen under contract for next year with Robert Hagg and Phil Myers as RFA’s and veteran defenseman Justin Braun most likely hitting the free agent market.
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For the time being at least, the Flyers are loaded on the back end and Friedman figures to be a part of a stacked defense corps for at least the next two seasons.