Stamkos For Sale

According to csnphilly.com's Tim Panaccio, the Flyers are among several teams that are reportedly interested in signing restricted free agent Steven Stamkos. If Stamkos doesn't sign with Tampa by midnight tonight, the Flyers can then submit an offer sheet.

As of right now the Flyers have $8,281,905 in cap space according to CapGeek. Frank Seravalli of Daily News estimated that Stamkos would want $115 million over 12+ years, or a $9.58± million cap hit. Clearly the Flyers would have to forget about re-signing Villie Leino and they would have to trade a big name like Versteeg, Carle, or Hartnell to free up even more cap space.

There are two sides to the Stamkos debate. There are writers and reporters who say that it will absolutely not happen, and there are others who have inside sources that point to the Flyers making an offer.

The people who say that the Flyers will definitely not sign Stamkos point to the fact that they still have to sign Villie Leino and newly acquired players Jakub Voracek and Wayne Simmonds.

Josh Janet of gcobb.com also brings up a good point:

"The other problem with preparing an offer sheet for Stamkos is that the Lightning would have up to seven days to match the offer. During that time, the Flyers would be unable to sign free agents, as they would have no idea how much salary they have available."

Also Tampa general manager told Flyers general manager that he would match any offer made to Stamkos.

But if we have learned anything in the past week with the departure of Jeff Carter and Mike Richards it's that this Flyers team is capable of anything. They changed the entire nucleus of their team in the course of just one hour so clearly they are willing to move some guys to acquire Stamkos. At this point I feel that anything can happen. The Flyers traded their captain and it wouldn't surprise me to see another big name leave in order to free up cap space. Ultimately the Stamkos debate will come to an end in the very near future as free agency starts at midnight tonight.