The Flyers have placed Tony DeAngelo on waivers for the purposes of a buyout. According to CapFriendly, DeAngelo is the first-ever player to ever be bought out more than once dating all the way back to 2006. (If you see any other players listed more than once, it is because the player's buyout was split among two teams because of salary retained in a previous trade.)

The Flyers could not complete a trade with Carolina involving DeAngelo, which had been reported even before July 1. Heck, I even had a Fantasy Take partially typed out since it seemed to be agreed upon and was simply a matter of waiting for a CBA rule that disallowed a player to be traded back to his former team within a year if the trade included salary retention. Because I don't like to let my work go to waste, I'll share some of it (not the part about what would happen to his fantasy value with a return to Carolina):

DeAngelo recorded 42 points in 70 games with the Flyers. There are three things you need to know about DeAngelo: 1) His past behavior issues have been well-documented and may continue to be a red flag, 2) His defensive play can be worrisome (minus-27 last season), and 3) He can score, especially on the power play.

Another bit of info that I'll share from that unwritten fantasy take is that TDA's departure from Philly will help Cam York's value. Only three of York's 20 points in 2022-23 were on the power play, but he had a 40% share of the power-play minutes. As well, eight of his 13 points in the AHL last season were on the power play, so was clearly getting his reps there. The Flyers as a team had the league's second-worst power play in 2022-23 (15.6 PP%), which means that York is more of a late-round sleeper as opposed to a universally rostered player.

What's next for DeAngelo? He had a season left on his two-year contract at $5 million per season. I predict he will still end up somewhere in the NHL, but likely at a discount and a very short-term deal. A minimal investment on TDA will mean that a coach won't feel guilty about healthy scratching him if needed, as John Tortorella did for the last five games of the 2022-23 season.

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Disturbing report on Alex Galchenyuk and why his contract with the Coyotes was terminated. Hopefully he gets the help that he needs, but this might be it for his NHL career. Galchenyuk had been clinging on to an NHL job these past few seasons before this incident happened. By my count he has suited up for seven different teams over the past six seasons after being the third overall pick of the Canadiens in the 2012 draft.

Perhaps related to the Galchenyuk news, Zach Sanford has signed a one-year, two-way contract with Arizona. Sanford has shown some offensive punch in the past (30 PTS in 58 GP with St. Louis in 2019-20), and he is a big-bodied forward who can bring the hits (169 HITS in 2021-22). That being said, the signing is not fantasy relevant in most leagues.

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As I work through my sections of the Fantasy Guide (available on July 28), I'll try to note some observations that I've picked up along the way that could be useful in some way to fantasy leagues (or simply interesting, if not trivial). I'll start with injuries and how they might affect certain teams this coming season. I don't have any numbers to back my information, so these are just teams I've picked based on the number of significant players lost to injury during 2022-23 and number of significant players that could be lost to injury in 2023-24. 

First, here are four teams that were hit hard by the injury bug in 2022-23 and how they might recover.

Columbus

The Blue Jackets were ravaged by injuries like no other team, especially on defense. So their fix for that this offseason was to… acquire a whole bunch of defensemen. Kidding aside, they went through 14 defensemen that played at least two games. This is a team that can only get better in 2023-24 if they can stay somewhat healthier. Only Anaheim had a worse goal differential than Columbus (-116), but that number should improve, which means that Elvis Merzlikins should be better… or at least not quite as bad. Don't forget about Zach Werenski in your fantasy drafts, as his shoulder surgery made him a major contributor to the high man-games lost total.  

Montreal

I don't think the Canadiens are a playoff team next season, but they could climb up the standings a little. Having Cole Caufield for an entire season should help their offense, which finished 26^th with 2.77 goals per game. Don't discount what that could mean to Nick Suzuki as well, although his scoring pace didn't really change after Caufield was out of the lineup following shoulder surgery. The Habs could also have had better luck with their injuries on defense, as they went through 11 defensemen with only one defenseman (Johnathan Kovacevic) playing more than 65 games. The 26-year-old Kovacevic had played only four NHL games prior to 2022-23. It's difficult to win when your defense doesn't have a lot of experience.

Ottawa

While we're on the subject of defensemen, how about Ottawa with 14? They didn't seem to have the rash of injuries of Columbus or the revolving door of Montreal, but that can't be ideal for a team that had serious playoff hopes. Losing Josh Norris for most of the season was a blow after adding Alex DeBrincat and Claude Giroux in the offseason, while I'm wondering how it's possible for Anton Forsberg to injure both knees in a game. For Ottawa to move up the standings as they had hoped, some better injury luck would be a start.     

Philadelphia

Not that you're expecting much from the Flyers anyway, but a big reason as to why they've fallen from being a Stanley Cup contender in the bubble to complete rebuild three years later is injuries. Ryan Ellis probably won't play again. However, the good news is that both Sean Couturier and Cam Atkinson are expected to return. Atkinson has been playing in a summer league, while Adam Kimelman is reporting that Couturier should be ready for opening night. These were two top-6 forwards and one top-4 defenseman that were basically out of commission for the Flyers last season. Although the Flyers have already begun their rebuild, they might at least be in a better state injury-wise.  

A healthy Sean Couturier will be back as the No. 1 center … and Flyers have said the expectation is he'll be in the lineup opening night.

As far as the D pairs go, I would expect a top 4 next season of Sanheim, Ristolainen, York and Staal – not sure on the combos though. https://t.co/yQfwoWmztH

— Adam Kimelman (@NHLAdamK) July 14, 2023

I was also going to include Nashville in this section, but two of their key injured players (Matt Duchene and Ryan Johansen) have since moved on.

Next, here are two teams that could face considerable injuries this season.

Florida

The playoff run was a dream, but the cost might be tremendous. For starters, Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour are both expected to miss the start of training camp. In fact, the Panthers might be without both of their top defensemen to start the season. Then there's Matthew Tkachuk and his broken sternum, which should be healed in time to start the season, but he still might not be without pain. Bringing in Oliver Ekman-Larsson might help in having an experienced d-man in the fold, although his game has taken a nosedive in recent seasons and he is not without his own injury issues. Might they struggle to make the playoffs?

Colorado

These players aren't necessarily all dealing with injuries this offseason, but the Avalanche have a considerable number of current and potential Band-Aid Boys:

And Makar.
Francouz.
(not to mention Landeskog)

— Dobber (@DobberHockey) July 12, 2023

I didn't think the Avs would be as affected by injuries as the Panthers, but those are a lot of names. At this point, Gabriel Landeskog has to be treated like a player coming out of retirement if he does in fact find a way to return next season, as he will have missed two whole seasons. Unlike most teams, whose question marks might be in goal, on defense, or with scoring lines, the Avalanche's biggest hurdle in competing for a Stanley Cup seems to be health.

We might have to take these observations with a grain of salt, since many predicted that the Boston Bruins would fall out of the playoff race due to Brad Marchand and Charlie McAvoy missing the start of the season. That didn't seem to matter as they ran away with the President's Trophy.

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