TK Is Worth It, You Fucking Pigeons

To start, and I honestly don’t know why I even have to do this, I need to explain to you all in very simple terms that Travis Konecny is indeed a very good hockey player. Some would even say elite.

KONECNY THE PLAYER

Over the last 2 seasons, Konecny has averaged .95 PPG, netting over 30 goals and assists in both. He’s molded himself into a leader in the locker room and developed his game to an elite level, which is something we should expect for at least the next 5-6 seasons. He can score from anywhere on the ice, he’s continued to improve his game on the defensive side of the puck and he isn’t afraid to play that Broad Street Bully style of hockey. He is the embodiment of what it means to be a Flyer.

Diving into his recent seasons further, we’ll see one of my favorite statistics when it comes to TK, his primary assist percentage. Of the 65 apples he had in 2023 and 2024, 70% of them were the primary. This shows that he is not only a guy who scores goals, but he also is the primary reason why others are scoring. This guy CREATES offense. You need players like this to win.

ESTIMATED CONTRACT

There’s been a ton of reports in regard to Konecny’s next contract. I’ve seen anything from the $9-10.5 million range.

While I would prefer TK to sign at $9M or less, I’ll be the first to say that anything over $10M is absolutely off the table and honestly laughable. Bottom line is his agent is asking for $10M+ and, as a fellow math guy, that’s just good business on his part. Negotiations will occur and we know Danny Briere will be coming in with an insanely low number to combat TK’s agents.

Me personally, I think when it comes to negotiating his contract the Flyers need to be very smart. We can’t completely break the bank because we still have a lot of building to do within this roster. But we also can’t completely low-ball TK and disrespect him. Having said that, I believe the Flyers should offer Konecny somewhere in the $8.5M range, with a signing bonus paid up front. The time value of money is much greater for TK if he got a large signing bonus, so he would be able to invest and earn interest, rather than getting that money years later.

In that scenario, the Flyers get a great cap hit and Konecny gets the big pay day he deserves. It’s a win-win-win scenario like Michael Scott told us about. The third win being us, the fans.

Now based on my estimated contract price of $8.5M, that would put TK’s salary at roughly 9% of the cap when his extension starts. That percentage cap number will only shrink as the NHL continues to grow. If you compare that to Claude Giroux’s extension back in 2013, where he occupied almost 12% of the cap, it’s a very very good price point for what TK brings to this team. I’m not comparing TK to Claude Giroux, he’s not Claude Giroux. So TK sitting at roughly 75% of what Giroux’s cap hit was makes a ton of sense from my point of view.

THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST

Now I want to dive into some of the opinions from the opposite end of the spectrum. The people out there that believe Konecny isn’t worth that kind of money and “we’d be better off trading him for assets.” I completely disagree with this sentiment and believe it’s a risk to trade him.

I don’t think flipping him for assets will get us the net profit you all think it will. Whatever we get in return for Konecny, would at minimum, need to become Konecny. First round picks are cool in theory, but there’s always so many misses. There’s very big drop offs of talent in the draft and the chances of finding a top end player like Konency are very slim.

The counter argument to this would be to trade TK in a hockey trade, for a player of need like a center or another defenseman. While that is true, I feel like it’s going to be very difficult to find a trade partner that gets us an NHL level player, most likely at the center position. The only center that I’ve seen that’s even remotely available is Zegras and I am not moving Konecny in a trade for Zegras.

My main point here is that I don’t want to trade Konecny and hope we get another Konecny level player within the next 3-5 seasons. The Flyers need to start building this team now and trading the best player on the team would only extend this rebuild, ultimately putting Michkov in a similar situation as Claude Giroux… an elite talent with zero support.

Trading him to me is nothing more than a risk I don’t want to take.

CLOSING REMARKS

Konecny deserves an extension in Philadelphia and you should not be too concerned about the price point, especially before the extension is even announced. What we have seen from TK over the last two seasons is exactly what you can expect to see from him going forward. He’s a beast and will continue to lead this team to greatness, alongside the Russian Mutant, Matvei Michkov. 

TLDR? TK is worth it, you fucking pigeons!

(Photo: NBC Sports Philadelphia)