[Signing] Flames re-sign Phillips (one year, 750k NHL/140k AHL)

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by midniteowl

Yeah, after Martin St. Louis, you'd think they'd learn a lesson...

Uh...Johnny Gaudreau was significantly undersized, drafted in the fourth round, years after St Louis played for the Flames. It sure seems like they learned their lesson?


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[FormerPresJamesTaylor]

Originally Posted by TheScorpion

Phillips has been a really special AHL player since he was 21. He deserves a shot more than anybody else down there.

Let's not devalue words for the sake of hyperbole

[TheScorpion]

No hyperbole in that statement.

[Samonadreau]

He will be a quad A guy through and through. Isnt the worst thing. Im sure he will get a handfull of NHL games in.

[Calgary4LIfe]

I like Phillips as a prospect, and I like the fact that the Flames have him and re-signed him. I hope he makes it.


I am scratching my head at the moment feeling like I am missing something. Is he much like Cristiano Ronaldo last season on ManU? Creating and setting up his teammates all the time, only to have them blow it? I didn't realize that the Heat were full of Harry Maguires.


Phillips is tracking and trending well. Not as quick as one would hope, but definite improvement on a season-to-season comparison. He has not been special though, unless we are throwing that word out for any player that hits a PPG in their 4th pro season (much less at the age of 21).



Outside of being 5'4", Gerbe wasn't a 'special player' was he? Look up his stats. He was a better scorer. PPG (one point shy anyway) in his 21 year old season (and rookie season) in the AHL. Became a 4th liner. Phillips is not the 'mini monster' that Gerbe was though. Phillips is much more like Gaudreau in build than Gerbe. That's fine. Gaudreau wouldn't have been effective on the 4th line either trying to interrupt opposing teams' cycles. He was good defensively as a scorer (great in fact, when playing for good coaches), but he was not a 4th liner. Dube, Mangiapane, Ruzicka - all were as good or better than Phillips statistically at an earlier age, and all were bigger bodies that started off on the 4th line.


It just makes sense to wait until Phillips blows the doors off the AHL to be put into a good spot in the NHL. He isn't showing that he can be an effective scorer today at the NHL level, so let's not bang on that drum that this organization is somehow unfairly treating him.


Seriously, name a single prospect that was unfairly treated by the Flames. If anything, there have been a bunch that were unfairly gifted minutes (cough Baerthschi cough). Let's not raise expectations unfairly like the Feaster and Wisebroad did with Jankowski. Let's just let Phillips continue his development and hopefully make the NHL. He is trending in the right direction, but all this 'special' talk is coming out of absolutely someone's imagination right now, or that term is being thrown around very loosely. If Phillips was special as a 21 year old, then I guess Mangiapane, Dube and Pelletier should be considered generational?


I hope he makes it - and I think he has a fair shot to make it given his work ethic, skill-set and non-stop motor. He has a ways to go first, however.



As an aside, I ended up doing a much deeper dive than I thought I would on Phillips, and somehow landed here. This is the AHL scoring leader last season, and this is fricking amazing.

NSFW!

That fake moustache ain't fooling anyone Andrew!!

[Stampede2TheCup]

Originally Posted by TheScorpion

Phillips has been a really special AHL player since he was 21. He deserves a shot more than anybody else down there.

I concur, for a cup of coffee as a call-up at the very least.

I watched him a fair bit in person in junior and I certainly thought he was a special player then. It’s always hard to say whether someone with such a size or skill differential will ultimately be able to make the NHL, but certainly left the impression that he was more than just a set of wheels that could dominate junior.

I watched Ty Ronning in the season he scored 60 goals in the WHL fade and get 1 goal and 6 assists in 7 games vs Matthew Phillips’ Royals in the playoffs. Phillips dominated multiple games in the series and ended up with 6 goals and 13 assists for 19 points in 11 playoffs games. Those two were in the same draft year, but Phillips was one year younger in his birth year/junior career. I remember thinking that Phillips was somewhat reminiscent of an 04 Martin St. Louis in those 2018 playoffs.

I think it was the next season when we witnessed a five or six goal game Phillips tallied against the Giants in the regular season.

My girlfriend at the time asked if we would see Ronning in the NHL in the next couple years because he’s done so well in the WHL. I remember I actually laughed out loud. I told her that even though guys that size can do well in junior, they often really struggle to make the NHL and often take 5+ years if they do. I said Ronning had a lot of heart but nowhere near the chances of Phillips making it someday.

——

Also, fun fact… Milos Roman really stepped up in those 2018 playoffs and probably got himself drafted by us in that series. I remember clearly Milos Roman was the Giants best player in game one. Then game 6 and 7, 16-year old Bowen Byram stood out as the Giants’ best.

I saw Brad Treliving at the arena once in that series. The Flames were imploding at the time and Hamonic got injured that night. Tre may have looked like the most depressed/distraught person I’ve ever witnessed at a hockey game.

Unfortunately, it turned out that while Milos Roman had fit in REALLY well on a line with Ronning and Tyler Benson, he was riding coattails a whole lot more than it seemed that season. Injury problems creating a small sample size for his first year in North America made it a bit of a gamble too.

[Canada 02]

nothing wrong with being a great AHL player. Probably places him in the top 1000 active hockey players in the world.
His next AHL contract is likely for ~$750K, and when he is done, will likely have career earnings around $5-7M

[Flamesfan05]

Originally Posted by Canada 02

nothing wrong with being a great AHL player. Probably places him in the top 1000 active hockey players in the world.
His next AHL contract is likely for ~$750K, and when he is done, will likely have career earnings around $5-7M

No , AHL players do not make that much. They would be lucky to even get half that. Most good AHL players make less than 200K unless they are on a 1 way contract

[TheScorpion]

Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe

I like Phillips as a prospect, and I like the fact that the Flames have him and re-signed him. I hope he makes it.


I am scratching my head at the moment feeling like I am missing something. Is he much like Cristiano Ronaldo last season on ManU? Creating and setting up his teammates all the time, only to have them blow it? I didn't realize that the Heat were full of Harry Maguires.

In fairness. He started his 2020–21 season well over point-per-game, then the Heat did kinda turn into a bunch of Harry Maguires. Every game they lost a different player — Wolf, Zary, Petrovic, Pospisil, Kirkland, Froese, Gawdin were all gone by a certain point and Phillips ended up playing with Kris Bennett and Giorgio Estephan on the top line.

I would also disagree that scoring 33 points in 38 games at age 21 isn't very impressive — again, he was a driver. And this past year, at age 23, I'd posit that he absolutely did blow the doors off — the only guys ahead of him in the AHL scoring race were all in their late 20s.

But the Flames haven't really dicked him around at all. He's been kept from the NHL because the big club has been ridiculously healthy. That's been the circumstance, and it's just the reality of the situation. Doesn't change that he's earned a look.

[Canada 02]

Originally Posted by Flamesfan05

No , AHL players do not make that much. They would be lucky to even get half that. Most good AHL players make less than 200K unless they are on a 1 way contract

your caveat (one way contract) is why Phillips will get paid pretty well on his next contract.

Glenn Gawdin just signed with the Ducks organization and will get $750K (one-way) this year and a guaranteed minimum of $530K next year; Byron Froese, is on a two-way, but will average ~$450K the next two seasons in the AHL. He already has career earnings >$3M

All of the recent AHL tweeners that Flames signed recently will have an AHL salary from $250K to $950K