Does passing on the Johnny Gaudreau sweepstakes show the Flyers lack a clear plan?

With the first official day of free agency in the books, Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher showed that his sorely needed roster retool is more passive-aggressive than it is aggressive.

According to ESPN, longtime Calgary Flames winger Johnny Gaudreau, a 28-year-old South Jersey native who finished fourth in Hart Trophy voting last season after posting a career-high 115 points, told friends that he wanted to play for the Flyers on his next contract. That should’ve been welcome news for Fletcher and his “aggressive retool” — after all, he said to reporters at season’s end that the Flyers need to add talent. With his skating and game-changing ability, Gaudreau’s face might as well be listed in the dictionary next to the word “talent.”

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But in a flat-cap world, there’s a caveat. At the noon start of free agency on Wednesday, the Flyers lacked the necessary cap space to sign a player of Gaudreau’s caliber. He reportedly balked at 8 years, $10.5 million annually to stay in Calgary for nonmonetary reasons. Even if multiple reports indicated Gaudreau was interested in playing closer to home, he wasn’t signing at his next stop for unlimited Chickie’s & Pete’s crabfries alone.

The Flyers have had since January, once the wheels really fell off after their second double-digit losing streak, to start contemplating a plan to create cap space to make big moves in free agency. But the Flyers didn’t make a cost-saving move until they bought out beloved winger Oskar Lindblom of the final year of his contract on Tuesday to free up $3.33 million.

Instead of opening up additional space by — for example — moving winger James van Riemsdyk, his $7 million cap hit next season, and (as Sportsnet reported) a “sweetener” like a high draft pick or prospect, the Flyers stood pat. Fletcher said the Flyers were never in on Gaudreau in his press conference late Wednesday, and that they never were able to make room for a splashy free-agent signing.

“You’d have to move multiple contracts to be able to do that,” Fletcher said. “You have to have a team [willing to be a trade partner] as well. So, in some cases, contracts are extremely hard to move. And in other cases, there are players that we don’t want to move. We feel they’re a big part of our future.”

Ultimately, with Philly never in play according to Fletcher, Gaudreau signed a seven-year, $68.25 million contract ($9.75 million AAV) with another Metropolitan Division team. No, not with the neighboring New Jersey Devils, or the New York Islanders, the two other expected favorites to land his services. But rather shockingly, with the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Gaudreau’s decision to sign with a team in a market like Columbus and for a team that also missed the playoffs last season only will enrage Flyers fans more. Landing the superstar seemed attainable, and the Flyers passed.

Inquirer columnist Mike Sielski argued that the Flyers shouldn’t sign Gaudreau, not because of his skill set, but because the Flyers should be rebuilding. They should be keeping their draft picks and their young players, not flipping them and giving out long-term, costly contracts to veteran players.

Sure, but alas, the Flyers aren’t rebuilding. At least, that’s what they’ve repeatedly said and what their recent actions have shown.

A rebuilding team doesn’t trade three draft picks (a 2024 second-round pick, a 2023 third, and a fourth in 2022) for defenseman Tony DeAngelo plus a seventh-rounder in 2022 and then sign DeAngelo to a two-year, $5 million AAV contract. A rebuilding team wouldn’t sign defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen to a five-year, $5.1 million AAV deal before the trade deadline. A rebuilding team doesn’t give 31-year-old fourth-line enforcer Nicolas Deslauriers a four-year, $1.75 million contract, especially when he has never played on a contract worth more than $1 million annually. Would you rather have middle pairing defensemen DeAngelo and Ristolainen for a combined $10.1 million or a bona-fide superstar in Gaudreau for $9.8 million per year?

By letting Gaudreau, the definition of skill and speed, not to mention a local athlete, sign with Columbus without even putting up a fight, Fletcher showed he has one foot in an “aggressive retool” and the other in a rebuild. Time will tell what result this nets the Flyers, but still, the plan lacks consistency. If the plan is not a retool and it’s not a rebuild, then when do the Flyers expect to be competitive again?

“We’ll find out this season,” Fletcher said. ”We’ll see how we progress. See how some of the young players either develop or don’t develop. See which players can be a part of our future.”

With free agency behind him and training camp two months away, Fletcher said the Flyers must “stabilize” this year. He added that the team figures to improve its goals against, its structure, its penalty kill, and its power play. Then, next offseason, the Flyers will have more cap space when the ceiling goes up as expected to make the moves the organization sees fit.

So, the Flyers aren’t aggressively retooling — they’re aggressively running it back. They’re hoping first-line center Sean Couturier is capable of returning to prior form after having back surgery. They’re hoping top-six winger Joel Farabee isn’t at a long-term risk after undergoing disc replacement surgery, a relatively new procedure in the realm of professional sports. They’re hoping second-line center Kevin Hayes rebounds after having multiple surgeries last season, the most recent to treat an infection in his groin.

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They’re hoping new head coach John Tortorella can do more with essentially the same opening-night roster — this time, without former captain Claude Giroux and potentially without defenseman Ryan Ellis — that Alain Vigneault had last year.

They’re hoping their largely unproven core of young players, namely Morgan Frost, Owen Tippett, Wade Allison, and Tanner Laczynski, take strides in their development and become nightly contributors at the NHL level.

“There’s some things that we have to see, but we’re pretty, pretty confident that it’s going to be a much more competitive team,” Fletcher said. “And from there, I guess we’ll see where we need to put the money and which young players will be a part of the future which young players can’t cut it.”

Is hoping enough to turn the Flyers’ fortunes around? Fletcher better hope so because the clock is ticking.