Flyers begin a busy offseason by re-signing defenseman Nick Seeler
Seeler played the bulk of his minutes this season on the third pairing alongside Keith Yandle and on the penalty kill.
The Flyers added depth to their blue line on Thursday, as general manager Chuck Fletcher announced the team re-signed defenseman Nick Seeler to a two-year, one-way/two-way contract with an average annual value of $775,000.
Seeler, 28, played 43 games in his first season with the Flyers (one goal, two assists, minus-3) and his fourth in the NHL.
He beat out defenseman Adam Clendening for a spot on the Flyers’ roster out of training camp and suited up for the season opener against the Vancouver Canucks with defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen injured.
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In an ideal scenario, Seeler would have been the Flyers’ seventh defenseman. However, because top-pairing defenseman Ryan Ellis missed 78 games with a pelvic injury, Seeler spent the majority of the season with the Flyers on a two-way contract.
Seeler played the bulk of his minutes on the third pairing alongside Keith Yandle and on the penalty kill. He ranked fifth on the team in blocked shots (67) and wasn’t afraid to drop the gloves.
The Eden Prairie, Minn., native suffered a lower-body injury on April 2 against the Toronto Maple Leafs, which knocked him out of the lineup for the rest of the year. Toward the end of the season, Seeler skated with the team on a few occasions and said during his April 30 exit interview that he will be “going into the summer healthy.”
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He initially signed a one-year, two-way contract with the Flyers as a free agent on July 28.
Seeler’s new contract is one of the first dominoes to fall for the Flyers in what should be a busy offseason reshaping the roster. Four players (Martin Jones, Nate Thompson, Keith Yandle, and Kevin Connauton) are set to become unrestricted free agents, and several more are restricted free agents, including Morgan Frost, Owen Tippett, Zack MacEwen, Wade Allison, and Tanner Laczynski.