Flyers, Claude Giroux agree eight-year, $66 million extension

UPDATE: The Flyers confirmed Friday morning that they've sealed an eight-year contract extension with Claude Giroux.

ONE YEAR ago, Peter Laviolette called him the best player in the world.

Starting next season, Claude Giroux will be paid like one of the best players in the world.

The Flyers confirmed Friday morning that they've sealed an 8-year contract extension with Giroux that will pay him in the neighborhood of $66 million. The extension will kick in for the 2014-15 season and run through 2022.

"Claude is a high-quality young man that over the past few years has blossomed into our best player and also one of the top players in the league," Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren said in a statement issued by the team. "We look forward to more and better things to come from Claude over the next number of years as we try to achieve our goal of becoming a championship team."

The deal had been in the works for 2 weeks. Giroux was not officially eligible to sign an extension with the Flyers until entering the final year of his current 3-year, $11.25 million deal on July 1.

Giroux, 25, will carry a salary-cap hit of around $8.25 million per season. His salary-cap figure this season will be $3.75 million.

Under the new collective bargaining agreement, 8 years is the longest a player can be retained by a team in one deal. Giroux will be 34 when the contract expires.

In total, the deal will be the second-richest contract in the Flyers' 45-season history, falling short of Mike Richards' $69 million pact signed in 2007. Richards' contract was for 12 years.

Under the new deal, the Flyers' captain will be tied for the fifth-highest salary-cap hit in the NHL in 2014 with a nearly identical deal as Anaheim's Ryan Getzlaf. The Ducks signed Getzlaf (8 years, $66 million) and Corey Perry (8 years, $69 million) to similar contracts within weeks of each other last year.

Giroux's contract will likely include a no-movement clause, though it is not applicable until he turns 27.

Giroux apparently showed the Flyers enough in 2011-12, when he piled up 93 points, the most by a Flyer in a single season since Eric Lindros in 1999, to warrant the rich, long-term deal. He had a slight drop in points-per-game production, falling from 1.21 in 2011-12 to 0.98 in the lockout-shortened 2013 campaign (13 goals, 34 assists in 48 games).

For his career, Giroux has 290 points in 333 games with the Flyers.

Despite his 5-11, 172-pound frame, Giroux has been relatively durable for the Flyers. He has missed just five games over the past four seasons, all of which he sat out in 2011-12 due to his second career concussion. Giroux has also been a proven playoff scorer, one of only a handful of players to post better-than-point-per-game (55 points in 50 Stanley Cup playoff games) numbers since the 2004-05 work stoppage that changed the game.

The Hearst, Ontario, native is a near-lock to represent Canada in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

The Flyers announced they are bringing back forward Adam Hall on a 1-year, $600,000 deal for next season. Hall, 32, was snapped up by the Flyers off waivers on April 3 and did not score in 11 games with the team but was a valuable checking-line contributor.

DN Members Only: Frank Seravalli explains what the Flyers still need to do this off-season.

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