Are the Philadelphia Flyers Mishandling Vincent Lecavalier in 2014-15?

The Philadelphia Flyers have played five games in December. Vincent Lecavalier, the one-time 50-goal man with a $4.5 million cap hit, a no-move clause and a contract that stretches until 2018, has been a healthy scratch for all of them.

The situation is anything but healthy.

“I definitely thought after a game, I'd come back in,” Lecavalier told Philly.com’s Frank Seravalli. “I guess [coach Craig Berube] didn't want me back in the lineup.”

In the same piece, Lecavalier described the situation as “frustrating” and denied rumours that he might be interested in retiring before his contract was up, telling Seravalli he knew what he was still capable of on and off the ice.

That self-confidence is understandable, even laudable; it’s hard to imagine any player managing a great career without. The trouble is that the same unshakable faith in one’s own abilities that helps fuel an athlete’s great career can also blind that athlete to what’s really happening around him. And while Lecavalier still sees himself as a useful NHL’er, the recent evidence rather strongly suggests otherwise.

Len Redkoles/Getty Images

The problems with Lecavalier’s game go beyond his weak (six points in 16 games) scoring numbers. Even at his best, Lecavalier was never really known as a two-way player, and as age and the rigours of 1,100-odd games at the NHL level take their toll, his overall play is sliding.

The player may not see that, and perhaps it’s not even to his advantage to see it, but the Flyers’ management and coaching staff have to be more ruthlessly honest when making their assessments.

With Lecavalier on the ice at five-on-five this season, Philadelphia has been outscored by a nearly 2-1 margin. The Flyers have been outshot 30-22 in an average hour with Lecavalier on the ice; the team’s average shot-attempt differential falls by nearly 20 per hour when he’s skating vs. when he isn’t.

This isn’t new; the numbers are more severe this season than they were in 2013-14, but even then it was clear that Philadelphia was getting crushed when Lecavalier was on the ice and that his most common linemates saw massive jumps in performance when they played without him.

The fact that Lecavalier is only now being taken out of the lineup is a testament not to his play but rather to his long and accomplished career and formidable reputation, a reputation which is probably the reason the team made the mistake of signing him in the first place.

The question is whether there is some other rational course of action available to the team.

Obviously, the Flyers would love to move Lecavalier; just as obviously a market for the centre doesn’t exist. Seravalli writes that Lecavalier’s agent was given permission to talk to other teams about acquiring the centre and adds that Philadelphia could retain half his salary and cap hit in a deal.

That didn’t produce a trade in the summer, when teams had significantly more cap flexibility than they do now; it’s hard to imagine the situation has changed much.

The situation here is obvious. Lecavalier will turn 35 in April, meaning that the steepest declines in his game lie ahead of him. On merit, he’s been a healthy scratch for a Flyers team that is presently just one point up on Buffalo and Carolina in the Eastern Conference.

And even with 50 percent of his contract being absorbed by Philadelphia, he’s going to count for $2.25 million against the cap for the rest of this season and three more.

Len Redkoles/Getty Images

A summer buyout would seem to make sense, but even with Lecavalier’s contract dropping in value over its final years, it’s going to be an awfully tough pill to swallow.

Thanks to his signing bonuses, Lecavalier would still count for nearly $2.9 million against the salary cap in 2015-16 and 2016-17 if bought out over the summer; that number would dip to roughly $2.4 million in 2017-18 before falling off to a modest six-figure number for three more years.

It’s a testament to Paul Holmgren’s salary-cap incompetence that he signed a declining veteran to not just a long-term, big-money deal but one that the team would find virtually impossible to buyout.

That’s why a trade is a more desirable route, though of course it’s going to be difficult. Lecavalier’s salary matches his cap hit in 2015-16 before falling well below it over the last two years of the deal; that could have some value for a budget team looking to reach the cap floor without spending money. The Flyers would certainly need to eat a portion of the contract and include a sweetener, but it might be possible.

Either way, Lecavalier’s performance on a game-to-game basis isn’t terribly relevant. Any team that acquires him knows the chance it's taking and will need to be well-compensated, so scratching Lecavalier for one game or 10 isn’t likely to significantly alter the deal.

As of this writing, the Flyers sit six points out of the playoffs in the East, and the next few weeks are going to be pivotal for them. If they perform well enough to claw their way back into the postseason picture with Lecavalier watching from upstairs, then hurting the veteran’s feelings is a mere triviality.

If they don’t there will be plenty of time later in the season to see if Lecavalier can somehow salvage his career. Either way, there’s no pressing reason for the team to try and get him into the lineup right now.

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work. Statistics via BehindtheNet.ca, Hockey-Reference.com, NHL.com, and Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com. Salary information courtesy of CapGeek.com.