Philadelphia Flyers sign Jeff Carter to 11-year extension
The Philadelphia Flyers seem intent on keeping team captain Mike Richards and Jeff Carter together for a long time. On Saturday 13 November , the team signed Carter to an 11-year contract
extension worth $58 million.
Carter and Richards were drafted by the Flyers in the first round of the 2003 National Hockey League entry draft. The Flyers took Carter with the 11th pick, while Richards was selected
at number 24.
Since their draft year, the duo of Carter and Richards has seen a great deal of success together. In 2005, the tandem won a World Junior Championship with Team Canada, as well as the Calder
Cup with the American Hockey League’s Philadelphia Phantoms.
The teammates also played together on the Flyers team that fell to the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2010 Stanley Cup final. In a short time, these two 25-year-old players have accomplished
a great deal together.
Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren, speaking to the
Delaware County Daily Times, had this to say in regard to the signing, “We’re happy to have Jeff signed for the foreseeable future. He’s an integral part of the core of our hockey team. This took a little bit of time to get done, but we’re happy to
have it done.”
Talks between the Flyers, Carter and his agent, Rick Curran, began over the summer. The contract talks never turned contentious, Holmgren claimed the length of the negotiation was due
to the fact that “…some other issues in the league made us think about different ways of doing this, thinking about different ways…number of years, stuff like that, just custodial stuff.”
As of late, Holmgren and the Flyers have been focusing on signing their young stars, recently signing Claude Giroux to a three-year deal worth $11.25 million over three seasons. The Flyers
GM will next turn his attention to signing Ville Leino to a contract extension.
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