{"id":86448,"date":"2020-10-12T16:53:32","date_gmt":"2020-10-12T20:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=86448"},"modified":"2020-10-12T16:53:32","modified_gmt":"2020-10-12T20:53:32","slug":"erik-gustafsson-signs-with-philadelphia-flyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2020\/10\/12\/erik-gustafsson-signs-with-philadelphia-flyers\/","title":{"rendered":"Erik Gustafsson Signs With Philadelphia Flyers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Defenceman <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=gustaer02,gustaer01&amp;search=Erik+Gustafsson&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Erik Gustafsson<\/a><\/strong> has signed with a new team. The 28-year-old didn&#8217;t have the season many might have expected but he remains a quality offensive blueliner after four seasons in the league. The deal is for one year at three million dollars. The deal was announced Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Welcome to Philly, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ErkanGustafsson?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@ErkanGustafsson<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve signed the 28-year-old blueliner to a one-year contract worth an AAV of $3.0M. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/CivbrJGkDq\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/CivbrJGkDq<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NHLFlyers\/status\/1315756897803395085?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 12, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Erik Gustafsson Signs With Philadelphia Flyers<\/h2>\n<p>Gustafsson wasn&#8217;t nearly as productive as expected in 2019-20 but he still had a fine year split between the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/blackhawks\/\" target=\"_self\">Chicago Blackhawks<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/flames\/\" target=\"_self\">Calgary Flames<\/a>. He posted six goals and 29 points in 66 games. Most of that with Chicago before his <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2020\/02\/24\/chicago-blackhawks-trade-erik-gustafsson-to-calgary-flames\/\" target=\"_self\">trade<\/a> but the spring shutdown severely cut into his regular-season production afterwards. He scored 17 goals and 60 points in 79 games last year. 2018-19 was outstanding but that is likely an unrepeatable season for a couple of reasons. He shot 10.6 percent which is very high for a defender and 13 of the goals came at even strength. Those results are very difficult to replicate given where Gustafsson plays.<\/p>\n<p>Gustafsson is probably only a 25-30 point defender but that is still fine for many teams. His new team certainly knows he is an average defenceman in terms of possession with a Corsi For near or below 50 percent in his last two campaigns. That isn&#8217;t a serious negative but it does limit Gustafsson to the offensive zone and the power-play. He simply seems like a blueliner who needs some heavy scripting regarding his usage but that doesn&#8217;t mean he isn&#8217;t a quality scoring defender.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means for the Future<\/h3>\n<p>Gustafsson could use a good season or two to recapture some of his 2018-19 magic. He didn&#8217;t have a long run with Calgary but did post four assists in the team&#8217;s 10 playoff games. That could be a boost going in 2020-21. The former fourth-round pick will be a reasonable addition to a team that wants to boost its power-play for next season.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"k9gxLMB2QRJoPzlz3KVS7g\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/detail\/1193937179\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'k9gxLMB2QRJoPzlz3KVS7g',sig:'iBoMiZClX3LqS-7WLtiOwxc6Odo-tm0hnQztbvc0Yq0=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1193937179',caption: true ,tld:'ca',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Defenceman Erik Gustafsson has signed with a new team. The 28-year-old didn&#8217;t have the season many might have expected but he remains a quality offensive blueliner after four seasons in the league. The deal is for one year at three million dollars. The deal was announced Monday afternoon. Welcome to Philly, @ErkanGustafsson! We&#8217;ve signed the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3127,"featured_media":86479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,4547,34,4548],"tags":[3669,126],"class_list":["post-86448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flyers","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-erik-gustafsson","tag-philadelphia-flyers"],"modified_by":"Josh Erickson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}