The Philadelphia Flyers have actually signed someone on the first day of free agency. The gates have opened and general manager Danny Briere has swooped in to add some more depth to this roster as they look to make it back to the playoffs once again.
According to multiple reports, the Flyers have signed center Noel Acciari to a two-year contract, which carries a value of $2.8 million.
The 34-year-old center has spent his last three seasons on the other side of Pennsylvania playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins and just had what was close to a career year. In 67 games this past season, Acciari scored 13 goals and 25 points while averaging 13:42 time-on-ice. His career-high in goals happened when he, for some reason, scored 20 goals in 66 games for the Florida Panthers in the 2019-20 season; and his career-high in points happened that season as well when he managed to only add seven assists to give him a total of 27 points.
Acciari will now be lacing up for his sixth team in the NHL. He entered the league at 24 years old with the Boston Bruins, moved on to the Panthers four seasons later, split his 2022-23 season between the St. Louis Blues and Toronto Maple Leafs before eventually signing a three-year contract with Pittsburgh. And now we’re here, he’s a Flyer as he goes into the final years of an NHL career where he’s already played 585 games.
Under the surface, Acciari was able to rejuvenate his career a bit on that miracle Penguins team (who the Flyers beat in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, of course). While he did score some points, when he was on the ice the Penguins were a good team. They scored 57.75 percent of the goals at 5-on-5, had 51.83 percent of the expected goals share, and were just about even in terms of shots on goal and shot attempts.
Acciari is not particularly fast or has a hard shot, according to NHL Edge data, but the thing that he did manage to do better than league average is get some high-danger shots off.
As you can see in the graphic above, among all NHL skaters, Acciari sat comfortably above average in terms of getting shots on goal and getting them off in important areas on the ice. He’s obviously not a perfect player or a gamebreaker or someone that the Flyers are going to be so thankful they have in their lineup for every single night, but there are chances he can at least give a little bit more offense than the fourth-liners they had just last season.
Where does Acciari fit in the Flyers’ lineup?
Obviously, the Flyers have a whole lot of NHL forwards already signed, so the main question could be: Kust where the heck is Acciari even going to play?
We’re taking this as the Flyers coming up with a Luke Glendening replacement. Acciari is also a right-handed center who has played on a whole lot of teams, but certainly has some more offensive pop than Glendening and could be a little bit more durable and reliable.
Considering the Flyers also traded Garnet Hathaway away, if we’re assuming that Sean Couturier is going to be starting the season as the team’s fourth-line center, then there is a spot available. Even with the Flyers re-signing Carl Grundstrom to a one-year deal, that’s just more insurance than anything. If it’s Grundstrom and Acciari doing a bit of a rotation on the right side of Couturier, and the latter taking care of faceoffs where being right-handed would be an advantage and therefore being the more regular player, then that is perfectly fine. Nikita Grebenkin should take up his spot to Couturier’s left and that fourth line doesn’t look half-bad. It could even score a good amount of goals, too.
Barring any other big signings or big trades — like the addition of a top-six center and maybe the Flyers shipping out two regular forwards for a defenseman, or something — that is most likely how Acciari fits into this lineup. A pretty large support role.