The Philadelphia Flyers want to keep Christian Dvorak around and are willing to sign him to a fresh and new contract extension, according to the latest report.

Dvorak signed a one-year, $5.4-million contract with the Flyers on July 1 last summer as the team’s temporary fix at the center position as Philadelphia hoped to turn the corner from a not-so-good team looking at the draft lottery odds after every game, to one who was looking forward to the playoffs. And it has kind of worked out that way.

The 29-year-old center has found incredible chemistry with fellow newcomer Trevor Zegras as the hotshot forward’s centerman, leading Dvorak to scoring eight goals and 24 points and barring a complete failure of a second half or a catastrophic injury, he should finish this season with a career-high in points.

And because of this, the Flyers want to keep him around.

During the Saturday Headlines segment on the Sportsnet broadcast, Elliotte Friedman specifically mentioned that the Flyers and Christian Dvorak are working towards a deal and that there is at least the start of the conversation to keep the center in Philadelphia past this season.

“The Flyers and Dvorak are talking extension,” Friedman said on Saturday night’s broadcast. “I think everybody here would tell you that it has to work for both sides to happen. He’s played very well there, he’s got 24 points in 35 games, and what I can say Ron is that there are other teams out there that do not expect Dvorak to hit the market now. They think he’s going to sign, but both sides have to make it work.”

There were rumors of this being the desire as early as this month, but now it’s more clear than ever that the Flyers are really going to try to have this happen and not have this be a one-and-done year for Dvorak in Philadelphia.

Due to him being on a one-year contract, the earliest a team can sign a player to a contract extension is January 1. So, should we expect an announcement in just a few days? Maybe. But it wouldn’t surprise anyone if this gets done in the next few weeks and we’re looking at Dvorak committing the remainder of his good years to the Flyers as he’s about to turn 30 years old in February.

This is no doubt going to be a contentious topic among Flyers fans as re-signing a veteran who is having a career year is never a tremendous look, especially if it is for a whole lot of dollars and years. And one could argue that Dvorak could be blocking a center prospect like Jett Luchanko from a full-time NHL role as soon as next season, but it’s also a problem that the team would have to deal with later, and Luchanko would need to improve a whole lot, and it’s never really a bad thing to have too many NHL-caliber centermen.

We’ll just have to see where this goes, but another Flyers-related topic of conversation was brought up by Friedman was well.

Egor Zamula trying to terminate contract, Flyers prefer trade

Another Flyers skater that had his name mentioned on the national broadcast is defenseman Egor Zamula. The 25-year-old Russian was placed on waivers earlier this month and was sent down to the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms. He did report and has played in a game, unlike how some NHL regulars deal with being sent down to the minors, but he still wants out.

According to Friedman, Zamula and his agent are looking to terminate their current contract so that he can be free to sign anywhere as an unrestricted free agent. Zamula’s agent is Dan Milstein, the same agent as forward Alexandre Texier who just went through the same thing and signed with the Montreal Canadiens in the middle of this season — he wants the same to happen for the Flyers defenseman.

But, there is a key word in what they want and that’s “mutual”. As reported by Friedman, the Flyers would rather go the trade route to get him to a new environment and would rather not just let him go leave for nothing in return. That makes perfect sense for the team’s point-of-view — to not have their work of developing an undrafted WHL defenseman into someone who has 168 NHL games under his belt before turning 26 years old, just walk away for nothing.

The main takeaway is that there is no future for Zamula on the Flyers. If we’re reading the tea leaves correctly and there isn’t an injury crisis on the Philadelphia blue line in the very near future, we’ve already seen the last game of Zamula wearing the Orange and Black.