On June 23rd, 2010, weeks after falling just two games short of winning the Stanley Cup, the Philadelphia Flyers traded my favorite player. Mike Richards had some alleged issues, but when he played in Philly, he was the quintessential Flyer – He could hit, pass, score, and fight, and he worked to help his team win throughout his every shift. As a young fan who followed the Flyers only on television, I was shattered when they traded Richards. Nothing could console me.

Or so I thought. The very next season, the Flyers brought forth a group of exciting young players. One of them, Jakub Voracek, quickly became my new favorite to watch. Another one developed into an excellent goal scorer and one of Philadelphia’s all-time favorite players. Just like Mike Richards, for whom the Kings traded him, this guy was a skilled forward with a knack for the physical and violent elements of the game. Wayne Simmonds was another quintessential Flyer.

And Simmonds was just what Philadelphia needed during a stretch when the Flyers would struggle to find any offensive depth. From 2011 to 2016, it often felt like Simmonds alone was scoring consistently. Still, every year, he made things happen. 28 goals. 29 goals. 32. Seriously, Simmer was incredible even if you’re just looking at raw stats. If you consider how low point totals across the league were in those years, and how inconsistent many of those Flyers teams were, his production seems miraculous.

What’s more, Simmonds’ value to the Flyers far exceeds his on-ice production, at least in the eyes of many people in the team community. Simmonds plays a hard-nosed game, he’s played through injuries, and he stands up for his teammates. As a result, he’s become one of the Flyers’ locker room leaders and one of the most respected players presently on the team. He’s not just a hockey player, he’s part of the pulse of the team; his presence has felt like a critical component of the Flyers for many years now.

Unfortunately, this discussion isn’t about what Wayne Simmonds has done so far. Simmonds is going to be an unrestricted free agent next season, and smart managers working against salary caps pay for what players are going to do. My first aim in compiling this article was to explore the contract that Simmer will likely receive next summer. My second was to look at the sort of production the Flyers can expect from him in the years to come. Ultimately, anyone looking at the numbers will arrive at the same conclusion.

The Flyers should not re-sign Wayne Simmonds. Simmonds is a great player, and by all accounts a great guy, but they simply can’t afford to pay him what he deserves to be paid.

Simmonds’ status as a “character player” and a premier power-play threat will bolster his value on the open market. Even if it doesn’t, the raw numbers suggest that Simmonds will receive a pretty big pay raise if he chooses to pursue his best financial option. Simmonds’ closest comparable is probably James Neal, the power forward who just inked a 5.75-million-dollar contract with Calgary. Neal was 31 when he signed that deal, the same age Simmonds will be when his extension starts, and both men employ heavy, shoot-first styles on the ice.

An aggressive agent, though, would likely push harder, emphasizing Neal’s two middling seasons before signing that contract and insisting that Simmonds can bring more to the table. More favorable comparisons for Simmonds include T.J. Oshie (who signed an 8-year contract at age 30 last summer), David Backes (who got a 6-year contract at 32), or James van Riemsdyk (who signed a 7-million-dollar deal with the team Simmonds is negotiating against). Looking at these contracts, it’s easy to build a case that Simmonds deserves something like 6 years and 36 million dollars.

But Ron Hextall’s a cautious manager, and Simmonds may genuinely want to remain with the Flyers. So, let’s say that Hextall avoids discussion about a six-year or six-million-dollar deal, pushes past James Neal’s comparable 5.75 million, and signs Wayne Simmonds to a five-year, 25-million-dollar contract.

I still don’t see it. I still don’t want it.

First, as a young team, the Flyers will have some bills to pay in the next few years. Travis Konecny just notched 24 goals in his second NHL season; he’s officially a scoring winger waiting for a bridge deal. Ivan Provorov is a bona fide #1 defenseman, and he’ll want a contract that reflects as much. Players like these need to be the team’s highest priority.

I’m not saying that the Flyers can’t give contracts to veterans, but keep in mind that they’ve already tied up a nice chunk of money in older players. For the next four seasons, the Flyers will pay van Riemsdyk, Claude Giroux, and Jakub Voracek a combined 23.5 million dollars. Shayne Gostisbehere’s and Sean Couturier’s bridge deals take up another 9 million, and the Flyers will definitely need space on hand to sign those two players when their deals expire.

Additionally, the Flyers still have holes in their depth chart. I’m not terribly worried about the goaltending situation, keeping in mind the Flyers’ wealth of prospects at the position, but consider this: Either Carter Hart, Felix Sandstrom, or Kirill Ustimenko turns into a star, and the Flyers pay him a ton of money, or no prospect pans out, and the Flyers pay a free agent a ton of money anyway. The same can be said about Phil Myers and the impending Andrew MacDonald-sized vacancy at 2RD, or Morgan Frost/Scott Laughton and the 3C spot. The point, in all of these cases, is the same: The Flyers still have issues holding back their roster, and as they start trying to contend for a title, they’ll want cap space on hand to resolve those issues.

So, the Flyers want to conserve their money for their most important competitive window, but Wayne Simmonds wants them to give him a contract a year from now. And once more, for the record, I’ll concede that Simmonds is extremely valuable. He’s a consistent goal scorer and an elite power-play threat. He brings leadership in the room and an edge on the ice. He clearly deserves a big NHL payday.

But Simmonds is 30. Statistics suggest that an NHL forward peaks at 24 or 25 years old, sometimes even earlier. What’s worse, playmakers tend to age better than do pure goal scorers. Of the 32 players who scored 30 goals or more last season, only 4 of them (Ovechkin, Malkin, Staal, and Bergeron) were older than 31. Over the past five NHL seasons, 122 players have scored 30 goals or more in a season; only 18 of them were more than 31 years old (and that’s including Ovechkin twice!). Players uniformly struggle to produce after 30, and the few recent names who have managed to stay consistent (guys like Thornton, Jagr, and St. Louis) were playmakers or became playmakers as they aged. Now that he’s 30, it’s unreasonable to think that Simmonds will put up 30 goals in many of the coming seasons.

Of course, Simmonds isn’t just any 30-year-old free agent; he’s a key part of the current Flyers. His threatening the 30-goal threshold annually might be a thing of the past, but if the Flyers could expect 20 to 25 goals from Simmer each year, I’d definitely be content to lock him down for five seasons. To see if such a thing might be possible, I dug into NHL statistics from across the past decade, and unearthed a handful of wingers who put up Simmonds-like production between the ages of 26 and 29:

Player Name G/year ages 26-29 P/year ages 26-29 Goals at 29 Points at 29 G/year after 30 P/year after 30 Wayne Simmonds 28.8 52.5 24 46 ? ? Jason Pominville 24 63.3 30 73 17.6 46.2 Thomas Vanek 30 64.3 34* 70* 20 49.3 Andrew Ladd 26.4 61.2 24 62 17.5 30 Zach Parise 30.2 63.3 29 56 19.7 39.7 Patrick Sharp 30.3 60.8 34 71 17.6 45.6 Matt Moulson 30.7 61.3 26* 75* 11.7 31.3

* – Adjusted for 2012-13 lockout

While a cursory glance might suggest that I’m underselling Simmonds with these comparables, the numbers say the opposite – most of these players actually outperformed Simmonds throughout their late twenties. Even so, when these guys reached Simmer’s age, they all lost their ability to score 20 goals or 50 points in a season. It’s clear that players who fall into the second tier of NHL scorers – who produce 25 to 30 goals and 55 to 65 points annually during their primes – tend to seriously struggle as they enter their early thirties. And many of these guys were even better than that! Matt Moulson stood out as an elite 29-year-old winger during the lockout-shortened 2012-2013 season, and Zach Parise was recently considered one of the premier American players in the world. Now, Moulson plays in the AHL, and the 34-yeard-old Parise is an oft-maligned third liner on a middling Western Conference team. The falloff which players over 30 suffer is often precipitous, not gradual. It’s possible that we don’t just see Wayne Simmonds stumble to the tune of 20-25 goals; we could see him pot 12 in a season sooner rather than later. That’s how the league’s aging curve seems to universally treat players of his style and ability.

I can already hear the objections as they spring to your mind. “Claude Giroux was supposed to be ‘in decline’ last year, and look at the season he had!” Giroux is a playmaker, Giroux switched to an easier position, and Giroux is 30 right now. Yes, it’s possible for players to put together incredible seasons past their primes, but I don’t think we should bank on something like that from a 31- or 32-year-old Simmonds. “Simmonds is a unique power-play specialist, he’ll be productive longer than those other guys!” First, a lot of these players were getting power-play ice during their primes too, and they continued to get those minutes before they started producing poorly. Yes, Simmonds is excellent on the power play, but I still think his point totals will slip the same way everyone else’s did. Second, dredging up how Simmonds’ point totals have been inflated by power play time is clearly an argument against retaining him, especially given how good Nolan Patrick looked on the first power play last year. If Patrick was already passable at his job, how badly do the Flyers need Simmonds? And how badly will they need him when he’s 31 and a 20-year-old Patrick is coming out of his first healthy season? Simmonds is going to struggle regardless of his power-play minutes, and he’s not going to be irreplaceable on the power play forever.

The best argument for retaining Simmonds, then, is that if he finishes his next contract as a fourth liner, he could still be worth paying for. Simmonds is important to this team, and even at 35 or 36, he’ll probably make a solid NHL player. You don’t love the prospect of paying a depth guy 5-6 million per year, but Simmonds improves your team, and the Flyers are going to have that much space on hand. Isn’t it harmless to extend him, knowing what he means to the team and how close they are to contention?

This is a hard question to answer, which is what makes the Simmonds issue so fun to consider. With most free agents in the NHL, teams can probably make these calls easily. You sign a player either because you’re building your core and you believe him to be a part of it, or because you’re ready to compete and you see him as a useful complement. Simmonds falls into the second category; he’s no longer an organizational centerpiece, but he could definitely help someone win a title. At 31, teams will be paying him based on what production they expect him to bring them in the short term. Should he choose to leave, you’ll probably see Simmonds sign somewhere like San Jose, Boston, or Nashville. On these teams, the high-end talent is already in place, and one or two more players might make the difference in an imminent title run. If the Flyers, like the Bruins or Predators, were trying to win now, they’d re-sign Simmonds for certain. And if they were Buffalo, Ottawa, or Vancouver, the choice would be equally obvious – they’d trade the aging player for assets and wait for their core to further coalesce.

But the Flyers’ decision is tough, because they fall right in between the teams I’ve listed. Their core is close to being ready to compete, but the time still hasn’t arrived. Morgan Frost, Wade Allison, Phil Myers, and Carter Hart won’t be Flyers next season. Dale Weise is on the team for at least two more years. There’s still a 5-million-dollar anchor strapped to the blue line. Sure, the very first year of this Simmonds deal could be the first season that Hextall goes all-in on the roster, but it seems more likely that he’ll stay patient.

The best suitor for a 31-year-old scorer is a team that’s ready to win the Stanley Cup while he’s still highly productive. Unfortunately, considering the current state of the Flyers, Simmer’s 31- and 32-year-old seasons could occur before their peak. Therefore, even if Simmonds scores 34 in the first year of this deal, he’s probably not the best use of the Flyers’ money going forward, especially if he expects any term.

Wayne Simmonds deserves a big extension, and it would be great if he stayed in Philly. But he’s a 31-year-old playing a position where longevity is a serious concern. And, even if he has a few more seasons of excellent production in him, it’s unlikely that they’ll coincide with seasons when the Flyers compete for the Stanley Cup.

I love him to death, and I can’t believe I’m saying this.

But please, Ron Hextall. Just don’t do it. Don’t re-sign Wayne Simmonds next summer.