from Frank Seravalli of the Philadelphia Daily News,

With so much attention focused on Lecavalier, the Flyers' better option to clear cap space is staring them in the face. Newly reacquired forward R.J. Umberger is second only to Giroux in salary-cap hit among forwards.

Umberger is a prime buyout candidate.

The Flyers do not have any compliance buyouts remaining (executed on Ilya Bryzgalov and Danny Briere in 2013), but they can still use a "regular-course" buyout.

It would cost them $9 million in cash over the next three seasons to buy out Umberger. His current $4.6 million salary-cap hit would become $1.6 million for the next 3 years, then $1.5 million for the next 3 years after that. It's an immediate cap savings of $3 million.

With that Canadian television deal kicking in, the salary cap is expected to rocket to $75 million in 2015-16. Meaning that $1.6 million in dead space due to Umberger would be an increasingly smaller drop in the bucket each year the cap grows, which it will with continuously record-setting revenues.

So, why would the Flyers buy out Umberger after just trading for him? He's a lot cheaper to buy out than Scott Hartnell, who had 2 years more left on his deal. That's a savings of $10 million in cash for a team that is now internally pulling on the purse strings. The fourth-round pick in last week's trade would just be a bonus.

more on the Flyers' cap issues...