Quad Blogs

Forwards

            In: Nikolai Zherdev, Jody Shelley

Summer's over Richards and Carter. Time to get back to work.

            Out: Simon Gagne, Arron Asham

            The Simon Gagne trade was simply a sad byproduct of the salary cap era. In the old days, Gags would likely have retired as a Flyer.  Teams just can’t always operate that way anymore. Though roster decisions are the norm now and sometimes veteran players need to be moved in order to allow younger ones to blossom.

            And boy do the Flyers have some interesting young guys in the fold. The first two years of Claude Giroux’s NHL career have been a bit odd. You normally expect a young guy to fold as the pressure of the season increases, but not Giroux. He’s had ok regular seasons, good not great, but tinged with flashes of brilliance here and there. However, when the post season rolls around, the man they call “G” takes off. Giroux is already a proven clutch performer and a dependable two-way player at the tender age of BLANK, now he just needs to get his act together to ensure his team makes it past the regular season and into the NHL’s main event.

            Hopefully former #2 overall pick James van Riemsdyk can build on his good, but wildly inconsistent rookie campaign. It was clear last year that JVR just ran out of gas as the season rolled on and he struggled mightily down the stretch. Not that anyone should have been surprised by that. Inconsistency is the name of the game for most rookies, as they settle into the NHL. After last season’s deep playoff run, it seems safe to assume that JVR’s pretty well settled in at this point. Now its time to see what the young guy from New Jersey can really do.

            The continued development of those two, coupled with bounce back years from captain Mike Richards, Jeff Carter and Scott Hartnel, 82 games of Ville Leino and a healthy (and scarily motivated) Danny Briere should, in theory, offset the loss of Gagne.

Nikolai Zherdev is an interesting dude...

            Well that and this year’s KHL reclamation project. Last year’s Ray Emery experiment was a brilliant plan, but failed in practice due to unforeseen circumstances. Barring a similar problem, this year’s addition of the enigmatic, but highly talented Zherdev could turn out to be a massive steal. Zherdev has one year to prove that he can make it in the NHL or he could find himself headed back to the Russian front for good. New enforcer Jody Shelley should bring some more character to the locker room and will probably only step foot on the ice to lay some beat downs on the Rangers and Maple Leafs. Veteran try out Bill Guerin can only bring positive things to the team, provided that he’s still around after training camp.

            The Flyers have one of the deepest and most talented collection forwards in the league and because of that, losing Gagne shouldn’t be the crippling blow that some of the more pessimistic out there make it seem. The Flyers forward crew possesses a remarkable blend of youth and experience, offense and defense. The Flyers can roll three strong offensive units at opponents and then put the criminally underrated shut down line of Blair Betts, Ian Laperriere and (Fill in the Blank) on the ice to close things out.   

            On Paper Grade: B+   

Keep An Eye On

I know, I'm really going out on a limb here predicting good things from the most highly touted youngster on the team. This is going to be the year that Giroux finally realizes his lofty potential over the course of an 82-game season.

Time Has Passed?

Has the salary cap era also ended the days of the enforcer? Jody Shelley and Flyers GM Paul Holmgren sure hope not. Is it worth it to pay a guy to just fight? Or have multi-purpose players like Dan Carcillo and Arron Asham become the new standard?

Vaya con dios!

Image Credits: Giroux, Shelley, Zherdev

            So you may have noticed that there wasn’t a parade held in Philadelphia today, or a hockey game played in Chicago on Friday. You may have also noticed the collective Joaquin Phoenix sigh which blew out windows and set off car alarms all across Southeastern Pennsylvania late on Wednesday night.

            Sadly, the amazingly inglourious run of the Philadelphia Flyers ended at the hands of the Chicago Blackhawks. The orange and black were just two wins shy of winning their first Stanley Cup since they captured back-to-back titles in 1974-75.

            Needless to say, Wednesday night sucked. I was down the shore at the time, so that probably helped me to take the defeat better than I would have if I’d been moping around the house. Still sucked though.

            Now, I’ll spare you my usual refrain of “well who would have thought they’d get this far” and “it was an amazing ride while it lasted.” These things are obvious. The team had no business getting as far as they did and honestly, they took two games in the Finals from a better team. Not a significantly better team, mind you, but a better one.

            In the wake of Wednesday’s defeat, fans have been scrambling to assign blame to someone, anyone. As always, a scapegoat is needed and since hockey doesn’t have quarterbacks, the next best thing is usually the goalie.

            Goaltending is NOT the reason the Flyers lost to the Blackhawks. Michael Leighton played very poorly in the Finals as did his backup Brian Boucher. These facts can’t be argued. However, Antti Niemi, the Blackhawks netminder, was just as bad (occasionally worse) than either of those two. Yes, Leighton was pulled in two games and yes he gave up more than his fair share of soft goals. The thing is though, that Niemi would have been pulled if he had a capable back-up (expensive is not the same as capable) and he let in just as many soft goals as Leighton did.

            So the goalies were a wash. The real difference in the Finals was the Blackhawks depth finally overtaking the Flyers depth. By the series end, the Blackhawks had, more or less, four lines that could score a goal. The Flyers had one line and a third of another. Danny Briere, Ville Leino and Scott Hartnell were unstoppable and very nearly beat the Blackhawks by themselves. Claude Giroux made whatever line he was on that much better. No one else chipped in. The top line of Mike Richards, Simon Gagne and Jeff Carter was an unmitigated disaster with the exception of game four. With the game winning goal on his stick in the waning moments of game six and an empty net in front of him, Carter resumed a personal playoff tradition of his: he fired the puck squarely into the opponent’s goalie. I’ll spare you the plus/minus stats for the top line, but the numbers were hideous.

            Eventually, the Blackhawks best players became their best players. This never happened for the Flyers. The Blackhawks depth players could be counted on to chip in meaningful goals. This also never happened for the Flyers. The result? A 4-2 series loss.

            That’s enough of that though. The marginally better team won. That’s the way these things tend to work. Things could have been so much different if Leighton could have handled a Ben Eager wrister, or if Carter could score into an empty net. Or if Richards was able to play the way he did for the first three rounds. If Chris Pronger hadn’t gotten frustrated in games five and six. If the Flyers had any faith at all in their third defensive pairing. Little things, but the kinds of things that add up to a loss.

            Still, the Flyers have to be proud of the way they played this season. The whole team. Leighton was cut by the worst team in the league in December and by June he was two games shy of lifting the Cup. Richards played way over a hundred games this season including the regular season, Olympics and playoffs. Pronger played about 30 minutes a game throughout the playoffs. Way more than guys who were half his age. He was a rock. Carter played with two broken feet and Ian Laperriere took a puck to the face and came back. The much-maligned Danny Briere was finally able to silence even his loudest critics. I guess 30 points in 23 games, including an astounding 12 in six Finals games will do that.

            The entire Flyers roster is full of those kinds of stories. The team’s slogan was relentless and that they were. They battled back from everything including a ridiculous 3-0 deficit in game seven against Boston. They rallied and climbed out of the hole, just like they did in the series, and won 4-3.

            Enough good things can’t be said about this group. They captured the heart of a city and really a country as the ratings seemed to indicate. They deserved a better fate, but things don’t always work out the way that they should. They way that they do in movies. I guess the Blackhawks don’t know much about Hollywood. There is nothing better than a good underdog story. It’s why the “Rocky” series got worse as it went along. Once he got the title, it was honestly hard to care what happened next. That is until the last one, when he once again returned to his Cinderella roots.

            Congratulations to the Blackhawks for winning their first Cup since the 60’s. Sadly for them, dynasties are hard to maintain in the age of the salary cap. The Blackhawks face an offseason of uncertainty, just like the rest of the league. I’ll spend Thursday detailing what the Flyers offseason should look like if I were Paul Holmgren (and I am according to NHL 10). As for today though, look back on the last two months and smile. Think about those two months for what they really were: the only logical end to a season that defied logic.

Sure he already took home Beard of the Day once before, but who is going to complain about seeing this image one more time? He laughs at your silly human superstitions and can drink the entire state of Alaska under the table, ladies and gentlemen for one last time (until next season, duh) the "Mike Richards."

              Vaya con dios and Go Flyers!