Kevin Christmann's Philadelphia Flyers fan blog

As you probably already know, the Flyers acquired Chris Pronger and Ryan Dingle from Anaheim for Joffrey Lupul, Luca Sbisa, their 2009 1st round pick, their 2010 1st round pick, and a conditional 3rd round pick.  I’ve been seeing a lot of mixed reactions regarding the trade. The majority of them tend to be that it was way too much to give up. My thoughts…we clearly paid a VERY heavy price, however, I am absolutely thrilled with this trade. I will admit, the thought of Pronger leaving after his one year is up, makes me cringe a bit, but I do believe Holmgren has every intention of signing him to an extension. Ideally, we can sign him to a reasonable 2-3 year deal (sadly, I think that’s optimistic) and we can lose the salaries of one of, if not both of, Jones and Carle. If those things were to happy, my grade of this trade would go from a B to an A.

Continue reading "Analyzing the Chris Pronger Trade"

Part 3 of my “Goaltender Options for the Flyers” series will include a couple of “international” goaltenders, and additionally, I will give you my final opinion on what I’d like the Flyers to do.

Part 1 of the series covered Unrestricted Free Agent Options. Part 2 covered Restricted Free Agent Options as well as trade possibilities.

Before I begin, I’d just like to make an update to one of my previous entries. I read a rumor today from Eklund (love him or hate him…I personally hate him) that I thought I’d just throw out there. It said that Giguere is apparently Holmgren’s Plan A this offseason. Although Giguere has his no trade clause and was in the Anaheim area for his son’s eye condition, he doesn’t really want to be a backup goalie, and if the Ducks plan to stick with Hiller he may consider moving. If true, it is certainly interesting news. The Flyers would definitely need to shed some salary in order to get him. To me that means Briere, Lupul, Carle, Jones or maybe Gagne.

Continue reading "Goaltender Options for the Flyers - Part 3"

Part 2 of this series will include Restricted Free Agent options as well as possible acquisitions via trade.

In Part 1 of this series I covered some of the more realistic Unrestricted Free Agent options for the Flyers in their quest to acquire a starting goaltender. In addition to the Unrestricted Free Agent options, there are several viable Restricted Free Agent options. The benefit of restricted free agents is that they are all young…that is, after all, why they are restricted free agents. They are often times coming off their entry level contracts, and just haven’t played enough seasons to be eligible for unrestricted free agency. The bad part about restricted free agency is that, depending on how much the player is signed for, the team is required to pay some sort of draft pick compensation.

Continue reading "Goaltender Options for the Flyers - Part 2"

With both Marty Biron and Antero Nittymaki scheduled to become free agents, the Flyers are left without an NHL caliber goaltender on their roster. Clearly, the Flyers plan to acquire a goalie in some manner this offseason.  This past March the Flyers signed 27 year old Swedish goaltender Johan Backlund. It was only a one year deal, and I don’t believe the Flyers ever considered that he could possibly be their starter next season. At best Backlund could be a relatively cheap backup option. There are quite a few options for the Flyers, however there is no clear cut #1 option. Part 1 of this entry covers the Unrestricted Free Agent Goaltender options.

Some of the more realistic options, as well as the biggest Unrestricted free agent names include Nikolai Khabibulin, Manny Fernandez, Martin Gerber, Martin Biron, Dwayne Roloson, and Craig Anderson. So let’s take a look into these unrestricted free agent possibilities. I’ll post the goals against average and save percentage for each goaltender. Personally, I put far more weight into save percentage than I do goals against average. The GAA is more of a product of the team. If a team plays fantastic defense, they are just going to allow fewer goals, and therefore an inferior goalie could still have a respectable GAA. Save percentage however, gives you a more realistic representation of skill because it cannot be as heavily influenced by the team.

Continue reading "Goaltender Options for the Flyers - Part 1"

I thought I’d give a top 10 list a shot, and I thought defenseman was the place to start. I’ve noticed that the thoughts regarding the top 10 defenseman in the league are quite erratic, and there doesn’t seem to be a widely accepted pecking order. So I present you with mine. I’ve taken all around play into consideration. Both defensive and offensive abilities have been considered.

1)      Zdeno Chara
Chara is just the most dominant force in the game in my opinion. He is so big players just can’t match up with him. He skates very well for being so big, and it’s damn near impossible to beat him one on one. He can swallow you up physically, and nearly reach from board to board, so he plays incredible defense. He’s a physical presence, and he puts up great offensive numbers, with the NHL’s hardest slapshot this past season. He is currently a nominee for the 2008-2009 Norris Trophy (as the league’s best defenseman).

Continue reading "My Top 10 NHL Defenseman"

One of the most common conversations I see among Flyers fans, or hockey fans in general, is that the Flyers are in cap “hell.” With big contracts in place for Richards, Carter, Gagne, Timonen, Hartnell,  and Briere, the extension for Joffrey Lupul kicking in next season, the expiring Hatcher contract, and the perpetual resident of Long Term Injured Reserved Mike Rathje, it isn’t a horribly farfetched statement. The common rebuttal to such a statement is that the Flyers can just trade Lupul because, frankly, he’s unnecessary (an argument for a later time), and gain roughly an additional $4.25 million in cap space. That is of course barring taking back any roster players. More often than not, these people are scoffed at for believing that Joffrey Lupul has any trade value.

Continue reading "The Myth About Joffrey Lupul's "Untradeable" Contract"