Carter/By S. Bradley
The Philadelphia Flyers, as announced by the NHL today, will provide the Bruins with their opening-night opponent when they raise the 2010-11 Stanley Cup champions banner to the rafters to start next season.
But after today it’s become obvious the Flyers team that will arrive at TD Garden will not resemble the one the Bruins faced the last two seasons in the playoffs.
In two mega-deals today, the Flyers shipped their captain Mike Richards to Los Angeles and fellow star forward Jeff Carter to Columbus. In exchange, the Flyers got Wayne Simmonds and Brayden Schenn from the Kings, Jakub Voracek from the Blue Jackets and draft picks from both teams.
Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli said today he wasn’t surprised the Flyers shook things up.
“I know they acquired [goaltender Ilya] Bryzgalov, so you knew something was coming just from the cap situation to sign Bryzgalov,” said Chiarelli. “They had to shed some money, so you knew something was coming and it came in a big way.”
The Flyers have since signed Bryzgalov to a nine-year contract worth $51 million. Previously they acquired the netminder’s rights from Phoenix in a trade.
“I respect Paul Holmgren as a manager,” said Chiarelli about his Flyers counterpart, “and when they shake things up, they shake things up.”
Not only do the Flyers loose a ton of talent with the loss of Richards and Carter, they also lose some of their nastiness. For the sake of the Bruins-Flyers rivalry, hopefully they’ll be able to replace that grit and talent.
[...] and penalty kill (72.7).Philadelphia owns three wins and a tie in four home games against Columbus. TIME: 07:00 P.M. ESTVENUE: Wells Fargo CenterThe Philadelphia Flyers are happy they won't be seeing… van Riemsdyk and Matt Read return to action, however.The Flyers could get those wingers back [...]
MCK,
Didn’t stop Vancouver from signing Luongo
KA-BOOM!!! does clowncillo get an ‘a’ on his jersey?
Too bad the goalie they have isn’t as good as he is being paid
Signing anyone to ten or eleven years is a mistake. How do you fix that? You trade them while they still have value. The problem is you don’t get what the players are actually worth. I think Holgren will find out that Schenn can’t skate and that Carter’s goals will be hard to replace. Mike Richards won’t be as good in the west on a thinner team. I think he is one of the most overated players in the league. So Philly after years of musical goalies now realizes that a solid No.1 goalie is their ticket to success.
The losses of Richards and Carter. And now they have a true #1 goalie. Overpaid? For sure. But he will make the stops. Philly may have less edge and scoring now, but they might be a more defensive team that will be harder to play against .
I’m not convinced that these moves are bad for Philadelphia. Carter and Richards were invisible in this year’s playoffs. All the scoring came from Briere, Hartnell, Giroux, Leino, and van Riemsdyk. That’s a decent core, and the depth players they brought in can partially make u for
Simmonds can help to replace Richards’ nastiness and physicality, but he won’t log those type of minutes or be out there for those game-breaking situations. The Flyers have to be happy about locking up a good goaltender for once, but they are really going to miss that talent up front. Schenn should develop into a big contributor soon enough, and we’ll see about Voracek and the picks.
Anyone else think its a bit strange to sign these guys to super long terms and then dish em? Can’t sit well with players and FAs looking to come into town.
Glad and surprised Richards is gone. He was as nasty as Lucic, which is just a little too nasty in my opinion. Shocked they did both these deals, though. It made sense to trade one for cap space, but this will make their offense significantly worse, and the Kings made out like bandits!