lvphantoms

I know the old cliche "I root for the logo on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back," but I think it's pretty human to have favorite players despite what everyone claims. So it's still pretty early in the season and people are already dropping rumors about Flyers making some huge trades. I have no idea whether they're credible or if people are just throwing nonsense out their for views. For me the history of the organization is what makes me a fan, but it's the current players that keep me watching every game, and over the last few seasons I've grown pretty much indifferent towards the players on the team (knowing that they could be traded at any point). Unsurprisingly the few players I have started to root for are involved in most recent trade speculation (Voracek, Simmonds, Grossmann, Read, etc.). I was a pretty big fan of Richards, Carter and Lupul, loved Gagne as much as anyone else, and wasn't happy about people getting down on Van Riemsdyk every year. I wasn't thrilled about losing Briere this offseason either, but at least in his case I understood that his price was way higher than what he brought to the team. So how attached do you get to Flyers players, and does the fact that we're non-stop blowing the team up make it harder to get invested in the team?

It would be a shame to see Coburn or Meszaros (more likely) traded just to get to the cap, knowing that we'll be like $4 million under as soon as Pronger goes on LTIR. If Meszaros (27 years old) goes we have a really old defense. Timonen - 38 Gill - 38 Streit - 35 Coburn - 28 Grossmann - 28 Gustafsson - 24 Schenn - 23 I really hope some of these defensemen we drafted pan out, or we're in serious trouble over the next 5 years.

I don't fully understand NHL contracts and the rules that relate to them, so I was wondering if anyone could clear things up for me. I understand that a team can have 23 players on the active roster and only 20 dressed each game. Right now the Flyers have 25 players on the active roster according to capgeek. So if the Flyers don't sign anyone else, who gets removed from the active roster and do their salaries count against the cap (Gervais, Bourdon)? And does a player on the LTIR count as one of the 23 players? I ask because if the Flyers put Pronger on LTIR, and if they remove a couple contracts to get to 23, there will be pretty much cap space freed up (enough that we could probably sign Gagne, Gill, and still have cap left). Of course, we'd have to wait until after day 1 of the season to sign them, and I've never really heard of any team doing that. Thanks for any information.