Lindbergh31

I can't see Shero being that dumb to offer Doan $30 million over 4 years. But I guess we'll see if Doan does end up signing with Pittsburgh and for how much. Based on the owners first proposal to the players, there could be another lockout or strike this coming fall.

I think the other poster was trying to make is the Flyers didn't have an answer for Staal. A lot of teams didn't have an answer for Staal considering they had to match up centres to go against Malkin and Crosby which meant teams had no one to match Staal. He's a very good two way player who will definitely benefit being the second line centre for Carolina instead of being the third line centre for Pittsburgh. It seems Staal got tired of being the 3rd line centre and wanted a chance for more offensive responsibilities so no matter what Pittsburgh offered he would have left after this coming season anyways plus getting a chance to play with his older brother didn't hurt. It wouldn't surprise me if Marc Staal joins the brothers in Carolina when his contract is up with the Rangers in 3 years. Anyways, Pittsburgh will miss Staal.

Jammer, the Flyers need a 4th centre who is good on faceoffs, I was hoping they would have signed Jeff Halpren who was 58.3% on faceoffs last year. I know Arnott is over 50% which would be beneficial for the Flyers and you can limit his minutes.

Is that what some Flyers fans have been wanting the last couple years, to draft players and let them develop. Who knows how next season is going to turn out but hopefully the coaching staff will play Schenn, Couturier, Read, Bourdon and Voracek a lot and let them develop.

I was just listening to Elliot Freidmann from CBC Hockey Night in Canada and he brought up a good point, Poile has to sit down with Weber and his agent now and find out what Weber's plans are so another Suter situation doesn't take place with Nashville again. He said that the NHL has to be careful regarding these long-term contracts because players coming into their prime money making years like Weber will be asking for max dollars if the next CBA puts a limit of the number of years for contracts. If Weber has no intention of resigning with Nashville after this season then I can see Poile trading him to the highest bidder at the deadline. I think teams are signing all of these players to these long-term deals now because it provides a lower cap hit per year, they know the players will not fulfill the full term of the deal and Bettman is going to push hard to put a max limit on the years of deals to 5 or 7 years.

Unfortunately teams like Detroit amongest others will be looking to sign Weber also. You're right last year every expert was saying the Flyers would have a hard time scoring because of the trades of Richards and Carter but Philly did ok. Here's a look of the lineup for next year as I see it: Hartnell-Giroux-Voracek Schenn-Briere-Simmonds ?-Couturier-Read Rinaldo-Talbot-Wellwood/Sestito Timonen-Coburn Meszaros-Grossmann Bourdon-Schenn Now here is a list of potential defensemen that the Flyers could sign one of them at a reasonable price, here is also a list of forwards that they could sign to fill a 3rd or 4th line winger. Defensemen: Carlo Colaiacovo Chris Campoli Matt Gilroy Michal Rozsival Scott Hannan Jim Vandermeer Forwards: Jim Halpren Ruslan Fedotenko Shane Doan Jason Arnott Kyle Wellwood Brendan Morrison Goalies: Dan Ellis Alex Auld Slim pickens for this year's crop but these guys would probably come cheap, Holmgren would have a cap space at the deadline to make trades. Now we all know that Snider and Holmgren aren't patient people so it wouldn't surprise me if Couturier is part of a package traded to get Bobby Ryan or Rick Nash. We as Flyers fans can only hope Holmgren doesn't have a knee jerk reaction to the fallout of the Parise and Suter singings.

lol, true that boat anchor contract isn't going anywhere and unless Bryzgalov reinvents himself into Bernie Parent this upcoming season it will continue to be a painful thing to watch for Flyers fans. It would be interesting to see what the experts would have done if they were able to re pick the first round.

Well Podein you were right that Carle would sign tonight but not with the Flyers, he's going back to the Lightning for reportedly $33 million over 6 years, so I guess he didn't really want to stay in Philly afterall. So I guess the Flyers defensive pairings for this upcoming season will be unless they make a trade. Timonen-Coburn Meszaros-Grossmann Bourdon-Schenn

True, but Seabrook, Getzlaf or Parise would have looked good in a Philly uniform. But you never know what you're going to get when drafting players.

I'd like to see Holmgren sit back if he can't resign Carle to a reasonable deal and wait for the dust to settle. There's going to be teams that will want to make trades since the UFA market was weak or just wait until closer to the season starting and the Flyers will be able to sign players to one-year deals at a cheaper price. He doesn't have to fill out his whole team now and this way he'll get a better idea as to the status of Pronger before making a move. Right now without Carle being signed he has 7 defenseman that can play (unfortunately we have to include Lilja in that amount and 8 defensemen if you include Matt Walker).

Well if there was a handshake deal between Carle and Homer then I guess we'll find out in the next couple of days. I know we needed defensemen this off season but since Detroit missed out on Suter and if Carle resigns with Philly, what about trading Timonen to Detroit. It would free up $6.3 million in cap space and maybe Detroit sends a young prospect back. Just a thought. He's not getting any younger, and I know he'd have to waive his no-trade clause but he might consider playing in Detroit.

They had a story before the draft on comparing the 1979 draft and 2003 draft, take a look at the picks in the first round of the 2003 draft and think if the Flyers had picked who was at number 17 instead of who they picked at number eleven. 1: PIT - Marc-Andre Fleury 2: CAR - Eric Staal 3: FLA - Nathan Horton 4: CBJ - Nikolai Zherdev 5: BUF - Thomas Vanek 6: SJ - Milan Michalek 7: NSH - Ryan Suter 8: ATL - Braydon Coburn 9: CGY - Dion Phaneuf 10: MTL - Andrei Kostitsyn 11: PHI - Jeff Carter 12: NYR - Hugh Jessiman 13: LA - Dustin Brown 14: CHI - Brent Seabrook 15: NYI - Robert Nilsson 16: SJ - Steve Bernier 17: NJ - Zach Parise 18: WSH - Eric Fehr 19: ANA - Ryan Getzlaf 20: MIN - Brent Burns 21: BOS - Mark Stuart 22: EDM - M.A. Pouliot 23: VAN - Ryan Kesler 24: PHI - Mike Richards 25: FLA - Anthony Stewart 26: LA - Brian Boyle 27: LA - Jeff Tambellini 28: ANA - Corey Perry 29: OTT - Patrick Eaves 30: STL - Shawn Belle Parise and Suter will do well in Minnesota but I think the Wild are from being stanley cup contenders. Well now we'll get to see the after effects of those two signing on the teams who didn't get them. Hopefully Holmgren doesn't do something stupid!

As long as Holmgren doesn't get into a pissing match with Detroit for Carle's services and doesn't overpay for him then signing Carle makes sense. I'd like to see them sign Doan if possible because in order to trade for Bobby Ryan then Couturier would have to be the player going the other way since Schenn will probably won't get traded since his brother is here now. I have a feeling Detroit will try to sign Carle now the Suter signed with Minnesota.

Let's face it if Carle really wanted to stay in Philly like he said, he'd already have signed for around $5 million, he's looking for a big payday and I hope Holmgren isn't stupid enough to give it to him. The defense without him isn't the greatest but it wouldn't be the worst in the league either: Timonen-Coburn Meszaros-Grossmann Bourdon-Schenn It would mean that Bryzgalov would actually have to be the goalie that the Flyers are paying him to be. Holmgren has to be looking two or three years down the road when it comes to signing players. Timonen's cap hit comes off the books after next season in which is the same time Weber becomes an UFA, also with the new cba if there is a clause to be able to buyout one player without it counting against the cap then Holmgren has to take a long look at Pronger if there is no chance of him coming back.

I'm all for the Flyers to resign Carle but anything above $5 million per year doesn't make sense, might as well go with Mez, Timmo, Coburn, Schenn, Bourdon and pickup a cheap 5th/6th defenseman and go after Weber next summer. Holmgren has to get away from signing players to these 7 to 10 year deals.

Out of those 3 I hope the Flyers would sign Gaustad, he's great on faceoffs, tough and would solve the fourth line centre position. If they can't get him then Konopka would come cheap, he's also great on faceoffs and tough. Hopefully Holmgren has a game plan to solve the defense plus the top-line right winger whether it's resigning Jagr (which I don't see happening now) or trading for Ryan.

Split in between and give him a 3 year deal. I'd love to see Doan especially since Jagr looks like he's going to test the market. Having a veteran like Jagr last year helped out the younger players so signing Doan would be a no brainer. He's a good leader, works hard and is a right-handed shooting winger who will stick up for his teammates. I guess this is going to be an interesting free agency in a couple of days.

Thanks Rad, I forgot about him, so you could probably put Meszaros with Carle and Schenn with Timonen. As for Lilja I think he'll be spending a lot of time in the press box eventhough his cap hit will be on the books regardless. Or Meszaros might be part of a package to get Bobby Ryan if Carle is resigned.

As long as Holmgren doesn't trade Bourdon, then fans will probably see a lot of him this year. If Carle resigns for a reasonable amount then I can see the following defensive pairings for this coming season: Carle/Schenn, Coburn/Grossmann and Timonen/Bourdon. I think Lavi and the rest of the coaching staff has to realize that they have to cut down his minutes since he isn't a spring chicken. But with Holmgren you never know what he's thinking or what he'll do.

I know the amount of Leaf fans you have to deal with in Windsor, just as FC in Barrie and myself in Sudbury but I think this trade will workout for the Flyers. Eventhough JVR could end up being a decent powerforward, the Flyers proved last season that they didn't really miss him when he wasn't in the lineup. He's going to find out how hard it's going to be to play in Toronto when he doesn't perform the way the fans expect him to. Once Schenn gets the Toronto **** out of his system, pairing him with Timonen might not be a bad idea, not to mention he'll be playing with his brother. He's a big bruising defensive defenseman who lost his confidence in Toronto with no coach to help him out. The change of scenery might do him so good. And if Holmgren can trade for Ryan who seems to want to end up in Philly then things might not be too bad. He's signed for 3 more years compared to JVR who signed for 6 years. But getting a draft pick would have been nice.

Hey Jammer, keep your head up and things will work out for you. It sucks the way our unemployment insurance system works not to mention the good old tax system. Well at least you'll have the Flyers to ***** about for the next couple of weeks while you're on vacation Try to take it easy.

Well once the Flyers signed Bryzgalov last year, Flyers fans knew that the writing was on the wall for Bob. Hopefully he does well, he'll join a long list of players who were traded by the Flyers that ended up doing well on other teams.

FC, as much as I'd like to see JVR packaged to get a number one defenseman, I just don't see any team trading away their number one or top 4 defenseman. I think Holmgren will have to go the free agent route to get a top 4 defenseman. As for Ryan, if it took JVR and a pick to get him then I'd say go for it. If you have Ryan who is a right-handed shot playing on a line with Giroux then the Flyers don't have to resign Jagr and I believe Ryan is signed for another 3 years where as JVR is signed for the next 6 years. Ryan is more durable and has proven he can score at least 30 goals per year, not to mention he'd probably score a lot more playing with Giroux. I think Anaheim has come to realize that they can't keep all three going forward so Ryan looks to be the odd man out.

If Holmgren does pick a goalie in the first round then they can let him develop in the AHL for a year or so since Bryzgalov is signed for another 8 years and will probably be here for at least the next 4 years unless the fans run him right out of town. As for drafting a defenseman, the Flyers need a top 4 defenseman now not a couple of years from now so they'll probably have to go the trade route to get that defenseman.

Not to mention Hartnell's contract is done at the end of this coming year so Nash could be Giroux's new goal scoring winger. We know as long as Bryzgalov is here, Silent Bob will not get a fair shake so if you can get something for him then Holmgren should do it.