BobbyClarkeFan16

I expect a career pattern similar to Mike Richards to start. I think he'll be a 30 to 35 point guy his first year, maybe a sight bump the second season and then explodes in his third year.

I think both Hogberg and Bernhardt will be coming over for 2019-2020. As well, there were whispers that Wyatt Kalynuk would be going pro after his season at Wisconsin. And yes, I think Friedman is ready for his shot. He might not get in this year, but I could see him being called up next season for a few games. I noticed that Laberge was missing from your list. I could see him being moved to the wing and playing alongside Laczynski and Sushko, Ratcliffe being bumped up to the top with Bunnaman and Allison and then Carey on the fourth line to replace Goulbourne, who'll probably be out of the organization completely. And don't forget that it's possible Farabee might be one and done in the NCAA and could possibly make the jump. There's a plethora of depth that this club hasn't seen since Holmgren was named GM after Clarke resigned. People can say what they want about Bobby, but he left an embarrassment of riches for Holmgren. Hopefully Fletcher doesn't piss away the depth that Hextall left him.

Something tells me that Vorobyov won't be in the Flyers organization past the trade deadline. I expect he'll be dealt for a draft pick, maybe a 4th so that the Flyers are picking in every round this year. As for Laberge and Laczynski, they'll be moved to the wing next season. Rubtsov won't get bumped because he's most effective there. As for Bunnaman, I think with his size, it only makes sense that the Flyers continue to develop him into a checking center in the Joel Otto mold, but with better skating. Frost should be given the Giroux treatment - send him to Lehigh Valley, let him play 30 - 35 games there and call him up mid-season. I get the Flyers are on a nice run right now, but this is still a DEEPLY flawed club. Team defense is atrocious and there are still players on the big club that have no business being there. It makes zero sense to have Frost center a line if he's going to be surrounded by scrubs and only get table scraps for ice time. What's going to be interesting is what's going to happen in Lehigh Valley next year with the influx of talent from junior. That's going to be a good dilemma to face.

I should have explained - 50 starts for Hart, 30 starts for Stolarz.

Frost and Farabee have also grown since their draft day as well. I was reading that Frost is 6'1, 190 pounds now and Farabee is 6'1, 180 pounds.

Well, the good news is that Hart is probably on the big club for good and Stolarz will more than likely be the back up. You're looking at 50/30 split between the two. As for Lyon, I'm all but certain he's moved to another organization to get a chance. That leaves Sandstrom, which means Felix and Kirill battle it out in Lehigh Valley. The AHL is the perfect place for those two to battle it out and hopefully when a new coaching staff is in place in Philadelphia, a new coaching staff will be in place in Lehigh Valley, especially a coaching staff that focuses on what the big club is doing and the system they play, while developing the young guys. If we thought things were messy now, just wait until Ersson arrives. Great problem to have.

https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/sports/csn/flyers/Flyers_prospect_Joel_Farabee_following_in_the_footsteps_of_James_van_Riemsdyk_PHI-505198182.html Obviously this article doesn't delve deeper because if it did, the writer would have noted that Farabee actually attends a school with a noted hockey program that has developed several quality and bonafide NHL players. Boston University has a reputation. As for JVR, he went to UNH, which didn't have a great hockey program and he ended up developing bad habits from there. He was a first round pick that the school catered to and allowed him to get away with bad habits. Farabee will be a far superior player to JVR. Farabee's work ethic alone separates him from Van Useless.

After reading the scouting reports of all the top prospects, something tells me that if the Flyers fall out of the top 3 and end up with a pick at 4, 5 or 6, Matthew Boldy will be the player they select. It just seems like an organizational fit with him. Good size, great wheels, soft hands, plays a full 200 foot game and has incredible hockey IQ. He's Farabee, but with better size.

Great move. I get he's a bit long in the tooth, but he's going to be a great sounding board for Huffman and he'll be able to help put together a development plan for a lot of the players there. I also expect that there's going to be a handful of players that Murray will take under his wing and really help push them to the next level, specifically Rubtsov and Laberge after their season ending surgeries......

Rubstov also a scratch last night. I guess Gordon felt that he needed to continue to give ice time to guys like Conner, Carey, Varone, etc.....and sit the young talent he's supposed to help develop. Glad to see 'smart' decision making is working it's way down from the parent club to the farm team.......

I watched the Lehigh Valley/Springfield game tonight and Rubtsov is a real gem. I swear it's like watching the Russian version of Patrice Bergeron, except that Rubtsov is a much better skater. There's no wasted play out there, they just go out and perform and they make it look effortless. My hope is that Rubtsov stays the year. Don't call him up. Let him just play and soak in the atmosphere and then have him really push for a spot at next training camp. He's really going to be a great problem for the Flyers next season.

It teaches Hart how to deal with adversity. This is probably the best thing that will happen to him in his pro career. He'll watch some video, figure things out and readjust. I'm sure Dillabaugh will work with him and you can bet Hart is talking to his sports psychologist.

Wylie is a CHL player. He has to be signed by 2020 or he goes back into the draft.

Isaac Ratcliffe is an impressive physical specimen. That reach and soft hands is something you can't teach. Hextall got a steal there. Hopefully he gets a few preseason games in before being sent back for his final junior season.

This year was the exception to the rule though. Giroux was playing on a surgically repaired hip and he wasn't himself until nearly 8 months after the surgery. Let's also not forget that Giroux's even strength scoring was practically non-existent, a statistical anomoly if there ever was one. Giroux playing with a healthy hip is a completely different player. I think after the second half of the season, he was on pace for 70 points. I expect that Giroux will bounce back this up coming season and be a 80 point player. Voracek, on the other hand, is the guy that concerns me the most on this roster.

I'm not worried that Rasmussen is a statistical anomoloy. I think he rebounds next season and becomes a consistent point producer in all situations. I'm looking at the various draft publications and the guys that are available around when the Flyers pick and I see guys like Rasmussen, Jason Robertson (great size, but apparent skating issues), Nikita Popugayev (great skating and skill, but completely fell apart after being traded), Ryan Poehling (some can't decide if there's actual high end skill or not), Kristian Vesalainen (size and skating, but is there actual skill), Maxime Comtois (was a preseason potential number one pick, but has fallen hard), etc.... At this point, if you look at things from a real honest stand point, Rasmussen is the guy I take out of the bunch and it's not close. We know he can score goals. He can skate like the wind. He has a fantastic shot and works the power play really well. The other issue with Rasmussen's production this year is that he was consistently bounced between left wing and center. I don't care what anyone says - you can't be successful if you're chaning positions as often as you're changing underwear. We've seen it with Brayden Schenn when he was bounced from center to left wing to right wing then back to center, etc.....Leave Rasmussen in one place and he'll be OK. I know Hextall has said that he wants to incorporate more size and he started that last year with Bunnaman and Twarynski (can't forget Tanner Laczynski and his 6'1, 200 pound frame), so it won't surprise me if Rasmussen is on the radar. Part of me is really intrigued by this draft because it's really interesting to see what direction the Flyers will go. My hope is that they end up with one of Necas, Pettersson or Glass, but I won't be downtrodden if they select Rasmussen.

Craig Button posted his mock draft on TSN and he believes the Flyers will draft Michael Rasmussen. Button thinks that Glass will go third, Pettersson will go to Detroit and Necas will go Dallas.

I guarantee you Simmonds will look at a 7 year deal at a minimum, $7 million per season. If you're comfortable paying that for someone who will be in their late 30s, then by all means go for it. However, with the game that Simmonds plays, injuries are going to start happening soon. You can't play that style of game he does and not expect injuries. That's why I think you move on from Simmonds. Simply put, he's going to be on the downside of his career and paying out a minimum of $7 million per year is salary cap suicide. As for Voracek, I think you put him on the right team and you're going to get results. Personally, I'd move him to Washington and try to grab someone like Burakovsky and Vrana in return. Burakovsky is just waiting to break out and Vrana has shown serious upside. I think if Oshie, Williams and Alzner leaves, I think you'll see the Caps try to do something and moving Voracek to Washington would be ideal to get out from yet another contract and get some more youthful talent. Don't forget that with Giroux, even if he starts to lose effectiveness at center, you can move him to right wing where he's going to take less of a pounding and still be able to contribute. I have no doubts about that. Seriously, if you move Simmonds for a king's ransom and move Voracek for Burakovsky and Vrana, you could essentially create a top line of Burakovsky - Vrana - Giroux; a second line of Weal - Filppula - Konecny and a third of Weise - Couturier - Schenn, you're going to be fine. We aren't contending next season, so might as well acquire a ton of young bodies and players to grow with the defense. You've also got money freed up and you can do an Arizona thing by acquiring a high priced contract, but get a blue chip prospect to go with the high priced contract.

Giroux goes nowhere. He played on a bad hip most of the year and he still score 58 points playing on that bad hip. I mentioned in another article that Ryan Getzlaf had the same surgery as Giroux and he also had the worst year of his career after that hip surgery. Hips take time to heal and even though Giroux was 100% from the surgery, his hip itself still wasn't 100%. Someone mentioned taking the C off him and honestly, I think that's the best thing that could ever happen to him. He'll have the burden of the captaincy lifted and he can focus solely on playing hockey. The captaincy has been nothing but an albatross and he's simply not the type of leader that the Flyers need. As for Voracek, biggest mistake that Hextall has made in terms of contracts. Hextall should have moved him when he had that 82 point season and not look back. This was the one time that Hextall caved into management and gave Voracek a contract that he should have never received. I don't think he makes that mistake again. As for Simmonds, I move him and I don't think twice about it. He's a power forward who has one year left at under $4 million, is going to be 29 years old and is going to look for a retirement contract. Start a bidding war with teams and get the absolute best package you can get of blue chip prospects, young roster players and first round picks. You know teams like Boston, Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, etc.....would all be in the bidding.

I'm an equal opportunist hater.....lol

I'm so glad the Flyers deal for him fell through. Kane is such a immature punk. His career is done in two years.

Coburn was a bum. Sorry, but someone had to say it. Million dollar talent, ten cent brain. Had all the physical tools in the world to be an elite number one defenseman, but didn't have the brain to put it all together. Every year, people kept waiting and waiting and waiting for him to put it together, but it just never happened. I thought at one time there was a chance he would be an elite defenseman back in 07-08, but after the puck hit him in the face in the playoff series against the Pens, he digressed and became a shell of what he could be. He never recovered from that incident and it's too bad because he could have been a 40+ point per season, 25 minute a night guy.

Give it time. They'll get it down pat. Don't forget that the difference between an NHL player's contract and an NFL player's is that the NHL contract is guaranteed, so the guarantee ties hands. If they go non-guarantee (which should be an easy sell for both sides), then you'll see things contract wise play out accordingly.

The most successful sports model in the world has been the NFL and they've had a cap for years and years. Everyone deserves to make money. As much as I despise the owners, I also realize that they are the ones who risk the most and that they deserve to make money. Players also deserve to make money because they are the folks that people come to see. Do I think it sucks that success is often penalized in a cap system? Yep. The days of true dynasties are gone because now it's about allocating resources properly and wisely. Management (salary and player) has never been more important than it is now. However, for the greater good of the game, the cap is required to keep a competitive and balanced playing field. The only reason why there are some teams doing so poorly is due to management. Everyone has the same cap space to play with. Everyone has the same draft to use and everyone can make trades and sign free agents. How management uses those resources are what determines success and failure. Edmonton should be a reminder to all of that.

Meh....I'm iffy on Bogosian. I know he's a big guy that can skate and is good defensively, but he's so injury prone. At this point, if the Flyers look at anyone from Winterpeg, I'd love to see Enstrom be the guy they pick up. There's perfect Kimmo replacement and could play 25+ minutes a night. The only drawback is that Enstrom is a smaller guy, but you can't hit what you can't catch.......