Bakanekimiwa

Rather than try to decipher what the F you're talking about at the end of your post, I will respond to the poker bit. If you lost AA to homer with 23o on a total bluff then Homer outplayed you.

well, if they throw in Slava Voynov, then I think we'd have a deal.

Anyone see this tools latest blog? He says his sources say Briere will definitely be bought out. He announces this right after Streit is signed, everyone knew Briere was being bought out and the signing of Streit just confirms it, This Eklund is a regular Nostrodamus. He is probably some fat bald 50 year old loser who nevere even kissed a girl, I bet he lives in his Moms basement.

and in other breaking news today, JFK has been shot and we landed on the moon.

Actually I get pissed off when superstars fight! One punch to the helmet... But wait, we're on a shortest books thread right? So since you opened up captains...

"My Memories with the Stanley Cup" - Featuring chapters by Giroux, Pronger, Richards, Smith, Forsberg, Hatcher, Primeau, Desjardins, Lindros, Dineen, Tocchet, Sutter, Poulin, Barber, Bridgman, van Impe, and Angotti.

wow... right for the cajones... haha.

Oh yeah....and Tukka Rask.....That guys stock just went up a bit no??

Tukka has played unbelievable. He's been phenomenal for them this run. If he keeps it up, they win the cup... imo

to unemployment... Dan Bylsma.... We Welcome You!

"How I Manned Up and Dropped the Gloves" - Anon-Pitt Captain

couple points... lets actually give Boston some credit here... they played great team D. they are a much better team than most realize. they can win the cup against either of the west teams.

Cindy will be seeing Chara in his nightmares the rest of the summer. he was really trying out there, he just had a 6'9" zombie coming at him at every turn. the real no-shows were Malkin and Neal. they needed that line to score and they didn't. without secondary scoring against Boston.... they didn't have a chance.

Lastly... lets not forget that Pitt's Achilles heel is their D. they're simply not strong enough, but especially when they weren't outscoring teams. Oh, and I'd gladly take Crosby for Shelley.... problem is, Jody is a UFA now(and by problem I mean yippee!)

"no clear-cut timetable"

bad choice of words there...

man.. i swear that there's so much hate for the flyers out there in the hockey world that most of the votes were put in for Bob just to spite us flyers fans.

while goalies are *always* blamed in Philly, you can bet that the goalie neither played as bad as ardent fans of the team would portray... nor was he really good. was he good enough? well, i think that's where sanfillipino is going with this article. He gave them a chance to win on most nights. The point being, our *team D* was atrocious on most nights.

i've said it before, but it bears repeating... bryz faced (to)numerous(to mention) breakaways and odd man chances, as well as, high percentage shots from between the dots, as i've seen a flyer's goalie face in my time. not that i'm recusing him of any bad plays.. sure, he had his share of goals 'he'd like to have back'.

all of which is to get back to the point that @radoran made... any discussion of bryz needs to center around his deal and the cap hit. this is the real problem and this is why so many are so hyper-focused on his play. he was no worse than just about anybody on the team this year, but he's receiving the lion share of complaints.

It's difficult to base anything off of the last couple weeks.

My gut tells me this team played better once the pressure was off. There were also some fill-in players working their tails off to prove they belong...or at the very least to take full advantage of their 15 minutes of NHL career just for posterity sake. You had a new goalie who had struggled elsewhere also trying to prove something both to himself and his new organIzation.

So, my gut tells me that this confluence of factors that created some success at the end--when it was too late for the playoffs and in opposition to the club's long-term interests-- wouldn't have either been present nor possible at any other time in the season or under any other conditions. Nor do I think those factors would have caused the same result at any other time of the season.

It does make me think, however, that a coaching change early on MIGHT have had similar effect. If the idea was "make the playoffs at all costs" even though ultimate success wasn't possible even if they did, then firing Lavy in early March might have done the trick. I'm not contending that this is what should have been done, but I think the results might have mimicked what we saw the last two weeks or so.

The question of the thread, however, was what does it mean going forward? I don't think it means a damned thing. I think it's an aberration and a mixture of factors that are temporary and cannot be repeated. I'm not prognosticating as to success or failure next year, but what I am saying is that the last two weeks or so will like have little bearing on anything next year, the possible exception being in goal.

I don't think it can possibly escape management's attention that this team did play better in front of Mason. At the very least, I would think Mason bought himself a lot more playing time next year than he might have otherwise had.

I def lean toward agreeing with this assessment. it probably doesn't mean much at the end of the day. but, Gus and Oliver's play seemed to indicate some promise for our blueline next season. I don't feel that that is just a fluke of the end of the year fighting for a job type thing. Of course they are fighting for jobs, but they will be early on next year as well. Ollie seems to have a lot of promise with his size and his play so far. If they can channel his mean streak into clearing the crease ala pronger, I like what i see.

Gus seems to be a very mobile D man who possesses some puck movement skills. Isn't that what they've been sorely lacking most of the year? Seems to me that, if he can continue to improve in that direction, we might have a diamond in the rough.

Maybe I'm trying to polish this turd defense a bit much at this point, but I'm sorely needing some encouragement, because beyond these things that I've mentioned... we seems to be so far out of the mix for many years to come.

buyout briere and bryzgalov

trade for negotiating rights to bernier - read, mcginn, 2nd

resign gagne - 2yrs, $5mil

resign fedotenko - 2yrs, $3mil

resign hall - 1yr, $750k

resign gustafsson, manning, lauridsen - 3yrs, $3.75mil manning and lauridsen on two way deals

resign bernier - 3yrs, $7.5mil

hartnell - Giroux - voracek

gagne - schenn - Simmonds

fedotenko - couturier - Talbot

rosehill - rinaldo - hall

timonen - Coburn

schenn - grossmann

gustafsson - meszaros

mason

bernier

$60.92mil on the NHL roster

$62.45mil taking gervias' and bourdon's one way deals and bartulis buyouts into account.

$8.27mil in offseason cap space, including the 10% allowed overage.

if the flyers can get to the next-season salary cap and thus get full benefit of pronger's LTIR, they'd have $6.791mil in cap space once the season begins.

the flyers have fair depth at center and a couple bottom-pair defensive options, if couturier needs to be dangled, probably along with a pick and possibly a roster dman for a defensive upgrade, but don't really know who that would be. wouldn't move either schenn, though.

good stuff... i like it. except, they just won't buy out bryz this summer. that, and apparently Rusty was unhappy with his role and seems to think he's got more offensive upside that anyone else in the league thinks he does.. i don't think he re-signs.

oops... meant Reese... my old brain. So, if we're looking to improve from the draft, then we're more than a few years away. And then, yes, they screwed themselves good by playing well.

I like Meltzers analysis, but then it really begs the question as to why it took them 30 friggin games to play like they're supposed to. Maybe he's not so subtlety indicting the coach there.

I agree with you @fishbulb that they won't fire the coach or the GM. I firmly believe Bryz gets one more year... At this point even Briere knows he just played his last Flyers game.

The Flyers offseason, WE WELCOME YOU!!!

if I were religious I would bless you for keeping this thread alive. hockey forum board members.... I welcome you to a long summer.

my franchise tanked up to eight meaningless games to out tank the Devils for arguably the greatest player to ever play the game.

whooooaaaahhhhhh... slow down there sparky. Crosby still has a loooooong time to go before he even deserves to be spoken of in the same sentence as the Great One. And ThEnnnnn he has to contend with Mario and Messier. Holy crap he's NOT even close yet.

Who's Knuble? Sorry, already forgot him.

reported!?

the Flyers played their best hockey at the very end here, all the while with a heavily rookie laden team. the kids are hungry and this last little stretch here was very encouraging for the future.

Mason was outstanding tonight. the league seems to be unanimous in its praise for Reggie Lemelin and tonight lends a bit of credence as to the 'why' that is. I've been critical of him myself, but that's obviously a very naive opinion since I really have no idea how goalie coaching works... nor do I pretend to like some here.... I will forego the names.

Now.. have no delusions of grandeur for next season, but it seems that maybe we're not as far off from the promised land as we thought even a few weeks ago.

What do you all think!? Is this a misguided feeling based the anomaly of recent successes!? Or is there really some cause for optimism here!? curious...

Tough fighter... Are you, in fact, kuato? Answer the question.

um.. HELLO!!!! ???? we scored 0 goals!!! ZERO!!! ZED! Nada. zip zilch. NONE goals scored!!

and all you dip shizz wanna do is complain about the goalie. only in philly.

it's becoming clear... at least to me, that the Flyer's overall plan B for not drafting and not being able to get FA's anymore is to heavily recruit college FA's. interesting approach, but not even that seems to be working, outside of matt read.

THIS IS THE WORST TEAM IN THE LEAGUE

ummm... have you seen Colorado!? just sayin...

he's showing promise. I've been pleasantly surprised. His reach is a great asset that's been helping him cover mistakes. Like someone else said, I'd like him to show more nasty and use his size more. I'm sure the Flyer's brass do as well. Maybe Prongs could get on the ice and teach him a few things.

article seems spot on. they're thriving on the enthusiasm of the young and new. 7 game series against Pitt or Bos.... oh dear, this group doesn't even have a fighting chance.

There was a bunch of people hoping for Dougie instead of Couts.

Homer has always said that he will go after who he thinks the best talent is (not by position).

and apparently this is a solid way of thinking about the draft. every one of these players is a crap shoot to make it in the nhl. you could draft a D man in the 250th overall and he'll end up being... well Kimmo Timonen.

so... there's really no telling.. going for the best player available regardless of position seems to be a solid way to approach it.