caluso

At what point is Holmgren held accountable? The team has perpetual salary cap problems, no farm system (one of the worst in the NHL) and is horribly consrtucted: slow, immobile d-men and not enoiugh gritty, skill players up front. The only way the Flyers will improve is for Holmgren to be relieved of his duties and replaced with a GM who values young talent and can / will build through the draft. Someone who doesn't dispense with young talent and draft picks for the "quick fix." I am tired of acquiring veterans who will keep us "competitive" at the expense of draft picks. If we have to suffer for a year or two, so be it, as long as we are accruing and developing a solid nucleus of young players. And, by no means am I defending Lavy who i think is an over-rated coach, and also should be replaced. Lavy reminds me of Mike D'Antoni - run and gun with no defense.

i think he will make the team. we are paying jody shelley to do nothing, why not bring along mathers. i followed him for two years: he is a boy destroying men. he is a true heavyweight. i was actually hoping the flyers would bring him up for the pens series last year - he would have kept the peace.

Timonen is my favorite flyer but there is NO WAY in the world he deserves 6 mil next year. And, as much as I loathe Subban, he's going to receive only 3 mil. yet another example of Holmgren's incompetence. note to Gomer: the NHL is a hard salary cap league. if you pay a past-his-prime-aging d-man 6 mil per year you will have a hard time filling out the rest of you roster with players who can win the Cup. Gomer really needs to go. And, he can take b schenn with him.

the fact that he stood up for voracek is really what mattered to me. it's about time we start making teams pay when they take liberties with us!!!! the fact that he annihilated him was a bonus.

i know Lavy and Homer continually preach "discipline." if they really want to send the message to the team that undisciplined play will not be accepted, SIT KNUBLE. aside from the fact that kuble stinks (aside: great move, Gomer), his two minor penalties were terrible and could have easily cost us the game. SIT KUNUBLE, send a message to the team that undisciplined play won't be tolerated. having said that, Lavy determines ice time by the name on the jersey and not a players' performance so i am sure knuble will go unpunished.

Howie I think you raise to interesting points. The assembled talent has been misjudged and poorly assembled by Gomer. We lack grit and toughness. And, every time I post that we need more toughness, someone replies, "We don't need more goons." Adding toughness and grit does not mean we have to add goons who can't play. The presently constructed lineup loses too many battles in front and along the boards which is why we have trouble winning close games. Lavy's "system" is easily defeated by teams who are disciplined in their own zone. Furthermore, he has shown zero ability to adjust to the talent he has and the team's defensive zone play is eerily reminiscent of the keystone cops. In my opinion, Gomer and Lavy need to go. It's time to rebuild and develop a winning nucleus.

One of the biggest problems this organization has is ZERO ACCOUNTABILITY - from the top of the organization to the bottom. For years, and this began with Stevens, the team has had different standards for different players. The name on your jersey dictated how many minutes of ice time you received - and not the quality of your performance. Players like Carter and Richards could do no wrong. They received top-line minutes irrespective of how they were playing. And now Giroux and Briere are shown the same preferential treatment. Meltzer blogged about the same thing earlier today and it inspired this post: On this sequence, Flyers captain Claude Giroux failed to hustle on the back check, floating casually about 20 feet behind the play rather than going all out to catch up to Hedman. That was a flat out unacceptable effort, and was worthy of a seat on the bench for the rest of the game. Everyone needs to backcheck. There can't be any exceptions. Buy-in for team defense has to be exampled by the captain and there also needs to be accountability for every player, including the team's best player. Is there any guarantee that if Giroux has gone all out to backcheck that Hedman wouldn't have scored anyway? Of course not. But maybe Hedman would "hear footsteps" and tick one off the post. Maybe he wouldn't have come up with the puck cleanly in the first place, and a hustling backchecker could have tied him up before he collected it. Maybe Giroux would have had to take a "good penalty" to save a goal. We'll never know. By not making any effort to get back on the put-away goal, the captain did the equivalent of waving the surrender flag. I don't care how tired a player or team feels, that should never, ever happen. Giroux does not typically cut corners defensively. But he did last night, on top of making a variety of low-percentage plays in the offensive zone. When you are pressing offensively -- with the Flyers struggling to score, Giroux is trying to force plays in the offensive end -- that is all the more reason to pay a little extra attention to the defensive side of the puck. That is part of the responsibility that goes along with the captaincy of a team that considers itself a contender. Giroux absolutely should have been banished to the clubhouse for his lack of effort. I do not care that he is "the captain." Respect is earned - not handed out. And who knows, maybe guys like Couturier and Voracek would think twice about not hustling in the future. I do not care who you are, if you are not hustling and not working hard, you shouldn't be playing. Tortorella holds every Ranger to the same standard (play by my rules or don't play at all) and it is no coincidence that they are one of the hardest working teams in the league. By contrast, how many periods do we "take off." How many times can we say that the team competed for the full 60 minutes? Unless management starts rewarding ice time to those who deserve it, we will have an inconsistent team struggling to succeed.

I was Couturier's biggest supporter last year, but I have been overwhelmingly disappointed in his play this year. His penalty killing has been abysmal and he looks really slow out there, playing very passively. I know he shut down Malkin, and was a beast in the Penguins' series, but he looks slow and lazy out there this year.

Giroux has been mediocre for a few games now. He's the best player but is he the best leader? A bigger problem is the overall construct of the team and management's ineptitude. We have one of the worst farm systems in hockey and we have no depth. Doesn't bode well for the future. Our GM has no idea how to manage a hard salary cap - he throws away draft choice after draft choice trying to keep the team "competitive." And let's be realistic, we are not even close to competing for the cup - our roster is too unbalanced: too many small forwards and too many plodding d-men. And our coach is showing himself to be a fraud. His "system" is one-dimensional and laughably easy to defeat. He has shown zero ability to adapt his system to his players. And let's not even talk about the team's special teams play or play in their own zone. Do you ever wonder what they work on in practice?

As for the Schenns setting us back 5 years - absolutely. Gomer is so infatuated with these clowns that he put all his eggs in their very porous basket. What has Brayden Schenn done to deserve being on the first line and what has Luke, aka Lukenstein, done to deserve top 4 time - he's a slow sieve back there who is an odd man rush or penalty waiting to happen.

The Rangers bangers? Really? Gaborik? Richards? Nash? Callahan maybe but they struggled for offense last year. Without Lundquist they are a very mediocre team. Tortorella has them ALL banging and blocking shots. It doesn't matter who they are, if they don't perform, they don't play. And, yes, Richards and Nash throw their weight around. I stand by what I said, we need to get bigger and tougher up front. Let me be clear, getting bigger and tougher doesn't mean acquiring plodding goons, rather it means adding grittiness, guys who actually put fear into defensemen when they forecheck. We are 0-3 (soon to be 0-4) for several reasons, and one of them is that we aren't tough enough up front. We lose way too many puck battles. Do you really think we could beat the Bruins or Rangers or Devils in a playoff series with the forwards we have? The Rangers and Bruins would pound us into submission.

"Guys like Hartnell, Simmonds, Schenn brothers, Giroux, Grossman...are not soft, there big and or tough group of guys." we are VERY soft up front and will continue to lose games against more physical teams. briere, read, voracek, couturier, talbot, giroux, schenn are not bangers, power forwards who put fear in opposing d men on the forecheck. you referenced the Rangers, well they are MUCH bigger and tougher than we are and kicked our butts last year - or is your memory failing. it is not a coincidence that they beat us EVERY game last year. they are bigger and stronger than we are: they pound you and hit anything that we moves, in addition to playing very disciplined defence. while i agree that simmonds and hartnell are tough up front, i contend that we don't have enough bangers to win the necessary battles that win close, playoff like hockey games. schenn and giroux are certainly not "bangers." as an aside, i don't see what schenn has done to deserve being on the first line. during the lockout, he was decent, very up and down, in the AHL - certainly not spectacular. and last year, he was mediocre. acquiring the schett brothers will set us back 5 years.

luke and brayden another of gomer's huge miscalculations

the reality is that gomer has built a team that has trouble winning key battles. we are soft. look at the losing goal from today's game. our top line (as an aside, can we get schett off of there, please; he's a third-liner at best) had all three guys battling for the puck in center ice - and still managed to lose possession of the puck to only 2 sabres. as a result, the sabres had numbers and speed heading into our zone. the result was a penalty by the other schett brother, and ultimately the game losing goal. until we toughen up the roster, we will be solely reliant on our speed up front - and that doesn't bode well in the east anymore (boston, rangers, buffalo, ottawa, washington, devils are all tougher / better than we are).