King Knut

I don't know dude... you had me until you reminded me about Harry Z. The guy wasn't a star or even a terribly great role player. But he had some value. Did we trade him just to not have to deal with resigning him? It's not the losing of Harry Z, it's just the quandry of why they bothered? It wasn't a good trade. Harry is worth more than Rosebud... Hill. But besides that... just... why? It's far more preplexing and confusing than frustrating or angering.

They can't be laughing at Homer for trading for Mason. It makes sense. They have no backup and they're probably looking to buyout Bryz after the season. Why not get a mediocre goalie for less than half the price of Bryz and shop around a little in the off season (plenty of capable young RFAs to be found)? They're laughing at Homer for giving up on Bob and for Signing Bryz to such a huge deal (and that joke is more about the length than the dollar amount as Bryz was making more $ per year as a Coyote). Or maybe they're laughing at him for trading Bobrovsky for essentially nothing. Plenty of things to be laughing at Homer for... but the mason trade wouldn't really be on my list.

I suppose Buying out Bryzgalov is too expensive for Snider to even think about... but they have to be contemplating it at this point with the Mason trade in mind. If they buy out Bryz that's a huge chunk of change that I can only assume would prohibit them buying out anyone else. Who else would you buy out though? Briere seems the most likely candidate, but he also seems like someone you could trade. I'm frankly surprised we didn't see it this year, but apparently a concussion calling his season into question combined with his desire not to move made short work of that. I thought the Kings might take a run at him for the playoffs and send us Bernier in return... but that was a pipe dream too. Personally I wouldn't mind buying out Pronger just so the charade can come to an end, but for $13 million or whatever it'll cost, I assume they'll keep the charade going.

Bryz would be a perfectly acceptable #1 perfectly capable of leading this team to playoff success (cup? I don't know) but at his current salary and the current contract length, he's costing us the puzzle pieces a team needs to succeed. I can only hope he's bought out -though not because I'm deluded to think he sucks the way most here seem to. WE just can't afford his 5.6 for the next bazillion years AND ice a team good enough to win. Need to buy our Bryz, take that on the chin and hopefully make a move for a Bernier type alt to Mason. Between the two of them, they'd make about as much as Bryz does now. I think Bryz is better than Mason, Bernier's probably better long term than both. But you have to convince the Kings to give him up. Taking our cast offs have worked well for them, I'm just not sure they can afford any more since they all make so much.

I can only hope that he wasn't brought in to be a starter. RFA this year, can't imagine he'll resign for more.

Leighton and a 3rd. I'm good with that.

Mes and Coby are both out for the season. You may see Coby if we make the playoffs. Now that's moot as I know you're talking about next season... but at this point, do you really think the team is going to put any eggs in the Mezaros basket? The guy can't stay healthy for any amount of time. Which is a head scratcher because he used to be a work horse before he came here. Either way, I can't see him playing here next year and if he does, we won't be able to count on him which leaves an aged Timmonen and Coburn That's not good and Jones will probably go #1... not something we're likely to get either way.

Not if Briere can't play again this year. Score one for the injuries!!

It's been suggested and I tend to agree that there's a lot of pressure coming to Homer from Snider who doesn't like waiting and wants what he wants when he wants it and doesn't understand that -even though he helped push for the salary cap and the new CBAs- he can't just throw money at the problems anymore. My biggest complain about Homer? He needs to not be so afraid to get in Snider's face. Snider says we need a goalie, Homer needs to sit him down and tell him to chill. OR Homer needs to sit him down and explain that there are better cheaper options that it won't screw up the rest of the lineup to pursue.

???

I think the idea is to acquire them all, figure out how to pay for them later, and let them fight to see which forward can completely alter his game and become the best puck moving defenseman of the bunch. either Homer took one too many pucks to the head over the years and it's finally taking it's toll, or he has something up his sleeve for the Defense. I can't figure out what for the life of me. Does he assume that some of the bigger deals on Defense are going to get bought out this summer under the new CBA allowances? I honestly can't figure out what he's thinking.

What would you send to Carolina for him? He seems to have quite a bit of what this teams needs plus he's still quite young. I wonder what they're asking and how much of that I'd be willing to give up.

THis was the trade I was hoping Homer could muster, but if the BLues were willing to swallow all of JBo's salary, then it's a moot point. Homer couldn't afford it and quite frankly, I don't think we'd have been happy if he could.

Don't be such a drama queen. This isn't Days of Our Lives. The fact is that teams want Schenn, Voracek, Couturier, Giroux, Simmonds and Read and Homer isn't willing to part with them yet... or at least teams DID want them before they ended up having such a mediocre year (except for Jake who's really come into his own this year). Also, because of the shortened season no one is completely out of contention and thus they're not holding fire sales for stars (except Calgary apparently). Everyone is still a buyer. No one's a seller right now. There hasn't been a whole lot of movement league wide as a result. Think about it... the big deal Homer may or may not pull off is Ryan Clowe? Seriously? Now add in to that equation the fact that Homer doesn't have much in the way of Salary Cap room because of various miscues over recent years -which while it's a GM mistake to be sure, not the sort of thing that other GMs will hold against you. Also, what's wrong with this team has no quick fixes. We're not a puzzle piece away from a cup. Bringing in a Jagr or a Iginla might help a tad with the scoring, but ultimately, it's not going to make this team a playoff competitor because it's not addressing the serious core issues on defense and I think Homer is smart enough to know that. What he's going to do about it remains to be seen, but at this point, it's certainly keeping him from making a desperate trade for yet another D-Man at the end of his career. GMs don't not deal with other GMs because of crap like Weber. GM's do what they need to to make their teams better. If Homer went to someone and said, "Hey, I'll give you Giroux for your best defenseman." They wouldn't poo poo the deal out of spite because of something Homer did last summer. It's a business. What other teams want, we're not selling and what we want they're not selling. It's as simple as that.

Short of a player stating to the press, "Well I was gonna hit him, but then I got my ass kicked last time, so I decided not to" you know full well this is impossible and makes no sense as a rhetorical argument because any time Giroux doesn't get hit from now on, neither one of us can say why that would have been. The other flaw in your argument is that my initial thesis was that the Flyers simply haven't done ENOUGH of what Jake did on Sunday. So in watching the Flyers specifically I cannot name an instance or player who has stopped dangerous hits against Flyers due to a fight being the consequence, because it rarely if ever has happened in the last 15-20 years in Philadelphia. Now what I can do is suggest that there is a laundry list of Flyers and former Flyers who have lost time due to dangerous hits that weren't deterred by their teammates. What I mean is that these guys were hit once or more, there was no deterrant, then they were hit again with more intensity and more dangerously and serious injuries resulted. I also know that the league (aka referees/Shannahan or whoever) can't do anything to punish hits that are technically legal. If you want to test our respective theories, the most valid experiment would be to have the team consistently do what Jake did for the next 15 years and see if the number of captains and other stars we lose due to concussions deminishes over that time. If the number of great Flyer careers cut short stays just as high as it has over the last 15 years, I'll go ahead and entertain your assertion. In the mean time, you simply don't have any evidence to back your stance up.

I have to assume that Homer will be trading Rosehill for Weber and Rinne afterall.

I think you're right, but that's more about the contract size and length than his play. If anyone here thinks this team fairs any better with another goalie, they've truly lost it. Bryz hasn't been amazing, but he's been far more solid than the yahoos on this board want to admit. I guess for us Flyer fans, it's just our natural reaction to assume it's the goalie. in 2010 We didn't win the cup mostly because of the goalie or at the very least mostly because they were were both playing hurt by the finals. If Boosh had been healthy and Leighton hadn't hurt his back, I'm not sure what I think would have happened in that finals and if Emery had never gotten hurt, then I'm pretty convinced we would have won. Clearly going back to IMHO when Boosh was unseated by Cechmanek and dismissed back in '01 this team's goaltending carousel has been a joke and it's been easy for us to just assume "It's the goalie"... up to and including last year! But this year that simply isn't the case. But this year really is different. The team simply isn't good enough to blame Bryzgalov. I don't hesitate to question how many wins this team would have at all with a lesser goalie in net. Could they have had a few more with someone tighter backstopping them? Sure. but not enought o change anything. This team is just weak and sadly, as much as we might be able to do better than him, Bryzgalov isn't the reason they're playing so poorly.

This is fascinatingly perpliexing.

That's not strictly true. It may have become the norm for "BIG" or "Dangerous" hits that may have been deemed "legal" but they were big or dangerous and could end a guy's career so I could give a crap what the rules say. You stand up for your guy. I've watched too many stars on this team lose their careers years too soon because of crap "legal" hits like that which were not deterred by the other players on the ice. It happens too much, it doesn't need to. What I will say is that I thought Olesky did a good job of hitting Giroux but not KILLING him which he technically could have done in that situation according to the rules.

We've lost an awful lot of key players and captains in particular over the past 15 years due to so called "clean" hits. I'm sick of technically "legal" hits being deemed "clean". They're doing it with the intention of injuring the other player in IMHO that makes the fight a legit option. The hit on Giroux was legal, but it wasn't clean in my opinion. Any time you blind side a guy and you know he has no idea you're coming, you're playing a bit dirty IMHO. Which is fine with me... it really is... as long as there are consequences for that and Jake brought the consequences. The refs can't throw you in the box or out of the game for a legal hit. Well they can and they have, but they don't do it all that often. If you want them to stop, your team has to take matters into their own hands. This was a clear concise message and I thought it was perfect. I just have no idea how Jake earned the extra 12 minutes.

Unlike you, I am a huge fan of fights after clean hits. You fight a guy not because you're the referee and he broke the rules, you fight him because he did something you're interested in making people think twice about doing again. The Flyers have a terribly history of standing up for their stars like this. It's not so much a message of "our star can't protect himself" as Clarke used to seem to think, but more a message of "you hit him, you hit all of us and the rest of us will hit back. he'd do the same for me btw". I'm thrilled to see Jake break the mold and go after him. IN the long run it's well worth the penalty you take. THAT SAID regarding the fight, it's important that the message about taking off the helmet with a mask get across. and Jake should have known. HOWEVER... how the hell does Jake get an instigator for that? watch the replay... he steps in and pushes him off and says something, but Olesky is ready to go and drops the gloves first. Sure Jake probably asked, but he ASKED. he let him know. He knew what was happening and he said okay let's do it. FUTHERMORE, how does Jake get a misconduct for that? It was a straight up fight? He pushed the guy off and asked him to go and they went. The other guy dropped first. Jake didn't know about the mask, and he got a minor for that as is prescribed by the rules. Other than that all Jake did was win the damn fight. Where's the misconduct come from? Anyone know?

The lack of Jagr isn't the problem. Get him. Don't Get Him. It won't change much either way. We need better movement and sharper passing from the Defense inside our own circles to start the transition. Better positioning from our forwards in the same instance would help. The attack is ALWAYS coming from low percentage areas without numbers and without speed and totally checked. Jagr isn't going to fix that.

The Pronger thing combines with the Bryz signing is why the Richards and Carter trades never made sense to me... or reverse that depending on your point of view. either way one side doesn't match the other. Pronger and Bryz = we're built to win now Dealing Richie and Carter for a super solid young core = We're built to win in 3-4 years. Either way you ain't gonna win at all without a Defense. No real two ways about it. Briere and Bryz have to go before next season (and I don't say that likely because I like both players and I like Briere more). Which scares me enough because the Flyers can't scout a goalie to save their lives. Should have eschewd Weber last year and just resigned Carle for the interim then gone after Weber this off season. Dumb Dumb Dumb Dumb Dumb. We'll see what tricks homer has up his sleeve though. He can be quite crafty. I'll say this for the organization. They never seem to be stymied too long by new restrictions in the CBA. It's almost like Homer and Snider sit in those meetings and push for things that they know they can manipulate and work around. I just wish they did it to better ends (aka, not stupid moves like a billion year Bryz deal and screwing up the Weber deal).

The transition game has been a pretty consistent problem since Lavvy got here IMHO. They do best at this point when they avoid it. Once in a while you'll see Timmo or Coby send a hail mary pass to a streaking forward, but as far as an old fashioned multiple crisp passing transition game, this team has none and hasn't since '08 IMHO.

Of course, in all seriousness (because I do know you're realistic about Bryz and Bob) Bob is an RFA after this season... so you know, maybe we can offer him 20 billion dollars and bankrupt the Blue Jackets in the process?