Former Flyers defenseman Oskars Bartulis, whose contract was bought out in June, has agreed to a one-year contract with new KHL club HC Donbass Donetsk (Ukraine), according to a
Latvian media report.
The contract, which is expect to be signed shortly, is pending a physical. After his release from the Flyers, the Latvian defenseman had been linked in rumors to KHL club Dinamo Riga prior to signing with HC Donbass.
Bartulis, 25, played in 66 NHL games over parts of two seasons. Last season, he spent the entire year in the AHL with Adirondack, posting 11 points (1G, 10A) and an even plus-minus rating in a season limited to 36 games. The Flyers initially invited him to join to Black Aces during the Stanley Cup Playoffs, but the player opted instead to accept an invitation to play for Team Latvia at the 2012 IIHF World Championships.
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As first
reported by the Camden Courier Post, Flyers prospect Nick Cousins and two of his Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds teammates face sexual assault charges stemming from an
Aug. 25 incident in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.
Cousins and Andrew Fritsch (a Phoenix Coyotes prospect) are due in court on Oct. 1. Teammate Mark Petaccio has a bail hearing set for tomorrow.
I will reserve any comment about the situation until more facts become available.
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Twenty-five years ago today, Flyers GM Bob Clarke made one of the worst trades in franchise history. The Flyers traded the late Brad McCrimmon to the Calgary Flames in exchange for a 1989 first-round pick (later traded to Toronto) and a 1988 third-round pick (which was used to select goaltender Dominic Roussel).
During the Mike Keenan era, a huge part of the team's success lay in the fact that the Flyers boasted the best defensive pairing in the NHL in Mark Howe and Brad "The Beast" McCrimmon. Their styles meshed together almost perfectly.
However, McCrimmon and Bob Clarke did not like one another on a personal level. Clarke told Jay Greenberg in Full Spectrum that his differences with McCrimmon went back to the time when Clarke was still an active player and McCrimmon came over to the Flyers in a trade with Boston.
Clarke told Greenberg, "He was a big boozer who I didn't think cared."
Clarke was also not a big fan of McCrimmon's agent, Herb Pinder. McCrimmon was a contract holdout in the summer of 1986, and it caused ongoing acrimony even after a one-year agreement was reached. As a result, Clarke was not inclined to give an inch in negotiations when McCrimmon's contract came up for renegotiation again after the end of the 1986-87 season (a year in which McCrimmon had posted 10 goals, 39 points and a plus-45 rating one season after a 13 goal, 56 point, plus-83 campaign).
The McCrimmon camp wanted $250,000 per season for four years. Clarke offered $225,000 and not a penny more. Pinder and Clarke got into a shouting match, and Clarke spitefully reduced the offer the next day to $210,000 for three years. At that point, McCrimmon demanded a trade.
On August 26, 1987, the Flyers sent the top-pairing defenseman to Calgary for the two draft picks.
Clarke maintained after the fact that he "never got a strong feeling from Keenan" that the coach felt it was critical to keep McCrimmon. The coach later said that he felt it should have been pretty clear that he entrusted a lot of responsibility on the ice to McCrimmon as well as Howe but that he had resigned himself to the fact that Clarke and the player were not going to be able to work out their differences.
McCrimmon's former Flyers teammates -- both then and now -- were angered by the decision to trade the defenseman. Many have said that the deal hastened the demise of the Keenan era teams. The departure of McCrimmon ripped open a hole on the blueline that remained unfilled for many years (pretty much until Chris Pronger arrived).
Many years after the trade, Clarke admitted with characteristic understatement, "In hindsight, it wasn't a good trade. I should have gotten a player instead of draft picks." He also conceded that he had severely underrated McCrimmon's value to the team.
Coupled with a series of poor drafts and subsequent short-sighted trades of key veterans Dave Poulin and Brian Propp, the Flyers' fortunes sunk like a stone within a couple years of the ill-fated McCrimmon trade. For his part, McCrimmon went on to win a Stanley Cup in Calgary, posting a plus-43 rating for Terry Crisp's championship squad of 1988-89.
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Happy 24th birthday to Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds. If you want to post a birthday note to the power forward, his Twitter handle is @Simmonds17.
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