The foundation and ongoing popularity of HockeyBuzz is largely based upon Eklund's trade rumors. However, I have never personally been a big "rumor guy" in the way I follow the game or a particular team. I tend to worry more about the team that is currently on the ice until a move is actually made to change its composition.
Of course, that doesn't mean I have no interest in discussing potential trade (or free agent) targets and the prospective cost. My five rules of thumb on ANY possible trade are:
1) There is a negotiating process involved in making a deal that is acceptable to both sides. One may be trying to buy low and the other looking to sell high. There is often a "right" time for compromise but most discussed trades never come to fruition.
2) The teams that tend to do well in trades aren't necessarily those who swing for the fences in blockbuster deals. There are sometimes bargains to be had if a player simply hasn't found an effective role on his current team, is coming off an injury or is a non-star player who is a potential unrestricted free agent at the end of the season.
3) In any potential trade, the move should address a specific team need and not just be a case of someone thinking "he's a good player, so naturally we should add him."
4) The grass isn't always greener on the other side. Other teams' defensemen turn pucks over, too, and sometimes get caught out of position. Forwards on other teams also experience scoring slumps. Every player in the NHL has a few less-than-perfect areas to his game, and that includes even star players. Role players tend to have one particular thing they do well, and it is up to the team to deploy him in situations that maximize his strengths and minimize his weaknesses. That can be real tough to do when a team already has players in the lineup with basically the same attributes.
5) Unless a move is a flat-out salary dump, there has to be a "match" in which your side has enough depth in a certain area not to plug one hole by opening a different one. And when it comes to acquiring established star-level talent, those fantasy low-ball "non-essential roster player, B or C level prospect and a draft pick" trades are rarely worth even debating, because they probably won't happen. If you want to trade for a star in his prime, you are going to feel the pain in terms of the assets that will have to go the other way. That is especially true for top-pairing defensemen and top-line forwards.
General managers ALWAYS publicly say they are happy with their team's composition and they don't expect to make any significant moves (although the team is always looking for ways to better itself). It's a meaningless pronouncement because it's always made based on shades of the truth. Teams say they are not expecting a move both when they truly are not currently involved in more than tire kicking and also when the statement "we don't anticipate a trade" means there won't be a deal in the next hour or two.
Looking at a team's tendencies to stand pat or make moves in certain situations is not infallible, but it does provide you some clues as to what they may do. When push comes to shove, the Flyers are NOT a club that tends to stand pat. However, it takes two sides to make a trade.
Right now, the Flyers have four rather obvious needs. They will not be able to address all of them this season. In descending order of long-term importance but ascending order of ease in solving them, they are 1) a puck-moving defenseman who can play 20+ minutes per game, 2) a scoring winger who possesses both good size and a consistent willingness to work in the "greasy" areas of the ice, 3) a backup goaltending upgrade in case of a long-term injury to Ilya Bryzgalov, 4) a fourth-line center who is strong on defensive zone face-offs.
When Bob Clarke was the Flyers' general manager, no matter what the team's issues were on defense and/or in goal, the answer he came up often seemed to be "Let's add another offensive center, preferably one with size." Well, at least it seemed that way sometimes (think Chris Gratton offer sheet, dealing Rod Brind'Amour for Keith Primeau after years of nixing deals involving Brind'Amour for non-centers, pouncing on the availability of Jeremy Roenick, or the expensive Adam Oates rental).
Unfortunately, those deals didn't match up to solving the team's biggest needs at the time and, consequently, did not result in the club being bettered by the deal.
In the salary cap age, there is also the ever-present issue of how much cap hit must be absorbed to add a particular player -- and whether the club might be better able to meet its needs through acquisitions of two less expensive but still useful players who perform different roles rather than investing heavy resources to try to definitively solve one problem.
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Here are some Flyers quick hits and updates:
* One of the more positive recent developments with the Flyers have been the emerging chemistry between Brayden Schenn and Jakub Voracek. They started to put the pieces together in the game against Florida, and they've reaped impressive results in two of the last three games. Rookie Tye McGinn has also been an effective third member of the line since the return of Wayne Simmonds to the lineup.
* Sean Couturier (flu) is currently listed as questionable for Friday's game in New Jersey. If he is able to play, it will be interesting to see which player comes out of the lineup. I suspect it will be Harry Zolnierczyk, despite his strong performance in Winnipeg.
* Danny Briere is unwittingly in the middle of some not-so-enviable lineup dilemmas for Peter Laviolette right now. Overtime winner against Carolina aside, he needs to get scoring regularly, whether he's playing right wing with Claude Giroux or centering his own line. Briere has generally been more effective in his career as a center rather than a wing. However, with Schenn finally clicking as a center on a line with Voracek and Couturier coming back in a day or two, there are really only three options: 1) Have Briere play wing on Couturier's line (a combination of two players whose skill-sets do not seem well-matched as playmaking is not Couturier's strength nor is defense one of Briere's assets), 2) Move Couturier down to the fourth line temporarily or 3) shuffle Matt Read (who has been playing well) back off the top line and try Briere there again.
* In the game in Winnipeg, there was very good chemistry between Read and Simmonds. However, Giroux actually ended up focusing mostly on being the third man high in the zone on many of their shifts. That's not really what you want on a regular basis, although Read is himself a very responsible defensive player. When Scott Hartnell (foot) returns to the lineup -- hopefully in the next week or so -- he will go back to his first line LW spot with Simmonds dropping to the second or third line. I guess Read may stay with Giroux for awhile. But no matter how you slice it, the top line lacks the stability it had last year with Hartnell and Jaromir Jagr (when reasonably healthy) flanking Giroux.
* Second period debacle in Toronto aside, I think the Flyers' patched-together blueline has done an adequate defensive job even without Andrej Meszaros (shoulder) in the lineup. When Meszaros returns to the lineup within the next couple weeks, I think you'll see the pairing of Braydon Coburn and Nicklas Grossmann reunited on a more full-time basis. Bruno Gervais would drop down the sixth spot, paired with Meszaros. Kurtis Foster would be the odd man out, and Andreas Lilja will be returned to the Phantoms. There is also a possibility of Erik Gustafsson being called up and being paired either with Coburn or Grossmann, but I think Laviolette kind of likes having multiple righthanded shooting D men in the lineup right now. It has allowed for more "natural side" pairings, which is half the reason why Gervais has been paired with Coburn and Foster with Grossmann. The other half of the reason is that Gervais and Foster do not make for a strong enough defensive pairing to get away with even in low double-digit minutes.
* Enforcer Jody Shelley is slated to undergo hip surgery. Considering his age, his already limited playing role and the condensed 2013 schedule, there is a distinct possibility that he has played his final NHL game. That means that Tom Sestito will remain the 13th forward on the roster. It is pretty clear based on his usage that Peter Laviolette does not fully trust Sestito to play a regular role, but he also showed he can come in a play effectively in a given game.
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