In looking at the Flyers two blockbuster trades and the signing of Ilya Bryzgalov to a nine-year contract that will carry a $5.6 million cap hit, my initial reaction is simply to wait and see what else the team does over draft weekend and during the free agency period. The team has set itself up to make more moves that will strictly be for hockey purposes.

As the roster is configured right now, it would be hard to argue that the Flyers are closer to the 2010-11 Stanley Cup than they were at this time yesterday. That said, the team has added some valuable young commodities and brought a little better balance to a lineup that was overloaded with natural centers and needed to add a little more muscle up front.

There are so many different angles to cover here, so let's get rolling:

Salary cap implications

Yes, Paul Holmgren and Peter Luukko insisted that today's moves were strictly hockey moves, not financial ones. I would agree that the Mike Richards trade was a hockey move (an extremely bold and rather risky one in the short term), but the Jeff Carter deal was at least equally a cap space move as well as a trade made with the on-ice implications in mind.

A year ago, Homer also insisted that the Simon Gagne trade wasn't a salary dump -- the club (which already had its six starting defensemen) just really wanted Matt Walker to bolster the blueline. GMs have to say things like that.

At any rate, as thing stand as of this writing, the Flyers have $5,076,905 of space under the new $64.3 million salary cap. This figure includes the salaries of Walker, Michael Leighton, Johan Backlund and LTIR candidate Ian Laperriere, none of whom are likely to be with the club on opening night. Subtract all but Laperriere via waivers and the team now has $9.16 million of practical cap space.

Out of that free money, the club will need to re-sign restricted free agents Jakub Voracek, Wayne Simmonds, Andreas Nodl, Darroll Powe and potentially Dan Carcillo. It seems unlikely but not impossible that impending UFA Ville Leino would be resigned -- it depends on the market price for him -- and there is also a possibility to bring back UFA defenseman Sean O'Donnell. As a ballpark figure, the team would have about $3.75 M of remaining cap space once most (it probably won't be all) of the these players are resigned.

Barring yet another significant trade, the team would then have enough to consider adding another role player or two. They could still decide to turn loose Leino or go ahead and deal Kris Versteeg and try to add another impact forward instead.

As of now, the Flyers' forward lineup shapes up something like this:

Hartnell - Briere - [Leino]
JVR - Giroux - Voracek
Versteeg - Schenn - Simmonds
[Nodl/Powe] - Betts - Shelley [Carcillo, other]


Jakub Voracek

Fact: In Voracek's first three NHL seasons, he has scored 134 points. At the same juncture of his NHL career, Carter had 132 points.

Is that an apples-to-apples comparison? Not entirely. Carter had a lot more talent around him (and, correspondingly, was brought along a little more slowly) in his first couple seasons in the NHL. It should also be said that Carter was more well-rounded as a player -- and better conditioned -- by the end of his third NHL season than is Voracek.

Nevertheless, the point I'm making here is that the 21-year-old Voracek (the 7th overall pick of the 2007 Entry Draft) has not been nearly the NHL underachiever that some have made him out to be. He still has a lot of high end potential and is more of a natural winger than Carter, who strongly prefers to play center.

During Voracek's draft year, I had opportunity to interview his junior hockey coach, former NHL player Cam Russell, at length about the young Czech. Russell was quick to assert that Voracek had all of the tools needed to become an NHL start, and also said that he was a hard-working young player.

The latter claim runs somewhat contrary to the early NHL reputation that Voracek has established, which I think is partially of the player's doing (the conditioning concerns are a bit worrisome) but also partially based on the still-existent stereotypes that get pinned all-too-easily on Czech and Russian players who don't immediately excel.

Voracek has never been nearly as much of a natural goal-scorer as Carter, either at the junior or pro level. However, he is a better passer and playmaker. He has enough size and strength to be strong on the puck when he sets his mind to it. Voracek is still working on his all-around game at the NHL level, but back in '07 at least, Russell opined that he thought Voracek would evolve into a decent two-way player.

Brayden Schenn

The only knock on Schenn is his skating. Otherwise, the soon-to-be 20 year-old center is regarded as a potential future first-line or second-line player in the NHL. Oddly enough, the 5th overall pick of the 2009 Entry Draft has often been compared to Mike Richards.

Some folks think Schenn can be even better than Richards as he matures as an NHL player. That remains to be seen. Judge him on his own merits.

Personally, I think the skating concern will soon prove to be a non-issue. Schenn should be ready to contribute at the NHL level this season, and he will have every opportunity to make the big team out of training camp. In the short term, it is unfair to expect the youngster to replace the now-deposed Flyers captain. Richards is in the prime of his career, and it will be up to Claude Giroux and James van Riemsdyk to take the next step in being the two most important nucleus players in the lineup in 2011-12.

As an NHL rookie in 2005-06, Richards scored 11 goals and 34 points in 79 games. Schenn is capable of equaling or bettering that figure with similar ice time.


Wayne Simmonds

The Flyers needed to add a little more grit and size on the wings, and the 22-year-old Simmonds can help immediately in that area. His scoring touch has not yet developed as some had hoped it would, but he's eminently capable of evolving into a 20-goal scorer in the near future. Most of his goals are scored in close to the crease.

A second-round pick by Los Angeles in the 2007 Entry Draft, Simmonds seemed on the brink of a breakthrough after the 2009-10 season. He wasn't as good this past year (his 3rd NHL campaign), but the upward climb isn't always a smooth path. I think he's a player than most Flyers fans will come to like. Simmonds always plays hard, wins most of his battles, has special teams upside (mostly PK in LA, but still has potential to see some power play time), and plays a physical brand of hockey.


Entry Draft implications

The Flyers now own the 8th overall pick of the draft, as well as Los Angeles' 2nd round pick in 2012 and Columbus' third round pick this year. The third-round pick the Flyers acquired from Pittsburgh last year for Dan Hamhuis' negotiating rights was traded to Phoenix as the conditional pick for Philadelphia successfully getting Bryzgalov under contract.

If the Flyers hold onto the 8th overall pick of the draft, they could be looking at a player such as defensemen Dougie Hamilton (whom I personally don't think will still be on the board at number 8) or Jonas Brodin (who may still be there) or center Sean Couturier. Brodin projects as a rock solid defender for many years if he stays healthy. Entering this season, Couturier was the consensus candidate for first overall pick. However, a bout of mononucleosis and the ascension of other prospects has pushed Couturier more likely down to the 5-to-10 range of the draft. His offense stagnated a bit this season but was still quite good. However, the primary lures with Couturier are his tall frame and unusually mature two-way game.

Earlier today, minutes before the Mike Richards trade became official, there were reports that Kris Versteeg had been traded to Florida. Those reports were immediately shot down. Then again, so were reports the other day that Carter to Columbus was a done deal. There is a chance that someone simply jumped the gun in prematurely announcing Versteeg had been traded to Florida and an equal chance that the deal does not get made.

If Versteeg (or someone else) plus the eight pick gets flipped to Florida or another club, the Flyers may end up moving up a few spots in the draft. Alternatively, the Flyers could also opt to trade down a bit in the first round, as there really shouldn't be a big drop off in terms of prospect quality and there is very little consensus about who will go where, except for Nugent-Hopkins being the first pick.

In terms of the second round, the Flyers could make a move to get into this round -- perhaps flipping the 2012 pick acquired from LA for Richards and another, lower round pick -- and go after someone such as defenseman Adam Clendening. I don't if the BU blueliner specifically would be there for the Flyers. However, I have heard from a reliable source that he fits the type of player profile (mobile, right-handed shooting defenseman) who could be of strong interest, especially if Philly takes a forward in round one.

The Bryzgalov factor

Lest we forget, the Flyers got a major upgrade in goal at a cap hit that is significantly lower than sources were reporting yesterday. Of the $51 million Bryzgalov will be paid over the next nine years, $48 million comes the first seven years of the deal. In 2011-12, he will make a staggering $10 million. The number drops incrementally in each year to follow.

He will get $6.5 million in 2012-13, $8 million in 2013-14, $6 million in both 2014-15 and 2015-16, and $5.5 million in both 2016-17 and 2017-18. The final two seasons are strictly for cap-hit mitigation, amounting to $2.5 million in 2018-19 and $1.25 million in 2019-20.

Over the last few weeks, it has become trendy to question if Bryzgalov is really one of the top goalies in the NHL. Plain and simple, he is. Phoenix would not have made the playoffs in either of the last two seasons if not for Bryzgalov, and he was a strong Vezina candidate in 2009-10. Bryzgalov was not as consistent this past season, but when he got on a roll, he again carried his club at times.

Other big moves to come?

If the Flyers make a move with Versteeg, they would have then have cap space to pursue someone such as impending unrestricted free agent center Brad Richards. If not, the only way to have that sort of cap space left would still to be to let Leino walk. I don't foresee any scenario where the Flyers would have the cap space left to pursue Steven Stamkos.

The Flyers are indicating that all moves from here on out (apart from re-signing their own free agents) will be to look for character role players. Then again, they just traded Jeff Carter and Mike Richards after vehemently denying that either guy -- let alone both -- would be on the move.

So who really knows what will happen next? I would argue that, without Carter and Richards, the Flyers are no longer good enough up front to immediately compete for the Cup. But we also have to see how the pieces fit together now that the puzzle has been significantly altered.

Culture change

Predictably, the Flyers have stressed that locker room/ leadership issues had nothing to do with today's moves. They have continued to maintain that there were no significant problems either between the captain and head coach Peter Laviolette or any divisions within the room.

However, it has been a poorly kept secret for months that -- even if the nature of the Richards-Laviolette relationship was exaggerated in the rumors-- there were communication gaps where the team and the coach weren't always on the same page.

As the guy wearing the C, Richards bore a major share of the burden of making sure everyone was playing for the team and not for themselves. Perhaps he wasn't vocal or proactive enough, but I don't think he was specifically part of the problem.

The fact that he just traded suggests that people up high in the organization felt that a leadership change was in order. Older vets such as Chris Pronger, Kimmo Timonen and Danny Briere are now likely to have full and undisputed control of the room.

As far as the icy relationship that Richards (and Carter) had with certain members of the media, I don't think it was a factor whatsoever in the trades. It's the team in the room -- not the reporters waiting outside the doors when they are closed -- that matters.

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