I will be out of the country on vacation from tomorrow until next Thursday. I'll resume my blog on Friday, August 8. Unless there's a significant story to discuss, the subject of the first blog will be a Top-10 list of the top prospects currently in the Flyers' system.
On a related subject, it's no secret that the Flyers have done a much better job at developing forwards than defensemen through the years. Most of best defensemen in club history, including Mark Howe and Eric Desjardins, were acquired from outside of the organization.
I set out to take a look at the best home-grown defensemen in team history -- limited to players who were drafted by the Flyers and broke into the NHL with the club. The pickings got slim mighty fast. I couldn't even come up with a true top-10 list without including Miroslav Dvorak, who was a 31 year old "rookie" after being allowed to leave Czechoslovakia. So I limited it to a top five, and even then, the options get limited beyond the top three.
With the current abundance of promising young defensemen in the system (even if you exclude second-season NHLer Ryan Parent, who came over from Nashville in the Peter Forsberg trade), the Flyers have an opportunity in years to come to reverse a history of futility.
1. Jimmy Watson: A, five-time NHL all-star and two-time Barry Ashbee Award winner,
Jimmy Watson was the backbone of the team's defense from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. If the younger Watson brother's career hadn't been cut short by injury (a back injury forced his retirement at age 29), he may have ranked as the best defenseman after Mark Howe in franchise history.
He was never a big point-getter, but he could shut down other teams' best players and his mobility and deft passing touch helped the team play much of the game in control of the puck. Still remains a glaring omission from the team Hall of Fame.
2. Tom Bladon: Only appreciated in retrospect by Flyers fans, Bladon was booed for much of his Flyers career. The skilled backliner made his share of defensive miscues, but also made a lot of good plays. He provided a strong complement to frequent mid-1970s partner Jimmy Watson. Several times, the duo enjoyed plus-minus ratings north of plus-30.
One of the most underrated threats from the point in franchise history, "Sparky's" dangerous righthanded shot produced double-digit goals and 30 or more points in four of his five seasons with the team (he had nine goals and 29 points the other season) before he was traded to Pittsburgh. He also scored four goals in the 1974 playoffs en route to the Flyers' first Stanley Cup.
Bladon's
magical performance at the Spectrum on December 11, 1977 still stands as the greatest offensive game any NHL defenseman has ever had. On that night, Bladon scored four goals and added four assists in an 11-1 rout of the hapless Cleveland Barons. Bladon's plus-10 rating for the night also set a single-game record for an NHL defenseman.
3. Behn Wilson: Flying fists, end-to-end rushes, big plays and bigger mistakes were the cocky Wilson's calling card during his career with the Flyers. He entered the NHL with franchise-defenseman potential and made believers of Flyers fans and the hockey media during his
rookie season of 1978-79.
That year, he finished fourth in the Calder Trophy balloting after posting 13 goals, 49 points, 197 penalty minutes and a plus-13 rating in 80 games. Wilson’s first-year goal and assist totals still stand as the Flyers’ club record for a rookie defenseman. Two years later, he earned an NHL All-Star selection in his career-best season (16 goals, 47 assists, 63 points, 237 penalty minutes, plus-39).
In the words of Pat Quinn, however, Wilson was often "too smart for his own good." He was an incurable risk-taker and often thought he knew better than his coaches. The result was a wildly inconsistent career that often saw him bring the crowd to its feet one shift and drew their ire the next.
In the end, Wilson was shipped to Chicago in the 1983 offseason deal that sent the equally enigmatic Doug Crossman to Philadelphia. Nowadays, Wilson is mostly recalled for his
fearsome fighting ability, rather than his equally impressive raw skills that he never fully harnessed.
4. Chris Therien: Therien's longevity (764 regular-season NHL games, 753 in Philadelphia) and the dearth of homegrown defensemen in team history earn him the fourth spot. Although some people would have you believe that Therien was some plodding klutz who owed his entire career to being paired with Eric Desjardins, the truth of the matter is that Therien was a decent NHL defenseman who had good physical tools. He wasn't always self-motivated enough to push himself to be more than an average player.
There were too just many nights where "Bundy" was satisfied to go through the motions and do just enough to stay in the lineup.Even as a veteran, he still made plenty of rookie mistakes. But when he really set his mind to it, the guy could play at a fairly highly level. In my view, Therien's best years as a Flyer came when he had a coach (Terry Murray in particular) who got on his back and pushed him.
The funniest quote I ever heard about Therien came from an NHL scout in the press box during a 2000-01 game.
"Two games a month, he thinks he's Chris Pronger," said the scout. "The rest of the time, he thinks he's Chris Evert."
As a young defenseman, Therien was actually an above-average skater for such a big man. Only at the end of his career was he actually a slow skater. He earned an NHL All-Rookie selection in 1994-95 (two years before he was paired with Desjardins), surprised everyone by winning the team's hardest shot competition in 1996, and gave Jaromir Jagr fits whenever he played against the Czech superstar. Therien played some tremendous hockey in the second half of the 1996-97 season (after being called out by head coach Terry Murray) and was very good in the playoff drive to the Finals that year. That's not the mark of a guy who was lucky just be in the NHL.
Therien, who was often criticized (with justification) for playing a soft game physically, turned into another player whenever the Flyers played in his hometown of Ottawa. On those nights, with family and friends watching him, he would hit everything that moved. Likewise, he could dial up his game a notch whenever he was coming off being demoted or benched. Every once in a blue moon, "Bundy" could make a dazzling offensive play -- I can vividly recall an end-to-end rush in the third period of a February 2000 win in Washington. On the heels of scoring a goal, though, he often slumped for the next several games.
A pivotal moment in the fans' often-negative reaction to Therien came during the Flyers 1996 playoff war with Tampa Bay.
Scrums broke out at the final buzzer of the Flyers' 4-1 victory in Game Four, and Therien meandered around the perimeter before skating over the fray, enraging Flyers' color commentator Gary Dornhoefer. The usually soft-spoken Dornhoefer angrily criticized Therien for not coming to his teammates' aid, and the incident immediately overshadowed the win on the WIP airwaves and the fledgling internet message boards.
It wasn't like Bundy never fought or never stood up for teammates during his career. He wouldn't have lasted in the game if he didn't. But he wasn't a guy who brimmed with intensity on the ice. Couple that with his streaky overall play and you had a player who was bound to take heaps of heavy-handed criticism in Philadelphia.
5. Dmitri Yushkevich: "The Russian Tank" had an excellent rookie season with a mediocre Flyers team in 1992-93. He showed some offensive potential (five goals, 32 points), a flair for hitting and stretches of good positional play. The righthanded shooting rookie, a plus-12 on a .500 team that gave up the same number of goals that it allowed (319 apiece) formed a good pairing with the team's top defenseman, Garry Galley. Of the three Russians who made their NHL debuts with the Flyers that year -- youngsters Yushkevich and Slava Butsayev and veteran Soviet player Andrei Lomakin -- the 20-year-old Yushkevich fit in the best, both on and off the ice.
Unfortunately, Yushkevich really didn't advance much in his next seasons with the club. There were stretches of strong play but equally long stretches where he struggled. When Yushevich's agent asked for a hefty raise as a restricted free agent after the 1994-95 season, General Manager Bobby Clarke promptly shipped the defenseman to Toronto for the 1996 first round pick used to take Dainius Zubrus and the 1997 second rounder used for goaltender Jean-Marc Pelletier.
Yushevich came into his own as an NHL defenseman during his time in Toronto, becoming a much more reliable and consistent defender. During the 2002-03 season, the now 31-year-old defenseman returned to Philadelphia as a trade deadline dump-off from Los Angeles. The veteran provided excellent play and was a warrior in the playoffs, as the Flyers prevailed in a seven-game battle with Toronto before losing in six games to Ottawa. After the season, Yushkevich elected to continue his career at home in Russia, despite an offer from the Flyers to return for another season.
Also considered: Joni Pitkänen, Janne Niinimaa, Gord Murphy, Thomas Eriksson, Larry Goodenough, Glen Cochrane.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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