The off-season is far from over. There is still time for general manager Paul Holmgren to make the Philadelphia Flyers a better hockey team heading into next season. But, so far at least, his offseason has gone very much like a bad Ryan Howard game: big swings, big misses, and misplays in the field.

I do not blame the Flyers for trying to go all out to sign Zach Parise and/or Ryan Suter, nor do I blame them for ultimately declining to pay Matt Carle a cap hit of $5.5 million per season over six seasons. Where I do think the Flyers deserve to be second-guessed right now is in misreading the free agent market in the first place.

The Flyers knew that, for different reasons, neither Parise nor Suter were especially keen or receptive to coming to Philadelphia. They also knew that they couldn't realistically afford both players on the salary cap without some significant cost-cutting roster restructuring around it. Signing even one was going to require a little creativity to avoid ending up having to dip into Chris Pronger's LTIR money simply to get cap compliant on opening night.

Surely, the Flyers had heard the rumors that Parise and Suter wanted to play together, and that probably played into the decision to target both simultaneously. Ultimately, though they'd never admit it, the main motivation for why the Flyers dangled more money at the two players than any other club appeared to be driven by fear.

The fear? The Flyers were afraid that the Pittsburgh Penguins were going to sign one or both free agents in the wake of the Jordan Staal trade to Carolina and Zbynek Michalek salary dump deal. So Philly went all out to either get Parise and/or Suter for themselves or at least make it as expensive as possible for Pittsburgh to get them.

As it turned out, neither the Flyers nor the Penguins were on the short-list of teams that Parise and Suter considered before signing with Minnesota. Their agents simply used the competing offers from the Atlantic Division archrivals as leverage to extract as much as they could from the teams for whom their clients actually wanted to play.

In the meantime, while the Flyers and Penguins waited for three-plus days for Suter and Parise to announce their decision, the rest of the league picked apart most of an already thin unrestricted free agent crop until there was very little left.

Strictly as a hockey decision, trying to upgrade from Carle to Suter made sense. Suter is the better player. As a business decision, however, it was foolish. Given a choice of one contract or the other, it would have made more sense to commit early to Carle and overpay by even a million dollars for five years than to pay Suter like a franchise player for the next decade.

By waiting so long on the Suter longshot, the Flyers made it abundantly clear to Carle that re-signing him was not a top priority. So, in turn, any shot the Flyers may once have had at getting even a slight hometown discount in the end (such as Braydon Coburn provided when re-upping for four years rather than testing the market this summer and collecting an extra $500,000 to $750,000 per season) was gone.

Carle is a good player. His loss creates a hole in the Flyers lineup that cannot be immediately replaced from within. It's a stretch to say either Marc-Andre Bourdon or Erik Gustafsson are either able or ready to replace Carle's points and take on more minutes (although newly acquired Luke Schenn can take on some of the latter burden). Carle is a bit of a tweener, in that he's neither a pure offensive defenseman nor a shutdown defender, but what makes him a valuable commodity is that he's somewhat above-average on both sides of the red line and can play a lot of minutes.

However, being above-average is not quite the same as being All-Star caliber defenseman worth being paid among the top 20 at his position. The fact that there are more egregiously overpaid players making as much or more than Tampa will pay Carle does NOT mean the Flyers should have spent to that level to retain him.

The Bolts came up with the magic number to offer Carle: a longer-term contract and a cap hit that likely stretched any offer the Flyers made beyond the breaking point. I have little doubt the Flyers would have been comfortable with a four-year, $5.0 million per season deal for Carle. They might even have gone to about $5.25 million maximum and reluctantly added a fifth year onto the offer. But a sixth year at $5.5 million? Wasn't happening.

In the weeks leading up to the free agency period, Holmgren sounded so confident in a deal getting done with Carle -- even publicly saying twice that he thought it could get done at slightly below market value -- that it made one wonder why it hadn't been done during the season at the point when there was still tagging space available to make a deal.

The extension for the since-traded James van Riemsdyk got done pretty quickly. The Coburn extension had been rumored for quite a while (stretching back to last summer, in fact) and finally snapped in place at midseason this year. Nicklas Grossmann did not sound eager to commit early to an extension after being traded to the Flyers but even that one got done pretty quickly -- thereby temporarily eating up the rest of the tagging space -- when the Flyers offered him a deal worth market value.

So even though Holmgren and Carle's agent, Kurt Overhardt, had exchanged numbers and the Flyers supposedly were comfortable with the price tag, there HAD to be enough distance in one area or another (salary or length of contract) to table the discussions. Either that or it was Overhardt's intention all along to recommend that his client wait rather signing too early and potentially costing himself (and the agent) money in the long run.

Holmgren also did himself no favors by proclaiming that he thought the club could re-sign Carle below his market value. Those very words probably drove up the price tag because, short of Carle directly instructing his agent to make the best possible deal with Philly prior to July 1, the Flyers' GM had publicly admitted that he was willing to pay Carle more than Overhardt had asked for in their last discussion.

What agent in his right mind is not going to take that information and either: a) come back with a higher price to test how far the team will go or b) take his client to free agency to establish an actual (not theoretical) market price and then circle back to the team with a chance to match or come close enough for an agreement?

By essentially shoving Carle aside to make an offer to Suter -- and then waiting day after day for Suter to make his decision -- the Flyers virtually ensured that their only chance for re-signing Carle would be to pay a greatly elevated price once Suter came off the market.

I don't know if there was any emotional element involved here or if it was strictly business. What I can say is that, if I were in Carle's shoes, I'd have felt that I was a loyal -- and durable -- solider to the Flyers for three-plus seasons. I had made clear that staying put was my first choice. In return, the Flyers (and the other failed Sutor suitors) had made abundantly clear that I was their Plan B.

Personally, I would rather go work somewhere where I was a higher priority from the outset, and the Suter-related waiting game was simply one of establishing a final price.

From a strictly outside perspective, the Flyers' doomed-from-the-start courtship of Suter was a bit like a husband openly lusting after someone he considers more attractive than his spouse, and then trying and failing to sweep the other woman off her feet by offering to wine and dine her and shower her with expensive gifts. After being strung along for awhile and then spurned by the other woman, it is mighty hard to go back to the original partner and convince her to stay.

In the end, Carle got more for Tampa than it would have made sense for the Flyers to pay. The one and only good decision the Flyers made in this entire debacle was to step aside and pass on a six-year, $33 million commitment to Carle. The short-term pain stings but, in the long term, it will create more financial flexibility to go after some bigger fish they may actually be able to reel in either via trade this year or in free agency next summer.

At this point, there isn't too much of value left on the UFA defenseman market. The injury-prone Carlo Colaiacovo, much-maligned veteran Michal Rozsival, defensive defenseman Scott Hannan, 38-year-old Jaroslav Spacek and 25-year-old offensive-minded Marc-Andre Gragnani (turned loose by Vancouver after just 14 games) are about as good as it gets.

It remains to be seen what will happen in Nashville now. What I suspect will happen is that David Poile will be determined not to repeat what happened with Suter and lose Shea Weber for nothing as an unrestricted free agent next summer. Poile was distraught and rather angry about how things unfolded with Suter's departure.

Although Weber himself has said he doesn't want to rush things -- which is usually the beginning of a year-long tap dance that inevitably ends in unrestricted free agency -- the Predators will try to make it worth his while to do so. They may even practically waive a blank check under the RFA's nose and try to work out a deal that could carry a cap hit north of Sidney Crosby's $8.7 million per season.

If Weber still says no, Poile will then open up the extortionate bidding to teams that think they can be the ones to convince Weber to sign for longer than one season. Yes, I could see the Flyers thinking they're the ones who can do it. They are nothing if not bold.

By the way, the "consolation prize" UFA defenseman role played this summer by Carle is currently slated to be played next summer by Winnipeg's All-Star caliber defenseman Tobias Enström. With no big commitment to the now-departed Carle and with Kimmo Timonen's $6.8 million coming off the books as a 38-year-old UFA next summer, the Flyers will be in better financial position a year from now to make a run at both Weber AND Enström than they were to try to lure Suter and Parise and then figure out cap compliance.

In the interim the Flyers may turn their attention to trying to acquire a top-six winger. Shane Doan seems to be the most likely target if he's willing to leave Phoenix, but the Flyers will face plenty of competition. With Carle's depature, trading a defenseman such as Andrej Meszaros or especially Coburn in order to bolster the wings now should be out of the question.

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Apart from the Carle news, it was learned yesterday that the Flyers are negotiating with defenseman Bruno Gervais. A close friend of Max Talbot, Gervais played last season with Tampa Bay on a one-year contract after coming over from the Islanders at the trade deadline the previous season. Gervais is strictly an adequate depth defenseman. He is not a potential lineup replacement for Carle.

If the Flyers made no other off-season additions or subtractions on the blueline, Gervais would compete with three other defenseman -- Bourdon, Gustafsson and Andreas Lilja -- for two roster spots. Both the sixth and seventh D roles are currently available.

Frankly, though, I see no need for Gervais. Unless the team either thinks it can find a taker for current seventh defenseman Lilja (who has one season left on his contract at a modest $737,500 cap hit) or has a concern about Bourdon's health after his late-season concussion issues, how does he fit any need?

Yes, Gervais carries a right-handed stick. So does the oft-waived Matt Walker. So did the ancient Pavel Kubina, whom the Flyers apparently do not want back next season at any price. If I were Peter Laviolette, I wouldn't want to regularly feature any of the three ex-Tampa defenseman in my starting lineup if I could avoid it.

Gervais may be the most serviceable of the lot at this point -- which speaks volumes about how much former All-Star defenseman Kubina has slipped in the last couple years. But that still shouldn't be that much impetus to sign Gervais. Simply having an extra right-hander in addition to Schenn is not reason enough to add another body to the glut of players at the bottom end of the defensive lineup. At any rate, it looks like Gervais is headed to Philly.

Assuming the Gervais deal gets done and the Flyers otherwise stand pat on defense for the time being, the depth chart would like something like this:

1) Timonen -- Aging All-Star defenseman is coming off back surgery
2) Coburn -- Great stretch drive and playoff; may need to try to pick up offense
3) Schenn -- New arrival; high expectations, underachieving results in Toronto
4) Grossmann -- Knee and concussion issues late in season; strictly defensive D
5) Meszaros -- Coming off back surgery; bigger offensive role and more consistency needed
6) Bourdon -- Surprisingly solid rookie year until concussion issues in stretch/playoffs
7) Gervais -- Adequate younger and right-handed shooting alternative to Lilja
8) Lilja -- Did passable job in 7th D role last season; knows his limitations; over-35 contract
9) Gustafsson -- Would be two or three spots higher but is the only waiver-exempt player

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