One of those things....The Flyers had exceptional talent up front and could afford to turn JVR over for a solid Shutdown Defenseman. JVR is one of those players who thrives with added responsabilityit seams.......If he was getting 3rd line mins in Toronto right now, he would probably only have 2- 3 goals.. Kessel is a very underrated playmaker and has found excellent chemistry with Him. Carlysle has him planted infront of the net and he is cleaning up on some dirty rebounds.
- billyberg10

JVR never really played to his size. When he did, he was down right dominate, but there were too many games were he played like a 5'10" 180 lbs. finesse player. I'm glad his game is finally starting to come around.

Biodigital Jazz, man.
- hereticpride

Get rid of Holmgren, bring back Farwell. Holmgren has made some terrible trades, we need a knowledgable GM that never made a bad trade.

Bill once posted this i thinks it's an insightful reply:

"One byproduct of the win-now philosophy is often impatience with young players. Another is that the starting defensemen in particular often wind up costing more, salary-cap wise and/or in terms of assets expended in trades to acquire them. The Nashville Predators and current New Rangers successfully built much of their defense via the draft or trade while the now-established defenseman was still young and unproven (that's how the Rangers got Ryan McDonagh and the Flyers got Braydon Coburn, for instance)"
- isaiah520

Makes me want to take a run at David Rundblad.

Which they happened to turn into Matt Carle. Funny how that game works.
- jak521

by including downie, another #1 pick

Very solid points as usual Sir. I noticed you left out Messrs Walker, and Lilja. Was that by design?
- PLindbergh31

Trying to emphasize the good...I'm looking at top 4 guys that Holmgren has brought in. Lilja and Walker are really immaterial. The sole reason they got Walker was because Tampa didn't want to take on all of Gagne's salary without getting relief. The mistake on Lilja was that second year.

JVR never really played to his size. When he did, he was down right dominate, but there were too many games were he played like a 5'10" 180 lbs. finesse player. I'm glad his game is finally starting to come around.
- NickTheKid87

Will never forget that playoff game vs. the Bruins. He dominated every shift. He never was able to replicate those efforts. There were glimpses, but he was very inconsistent, and was plagued by injuries. Trading him coming off last year was definitely selling low on him.

Bill once posted this i thinks it's an insightful reply:

"One byproduct of the win-now philosophy is often impatience with young players. Another is that the starting defensemen in particular often wind up costing more, salary-cap wise and/or in terms of assets expended in trades to acquire them. The Nashville Predators and current New Rangers successfully built much of their defense via the draft or trade while the now-established defenseman was still young and unproven (that's how the Rangers got Ryan McDonagh and the Flyers got Braydon Coburn, for instance)"
- isaiah520

But there is the flip side to that. How did the NY Rangers build their top line and top offensive players. Gaborik, Richards, and Nash? They traded for them or singed them as Free Agents. It's no different. Just that the position is different.

- Flyskippy

I was a projectionist for the better part of a decade. That movie was one of my favs.

Trying to emphasize the good...I'm looking at top 4 guys that Holmgren has brought in. Lilja and Walker are really immaterial. The sole reason they got Walker was because Tampa didn't want to take on all of Gagne's salary without getting relief. The mistake on Lilja was that second year.
- Jsaquella

I know. Was just joking. Holmgren has done a fairly solid job bringing dmen in. Had Pronger not gotten injured, and Meszaros been able to stay healthy it would look very good.

But there is the flip side to that. How did the NY Rangers build their top line and top offensive players. Gaborik, Richards, and Nash? They traded for them or singed them as Free Agents. It's no different. Just that the position is different.
- MJL

They also got pretty lucky when they drafted Lundqvist in the 7th round. Sort of like how we got lucky with Giroux. Maybe we're due for a late round star?

Who cares? So they don't do a great job drafting Dmen. It's not the end of the world. They do a very good job of drafting forwards. Heck when they won their cups the only defenseman drafted and developed by the Flyers were Bladon and Jim Watson. Joe Watson was orginally drafted by Boston, Van Impe by Chicago, Dupont was acquired in a deal with St. Louis and Ashbee was a long time minor league vet.

All of the top dmen in the Keenan years came via trade: Howe, McCrimmon, Crossman, Samuelsson and Marsh and except for Therien, all of the top dmen in the Lindros era came via trade: Desjardins, Haller, Svoboda, Coffey and Dykhuis.

Unless you have a top 4 or 5 pick, drafting Dmen is an utter crapshoot, much more so than drafting forwards.
- BiggE

Love this post.

Oh noes our two Cup wins are sullied by dman origins!!

Trying to emphasize the good...I'm looking at top 4 guys that Holmgren has brought in. Lilja and Walker are really immaterial. The sole reason they got Walker was because Tampa didn't want to take on all of Gagne's salary without getting relief. The mistake on Lilja was that second year.
- Jsaquella

is this Homer?

But there is the flip side to that. How did the NY Rangers build their top line and top offensive players. Gaborik, Richards, and Nash? They traded for them or singed them as Free Agents. It's no different. Just that the position is different.
- MJL

not to re-hash the whole thing from last week, but it's an imperative to mix in some homegrown guys of significant value often enuf to save some assets.

Bill once posted this & i think it's an insightful reply:

"One byproduct of the win-now philosophy is often impatience with young players. Another is that the starting defensemen in particular often wind up costing more, salary-cap wise and/or in terms of assets expended in trades to acquire them. The Nashville Predators and current New Rangers successfully built much of their defense via the draft or trade while the now-established defenseman was still young and unproven (that's how the Rangers got Ryan McDonagh and the Flyers got Braydon Coburn, for instance)"
- isaiah520

Well that's the key. If you have to move for a defenseman, look for guys like McDonagh or Coburn and try to get them on the cheap. Every team has a guy or two that didn't develop as expected.

Look at a guy like Rundblad. Look at a guy who hasn't lived up to his potential.

So Carter for Voracek and the first-round draft pick used on Couturier wasn't a good trade? Acquiring Grossmann for two second-round picks wasn't a good deal?

Homer's drafting strategy is questionable? Would that be the strategy that enabled the Flyers to draft Claude Giroux when Holmgren was assistant GM at the time and ran the scouting department? Would it be the strategy for drafting JVR in the first place, or was it somehow both a bad draft choice and a bad decision to trade him straight up for Schenn? Would it be drafting Luca Sbisa (who is at least now a solid #4 defenseman) or trading him as part of the Chris Pronger trade?

BTW, you can do the same "could have drafted Player X but drafted Player Y (or traded that pick for Player Z)" exercise for every single organization in the NHL and they will never look good in hindsight. That's especially true when you simply dismiss the picks that clicked.

Was signing the "wacky goalie" long-term the mistake? Or was the mistake to go into 2010-11 with Michael Leighton, a rookie (Bobrovsky) and Brian Boucher as their goalies in effort to save money on goaltending and use the cap space on other areas?

You can't have it both ways, and you can't focus only on the negative. There are some poorly run teams in the NHL. The Flyers, while they do have their flaws (number one being impatience and a tendency to try to "win last year's Cup"), are one of the better-run teams, and their won-loss record since the 1995 lockout bears that out.
- bmeltzer

not to re-hash the whole thing from last week, but it's an imperative to mix in some homegrown guys of significant value often enuf to save some assets.
- isaiah520

The Flyers don't mix in home grown guys of significant value?

Love this post.

Oh noes our two Cup wins are sullied by dman origins!!
- Flyskippy

if there was no cap, it wouldn't matter any where near as much. we could just buy/trade our way out of most fixes.

Trying to emphasize the good...I'm looking at top 4 guys that Holmgren has brought in. Lilja and Walker are really immaterial. The sole reason they got Walker was because Tampa didn't want to take on all of Gagne's salary without getting relief. The mistake on Lilja was that second year.
- Jsaquella

I never agreed with trading Gagne. He should have been able to retire as a Flyer.

The Flyers don't mix in home grown guys of significant value?
- MJL

top 4? recently?

by including downie, another #1 pick
- isaiah520

Who cares? So they don't do a great job drafting Dmen. It's not the end of the world. They do a very good job of drafting forwards. Heck when they won their cups the only defenseman drafted and developed by the Flyers were Bladon and Jim Watson. Joe Watson was orginally drafted by Boston, Van Impe by Chicago, Dupont was acquired in a deal with St. Louis and Ashbee was a long time minor league vet.

All of the top dmen in the Keenan years came via trade: Howe, McCrimmon, Crossman, Samuelsson and Marsh and except for Therien, all of the top dmen in the Lindros era came via trade: Desjardins, Haller, Svoboda, Coffey and Dykhuis.

Unless you have a top 4 or 5 pick, drafting Dmen is an utter crapshoot, much more so than drafting forwards.
- BiggE

I'm with you there. It's also not like the Flyers are wasting their picks either. When you're drafting forwards like Giroux, Gagne, Richards, Carter, Williams, Sharp, Downie, JVR and Couturier, you can't really complain (yes, I know not all these guys were impact players for the Flyers but you get my point).

I think most scouts project Cousins as a winger in the NHL.

And it's not a knock on Danny's abilities, it's more on his contract and role with the team. He is a lot less effective on the wing (same seems to be true of BSchenn) and you don't want to move Couturier back to the 4th line. With the cap dropping, you'd free up a lot more space by buying out Briere.
- NickTheKid87

At the Flyers' prospect camp last July, I asked Laperriere about Cousins potentially being a winger in the NHL. He answered in depth, but it basically came down to saying that he's either going to have to have to improve his skating to be a winger or get a lot better defensively to be a center -- and the second is easier to accomplish.

Lappy also said that in his own career, he had to learn to make the transition from being an offensive-minded player in junior hockey and the IHL -- look up Lappy's pre-NHL production sometime -- to being a role player in the NHL. There are only so many players who can be scorers in the NHL, and the rest had better learn to do other things well in order to have a role on a third or fourth line.

Laperriere said that while he'd never want to limit Cousins or any other player by saying they can't overachieve and become a bonafide top-six in the NHL, the best route for a player like him to achieve an NHL career is by learning what it takes to stay in the lineup if you CAN'T score enough to play atop the lineup.

As a player who is a natural pest and agitator, Cousins' best NHL role is probably as just that; especially if he can add a little support offense.

That pretty much sums how the Flyers see Cousins. They seem him as a player who won't be a big point producer in the NHL -- doesn't matter if he leads the OHL in scoring -- and who is going to have work more on his defense and skating to have both a position and a defined role in the lineup.

Hopefully, Cousins exceeds all those expectations and keeps right on producing a lot of points as he moves up. But chances are that he'll either evolve into an NHL role player who plays full-time or else an AHL offensive guy whom most fans fail to understand why he's never the guy who gets a callup.

is this Homer?
- vejim

Once again displaying that wonderful trait that causes a lot of folks to take you as seriously as Itzak Perlman or Joshua Bell take Weird Al Yankovic or Nickelback

Well that's the key. If you have to move for a defenseman, look for guys like McDonagh or Coburn and try to get them on the cheap. Every team has a guy or two that didn't develop as expected.

Look at a guy like Rundblad. Look at a guy who hasn't lived up to his potential.
- Jsaquella

hey, what about ellerby? Doh!