What I've Learned: The Flyers Post-Trade-Deadline Edition

by Bob Herpen
The Phanatic Magazine

If Mike Knuble stays consistent and scores 30-plus goals, he’ll gain enough fan support to become a folk hero on par with the likes of Brind’Amour, Tocchet and Jones. It also means, at age 36 come July, he’s as good as gone before next season.

All games against the Devils from now until eternity should be forfeit losses. That means the Flyers will start 2008-2009 at 0-6, which might provide the right focus and prevent inexplicable losing streaks like the six-and-ten gamers this year.

When it comes to trades, as long as the Holmgren-Clarke-Snider axis remains in place, “what’s best for the organization” will never include actual human-for-human deals.

Which is why, if you only want to give up a third-round draft pick for a 37-year-old defenseman, you can’t cry foul when you discover he has a potentially-debilitating shoulder injury which hinders his checking and puck-handling now, while also requiring off-season surgery.

I’m glad the FOX glow-puck is long dead.

Without a doubt, when the NHL Competition Committee rescinds the shootout forever, the Flyers will be the team who will benefit the most. That useless breakaway competition in Sunday’s game ruined what used to be termed a “good tie” prior to 2005.

John Stevens should be let go at season’s end. He officially ran out of ideas to spark the team after reading the last chapter of “NHL Coaching for Dummies” sometime during the 10-game winless binge.

For the first time in my 24 years of watching hockey, I can’t distinguish who among the possible 16 playoff teams is a true Stanley Cup contender. The Flyers could finish eighth in the East and still make it.

We have less than two years left before Ruslan Fedotenko is seasoned enough to warrant a trade back to the Flyers.

It’s been almost 13 years, but I still hate Claude Lemieux with homicidal passion.

Jeff Carter is our most marketable player to better the club. Yet, management thinks it’s better to bide its time and wait out the 35-game-gap each mid-season where he sleepwalks, just to get the benefit of his early and late scoring binges.

Mike Richards is not the Second Coming of Bobby Clarke. I’ll settle if he’s the re-incarnation of Ilkka Sinisalo any day though.

If we exhumed Pelle’s body, put it in a jersey and all the modern goalie equipment, I bet he’d turn out to be at least equal to Antero Niittymaki – with a much better glove hand.