Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. The Flyers finally have their bona-fide starter. They have some size and grit. They have wingers. They have cap space, and draft picks, and prospects. As Dick Enberg is fond of saying…Oh my! They got all of the assets that we perceived to be lacking in the franchise and for the low, low price of the captain and one of the alternates. The cost is nothing more than a top-tier, team-leading scorer and a heart-and-soul, leave-it-all-on-the-ice leader. Really, it’s a mere pittance. First-line centers. Cornerstones. Franchise players. That’s it. Anyone …
Captain Richards dealt to Kings
In yet another blockbuster move, captain Mike Richards is captain no more, traded to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for forwards Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds, as well as a second-round draft pick in 2012. “Yeah, I was…I got a call early in the afternoon from my agent. He just kinda gave me the rundown of what he knew and how everything progressed. I started hearing more and more, but I actually ended up hearing about it on the internet. At first I was shocked, and then I was excited,” said Richards of those tense minutes this afternoon as …
Bring Back Gagne? A look at the pros and cons.
We have 25 days until free agency and I’m sure each and every one of those days will be rumor laden until July 1 arrives. Paul Holmgren was fairly active last season, adding Andrej Meszaros, Sean O’Donnell, Jody Shelley and Nikolay Zherdev, while retaining Darroll Powe and Daniel Carcillo. However all of that activity caused casualties of the cap. Arron Asham signed with Pittsburgh as a free agent and Simon Gagne, the longest- tenured Flyer at the time, waived his no-trade clause in a much maligned deal with Tampa Bay, while we took on Matt Walker — or more precisely, his two hip surgeries. …
Is Paul Holmgren still the right man for the job?
Paul Holmgren is a bold man, sure of what he wants and unflinching in his actions. He is willing to pay extra to beat the surge of activity to get his man. As a result, he’s built a team capable — in theory and in his own mind — of competing for the Stanley Cup. However, these actions are adding up and taking an increasing toll on a team that put its eggs in one basket for the 2011 season. That ultimately-failed course has been run, and the team did not win the Cup, yet again, and it is now …
Pronger answers burning questions at Thursday press conference
Q: How did the surgery go and how are you feeling? ”Well, as far as I was told it went very well. It relieved a lot of the weakness I was having in my leg and now it is just a matter of how the nerve regenerates itself and the range of motion and all the rest of that stuff. How it recovers and that stuff are probably another four to five weeks before we see where that is at.” Q: Can you tell us about the decision to have the surgery, was that an option you were given or …
The case against Mike Richards
I’ve made it a point to stick up for Mike Richards recently. While the general consensus seems to be that the captain of a professional sports team should be someone who is public relations savvy, I prefer to believe that a captain should be someone who is capable of leading his team on the ice. If he’s great in front of a microphone, well then that’s just icing on the cake. The way I see it, for every smooth orator like Julius Caesar, there is a Genghis Khan. Each has very different skill sets but both were great leaders. After …
RICE & MICE: The sports hernia
Danny Briere has had a couple, Mike Richards has had at least one, Dan Carcillo had one last offseason and now, Kris Versteeg is the latest Flyer to undergo surgery to repair a sports hernia. A sports hernia is different from a traditional inguinal hernia that occurs when there is a significant area of the abdominal wall in the area of the inguinal canal that allows a pouch of herniated tissue to bulge through and cause pain. The inguinal canal is created by several abdominal muscles and ligaments and through the canal passes the spermatic cord and the ilioinguinal nerve …
Literary Fun
The Lulz feature was originally inspired by the lolcats site but features hockey pictures with funny, quirky, ironic or just plain mean captions. This feature should run weekly on Mondays, just to try to make your Monday a little brighter.
RICE & MICE: Wrist cartilage tears (aka TFCC tears)
Flyers players Mike Richards and Andrej Meszaros both had wrist surgery on Wednesday morning. Both had cartilage tears. It’s reported that Meszaros had some ligament involvement with his surgery. It seems that there’s a lot of uncalled for speculation going on about Richards’ wrist procedure. When did he hurt it? How did it happen? Why didn’t he have surgery during the season? Even a sighting of Flyers (including Richards) at the Wednesday evening Philadelphia Union match, left the doors open for comments about his quick recovery from surgery. Seems to be everything just shy of questioning whether the injury is real. …
Another Philly sports drama
A player who assumes a role of leadership for a sports team in Philadelphia is bound to bear the brunt of undue criticism. This is particularly true for players who have great expectations thrust upon them. It happened with Charles Barkley. It happened to Eric Lindros. It happened in Randall Cunningham’s later years, just as it did for Donovan McNabb. It happened with Terrell Owens. It happened with Allen Iverson. It happened with Pat Burrell to some extent. It happens intermittently with Ryan Howard and Cole Hamels. The Flyers are not immune to these perils either, despite a near-unbroken chain …