At the beginning of the season many sports experts and outlets picked the Philadelphia Flyers to win the Stanley Cup after their acquisition of nasty blue-liner Chris Pronger. Well, so far, those predictions are looking bad. This season has been the epitome of underachieving. This team has, or should have, a high powered offense lead by Jeff Carter and Mike Richards, but it seems that none of these players play with intensity 100% of the time. With the lack of scoring, it has caused people to lash out saying things such as, “We should have signed Knuble” or “Trading Lupul was a bad idea.” Well this author is going to analyze, as best as I can, who the winners of this seasons moves were, starting with the Pronger trade. I will not be talking about the Ray Emery signing because I am not in the mood to buy a new computer after I smash this one.
Many people believe that with the lose of Lupul, we lost a dynamic scorer who could help our usually anemic offense. The truth is, Lupul wouldn’t help this team at all. This season, Lupul has only played 23 games while scoring 10 goals and adding 4 helpers for 14 pts in those 23 games. What has Pronger done, besides being the physical and nasty d-man we were craving? This season, Pronger has played 69 games while producing 50 pts and is a +22 on the season. One can argue that if Lupul was healthy, he would have the same production if not more. But that is where the problem lies. If he is not healthy for the Ducks, well then he most likely wouldn’t be healthy for us. This brings me to the other pieces of the Pronger trade which were young D prospect Luca Sbisa and a 1st round draft choice in the last draft and this upcoming draft. One can argue that we mortgaged our future out for an old man, but if you look at Sbisa this year you will see that he has not had an impact at all on the Ducks. The only action that he has seen this year was 8 games at the beginning of the season which saw him get zero points and a -1 before being sent down to the minors. In conclusion to this deal, no matter how you look at it, even with our underwhelming play, Chris Pronger is making a huge difference for us on the blue line.
The next move we will look at will be the mid season claiming of Michael Leighton off of re-entry waivers from the Carolina Hurricanes. At the time of the claim, almost every Flyer fan greeted it with the same reaction, “Oh just goalie depth, whatever.” Who would have known that claiming a journeyman goaltender would be the spark to help turn this team around. One can argue that Leighton is doing so well because of the amazing defense in front of him(5th in the NHL in shots against per game). But who knows why Leighton is doing so good for us? True it could be the amazing defense but Emery had tons of trouble with the same defense in front of him. Or it could simply that Leighton is hitting his stride and finally figured the league out. Leighton also has the advantage of being a bigger goalie. At 6’3″ 188 pounds he has the advantage of being able to sit back farther in the net instead of going out more to cut off angles and his weight allows him to be much more agile as well. For all we know, Leighton could be the next Martin Brodeur and we stumbled upon the biggest diamond in the rough. We will see what his is made of as soon as he gets us to the playoffs.
The final move that I will talk about is the Ole-Kristian Tollefsen and a 5th round pick for Ville Leino of the Detroit Red Wings. In my opinion this is a very underrated move. We send an injury prone, bad penalty prone defense man for a winger with high skill and potential. True, he was not doing much in Detroit and he is getting close to 30 but this could turn out to be a move that helps us so much in the long run if we decide to move one of our top 6, or even top 9, forwards. The only thing is, Flyers fans have not had much of an opportunity to see what Leino can bring to the table because coach Peter Laviolette does not want to mess with the chemistry of the team which is understandable. If this move pans out and Leino ends up being an impact forward on this team and OKT continues to toil in the minors with injuries, then this will be one of the most underated moves by Paul Holmgren.
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