Recapping A Big Day In FlyerLand: Defensive Upgrades, Offensive Regressions, And A Murdered Salary Cap

Seeing as the Flyers made 50 bajillion moves today and I am too lazy to link specific articles, I will just encourage you all to check out Broad Street Hockey, as all the Flyers moves and rumors have been documented and appropriately cited in both the articles and the 2,000 comment discussion threads.

The Flyers started the day by making sure they had the best defense in the NHL. And to a man, I think they may have accomplished exactly that, even if they spent a bit more than most would have liked them to in getting there. They traded a 2012 2nd round draft pick for Andrej Meszaros. Meszaros is a big-bodied guy who per some has some turnover problems. The good thing is that he is 24 and I see no flaws that are uncorrectable. Originally, it seemed like a bad thing as not only did the Flyers take on his huge contract, but it also seemed to hint that the Flyers would not re-sign Braydon Coburn. By all indications, Meszaros would be a downgrade to Coburn. But that was not to be as the Flyers did re-sign Coburn to a 2-year deal, that once again, featured seemingly an overpayment. He went for 3.3 million a year, whereas most thought 3 per year would be the max. But regardless, Coburn may not always know how to use his big body and he may have some head-scratchingly awful bad games, but when he is on, he is pretty damn good.

In addition to extending Coburn and trading for Meszaros, the Flyers followed Chris Pronger's advice and signed 38-year old defenseman Sean O'Donnell to a 1-year contract. O'Donnell will fill the role of Flyers 6th defenseman and by all accounts, he is a gritty and tough player, much like the beloved Ian Laperriere, only Lappy is a forward whereas O'Donnell is a D-Man. What it boils down to is this, the Flyers have upgraded their 3rd defensive pairing from Lukas Krajicek and Ryan Parent to Andrej Meszaros and Sean O'Donnell. That, my friends, is a massive upgrade. Krajicek likely won't be back with the team whereas Broad Street Hockey's favorite Latvian Sea Wolf, Oskars Bartulis will likely be the team's 7th defenseman.

But the Flyers' head-scrather du jour came shortly afterwards. The Flyers inked Jody Shelley (yes, THAT Jody Shelley) to a 3-year, 3.3 million dollar contract. Let that sink in for a minute: Jody Shelley is making 1.1 million dollars a year to be Riley Cote Version 2.0. I just don't get it. Sharks fans and Rangers fans basically want to give the guy a freakin blow job, yet all I see is a $600,000 raise to Riley Cote. The only thing I can surmise is that Carcillo was asking for too much money and the Flyers are not going to bring him back (though CSN Philly's Tim Panaccio has tweeted that this move had nothing to do with Carcillo and he is still pending). He is slow, does not score (Carbomb can score), and can sometimes fight. We've seen this player before. His name is Riley Cote and he spent most of last season in the press box for a damned good reason. He is a completely useless player. If they thinking of putting Shelley on the 4th line, that means it will be a 4th line consisting of Blair Betts, Ian Laperriere, and Jody Shelley. Those are tough guys, but a line with 3 slow skaters is completely useless, especially in this version of the NHL, thus making the Shelley signing a bad move. If they don't play him, then we will be paying an additional $600,000 to a guy sitting in the press box doing nothing. In that situation, the move is even worse, especially seeing as this completely drained the Flyers of cap space to sign a goalie and will almost certainly have to dump someone. And if the rumors are true that person is fan favorite and Hero Of The Boston Series, Simon Gagne. Why Homer would want to trade Gagne with an NTC as opposed to Carter without an NTC is utterly beyond me, but thus are the rumors at this time.

Unless trading Gagne somehow lands the Flyers a goalie better than Leighton in addition to either Maxim Afinogenov or Bobby Ryan, the day Gagne gets traded will be an extremely sad day for Flyers fans. In a town known to be very tough on athletes who don't perform (see: Burrell, McNabb, Brand, and the rest of that list), never once has Simon Gagne, a man who has spent the entirety of a 10-year career in Philadelphia, drawn that ire. That being said, at the right price, it might be worth it if the Flyers are dead set on not wanting to trade Carter (who you could probably fetch more for anyways in a trade).

But I guess I have to look on the bright side of all this. At least the Flyers did not sign Derek Boogaard to a 4-year contract at 1.65 million PER YEAR. LOL Rangers!