The Flyers' game in Anaheim tomorrow night just got a whole lot more intriguing with the replacement of former Stanley Cup winning coach Randy Carlyle with recently fired former Capitals bench boss Bruce Boudreau.
Back on Black Friday 2007, Boudreau made his Washington Capitals coaching debut less than 24 hours after the team fired Glen Hanlon on Thanksgiving Day. In that game, the Flyers
battled back from a 3-0 deficit to score three unanswered goals -- two of which were shorthanded tallies -- and send the game to overtime. However, Nicklas Bäckström's overtime goal won the game for the Caps.
Four years later, Boudreau will make his Ducks debut less than 48 hours after being named as Anaheim's new coach. The hiring of Boudreau may quiet the Bobby Ryan trade talks for awhile, as the new coach will probably want to evaluate his personnel before any moves are made.
It is no secret that the Flyers have coveted Ryan for years. A native of Cherry Hill who started playing youth hockey in our area, his family has known members of the organization, specifically Bob Clarke, for many years.
However, Ryan really does not match to the Flyers' current needs. Scoring is not a problem for Philadelphia, and the team is deep at forward. It would not make hockey sense to trade for Ryan. He is a good, sometimes very good, offensive player with size, but he is not a franchise player. As a matter of fact, James van Riemsdyk is right on par with where Ryan was at the same point of his career.
Ryan may have three straight 30-goal seasons heading into this year, but he probably should be a 40-45 goal scorer given his natural gifts and the caliber of linemates he's played with in Anaheim. Carlyle got on his case at times for cutting corners defensively and not using his size as effectively as he should. However, when Ryan gets hot, he can score in bunches.
If I were Paul Holmgren and had the option to trade van Riemsdyk straight up for Ryan, I would probably do it. Ryan is still young and is already a 30-plus goal scorer whereas JVR is on the brink of achieving that status at age 22 (8 goals in 20 games is a 32-goal pace). It may be a lateral move in the long-term, however, unless Ryan were to go on to blossom into a John LeClair-like player in the immediate future.
Breaking the bank for Ryan by trading JVR plus other assets would make zero sense, in my opinion. I would only do that if the return netted a legitimate first-pairing defenseman, because those are harder to come by than even top-line caliber forwards.
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Today is the final day of the trivia contest to win two free tickets to the Flyers take on the defending Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins at the Wells Fargo Center on Sat. December 17 at 1 PM. Entry cutoff is 5 PM EST today.
Here's the trivia question:
The Flyers made their first ever trade with the Boston Bruins on Oct. 18, 1967. Philadelphia dealt a first-round draft pick in 1970 (which Boston used to select Rick MacLeish) to the Bruins and received a player in return. Who came over from Boston to Philadelphia in the deal?
Email your answer to
[email protected] with "Flyers-Bruins Trivia Contest" in the subject line. I'll contact the winner that evening and announce him/her on Friday's gameday blog. If no one has come up with the correct answer, we'll do a random drawing from among all the entries.
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