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Are Flyers Taking Aim at Bogosian.... or Another Jet?

June 9, 2013, 7:39 PM ET [83 Comments]
Peter Tessier
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After the Friedman piece last week and his cryptic message about being wary of the Flyers if you have a RFA defenseman I started trying to play connect the dots.  

First off, nothing the Flyers ever do is cryptic or hidden, the organization as a whole is very direct and focussed but this off season may be different.  Teams have cap issues and they are going to have to be creative about  how they deal with them.  

While not everyone is a believer in Bogosian the way Jets fans are perhaps he's not what Philly is after.  Offer sheets are simply a tactic and Homer probably learned last year that using them to achieve your player goals is only one way to use them.  Forcing a sort of salary armageddon on a team only works on the very few if at all and I suspect Homer learned a very poignant lesson after the Weber fiasco last summer.  That is- negotiate first.

Here's where I think the rubber hits the road with the Jets, Bogosian and the Flyers.  


Homer is going to use the threat of offer-sheeting Bogosian as a way of dealing for something else, at least I think that's what he wants to do.  The Jets can match anything but do they want to begrudgingly accept a contract forced upon them?  I don't think so and that's what Homer will probably try to do this summer.

First step is to make sure that Bogosian's agent knows what's in store should his client make it to the stage where the Flyers can offer sheet him.  The player has to be available to be offer sheeted for the offering team to have any leverage.

At this point it's the magician's 'slight of hand' where all the fans are talking about player A and then a deal for player B is made.  Remember that initial.

What the Flyers want is another player and they use an RFA like Bogosian as their leverage.  Either way it works well for a guy like Bogosian.  His agent gets him more money one way or the other and in a case like Weber it's a massive windfall.  

For a GM still in his rookie contract there's a learning lesson here.  Don't wait too long to deal with RFAs and make sure you know what your competitors really want.  Not signing a draft pick you traded up to draft is one thing (Zach Yuen) but making a mess of a contract you can control on your terms is another.  

As for that player who the Flyers are really after... well his exit weight at the end of the year was 302lbs.  
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