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Flyers Still Hot on Byfuglien Trail |
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Before the Flyers won back-to-back games against the Rangers and Islanders, I thought the club could be on verge of pulling the trigger on a blockbuster trade involving "major pieces the team has been previously unwilling to move" with the target being to upgrade the top end of the Philadelphia blueline.
It was an educated guess, but I thought the team needed four points against the Rangers and Islanders to keep the club's nucleus intact as is. Well, they did get the four points but, at 3-7-0 with some measuring stick games coming up, the trade watch could easily heat up again sooner rather than later.
I have been told by good sources that the team's number one target is Winnipeg's Dustin Byfuglien. Despite understandable reservations about how well Big Buff and the no-nonsense, conditioning-obsessed Craig Berube could co-exist, the organization also knows that it needs a plan to address the club's top pairing. Much of the team's scoring difficulty -- one or two goals maximum in each of the first nine games until last night's five-goal outburst against the Islanders, mostly courtesy of a Vincent Lecavalier hat trick -- has stemmed from an ongoing lack of puck-moving ability from the defense.
Despite Byfuglien's often-discussed weight issues, he moves well and is one of the NHL's top offense threats from the blueline. He hasn't even played that badly defensively this year despite the array of other problems the Jets have had. Being a righthanded shot also plays in his favor.
Ultimately, this will all come down to whether the Flyers will move those pieces they've refused to move previously. Stay tuned....
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