My only problem with this is Quick was a very good goalie coming out. Bob was pretty much an unknown. Quick was drafted in the 3rd round, Bob undrafted. The upside of having Quick and being patient is totally different imo. I guess a goalie who isnt as highly touted could use some patience but I dont think Bob is the answer.

Quick was a known commodity:
(While playing for the University of Massachusetts Amherst, he led the Minutemen to their first NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Championship appearance. In his first ever NCAA Tournament game Quick shutout Clarkson University, stopping all 33 shots he faced, in a 1–0 overtime victory. He appeared in 5 playoff games, and posted a .944 save percentage. Quick still holds many records in UMass-Amherst hockey history.)
- stveshdy

ahhh the good ole clarkson golden Knights....In the early 90's they were a powerhouse...grew up going to those games.

OK.... take away Couturier, Voracek, Simmonds and Schenn, add back in Richards and Carter (who had an injury-plagued year). Do you like their chances of either getting 103 points or, if they did, beating Pittsburgh in the first round of the playoffs? I'd say it would be quite unlikely when you figure in the cap space issue if they had kept Richards and Carter this season.
- bmeltzer

On top of that we wouldn't have had Grossmann. JVR was hurt most of the year and Meszy missed considerable time. Carter with his injury plagued season. Also by getting Bryz they would have not been able to get Jagr..

"Mike Richards and Jeff Carter were valuable pieces of the puzzle but not the central parts. The Flyers would NOT have come any closer to winning the Stanley Cup this season if Richards and Carter were still here. "

Whatever let's you sleep at night...
- As_I_See_It

Quick, Doughty, Kopitar and Brown were the biggest key components. Also, Carter being in LA has nothing to do with the Flyers -- they didn't trade him there.

That is some story!! I knew of Wensink's notorious minor league gooning and suspension history but not the specifics.
- bmeltzer

When Cherry was coaching the Amerks it was like a circus act. IIRC correctly, this all would have been happening around the 73-74 season, so Flyers fans were probably preoccupied.

But I think the most amazing thing about that story is that Engblom fought ANYONE three times, let alone a homicidal heavyweight enforcer.


Also this from the Halifax Daily News...

Voyageur general manager and coach Al MacNeil was properly furious at an AHL decision to suspend Wensink for 20 games on third bite. Livid with rage, MacNeil insisted to AHL president Jack Butterfield in a phone conversation that the penalty was insufficient.

"What else do you propose I do, Al?" inquired Butterfield.

Said the despairing MacNeil, "I want him defanged".

You can't make this stuff up.

OK.... take away Couturier, Voracek, Simmonds and Schenn, add back in Richards and Carter (who had an injury-plagued year). Do you like their chances of either getting 103 points or, if they did, beating Pittsburgh in the first round of the playoffs? I'd say it would be quite unlikely when you figure in the cap space issue if they had kept Richards and Carter this season.
- bmeltzer

It's an unknown Bill. You can't know what other moves would have been made. There are far too many factors involved to say they would have or wouldn't have. They could have done worse also. But we don't know. It's just speculation.

Quick, Doughty, Kopitar and Brown were the biggest key components. Also, Carter being in LA has nothing to do with the Flyers -- they didn't trade him there.
- bmeltzer

Exactly. I dont think anyone is saying that Richards and Carter weren't great additions because they were. However, the Kings already had a solid core and just need to fill some pieces. Theres a big difference being the show and playing in it. Those guys were on the second line. No C or A on the jersey. Just playing hockey and supporting the current cast. I give them credit because while they didnt play well during the regular season they showed up this playoff year.

That is the REAL lesson the Flyers can learn from here. They made good strides over the last year. Now they need to continue to build the right combination of youth and experience, including improvements on team defense (not merely bringing in a big-name defenseman).
- bmeltzer

This carries over to the coaching philosophy as well. There's been a lot of talk of Lavi needing to clamp down/adapt to emulate the Kings/Rangers/etc. People need to remember that the Kings could have easily heeded the calls from their fans to hire a coach that would 'liberate' their big guns, but in keeping with the trajectory of their organizational approach, they hired Sutter and it got them to where they wanted to be.

The worst thing the Flyers can do this summer is to try to build to counter the Rangers or copy the Kings. This team is built to attack and to attack with speed -- changing midstream (again) will just serve to further prolong the Cup drought.

Quick, Doughty, Kopitar and Brown were the biggest key components. Also, Carter being in LA has nothing to do with the Flyers -- they didn't trade him there.
- bmeltzer

This fact seems to be lost on almost everyone. Flyers made two sensible hockey trades that netted them 4 solid pieces for the present and future. The fact Carter was traded to LA isn't anything the Flyers can control, and pretty much insignificant to the discussion. I would take a package of Couturier, Schenn, Simmonds, and Voracek for Carter and Richards every day of the week.

Flyers got fortunate that the inompetent levels of ineptitude of Messrs Chevaldayoff, and Snow that Couturier was available when they selected 8th.

I agree 100% that the Kings did not arrive at this point overnight. It took a lot of key moves and a lot of patience. But what I can't agree with is the blanket statement that the Flyers wouldn't have done better if they hadn't traded Carter and Richards. That's an unknown.
- MJL

leight

This carries over to the coaching philosophy as well. There's been a lot of talk of Lavi needing to clamp down/adapt to emulate the Kings/Rangers/etc. People need to remember that the Kings could have easily heeded the calls from their fans to hire a coach that would 'liberate' their big guns, but in keeping with the trajectory of their organizational approach, they hired Sutter and it got them to where they wanted to be.

The worst thing the Flyers can do this summer is to try to build to counter the Rangers or copy the Kings. This team is built to attack and to attack with speed -- changing midstream (again) will just serve to further prolong the Cup drought.
- Tomahawk

Hopefully the experiences of this year will help the young forwards in their defensive awareness, etc. Hopefully they don't pay too close attention to the one guy that wears an A who is completely clueless in that zone.

This carries over to the coaching philosophy as well. There's been a lot of talk of Lavi needing to clamp down/adapt to emulate the Kings/Rangers/etc. People need to remember that the Kings could have easily heeded the calls from their fans to hire a coach that would 'liberate' their big guns, but in keeping with the trajectory of their organizational approach, they hired Sutter and it got them to where they wanted to be.

The worst thing the Flyers can do this summer is to try to build to counter the Rangers or copy the Kings. This team is built to attack and to attack with speed -- changing midstream (again) will just serve to further prolong the Cup drought.
- Tomahawk

I dont want them to change the system. I just want the forwards to work harder coming back into their own zone and supporting. Thats the most important issue with this team. The forwards stand still and hang out at the blueline instead of working hard in their own end. Just my opinion of course.

pfffff toronto always wishing they could have the flyers scraps.
- Philly1980

... Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?...

So for PURE FANTASY FUN I thought about offseason moves. Heard some rumblings about Evander Kane not wanting to reup in wpg...

To Winnipeg: JVR, Gusty, 1st +

To Phila: Evander Kane, Tobias Enstrom

I don't think that would do it, but that's the gist of my trade scenario.

Forgive me as I am on my phone and this is hard to do, but here is the cap geek breakdown.

CAPGEEK.COM USER GENERATED ROSTER
My Custom Lineup
FORWARDS
Scott Hartnell ($4.200m) / Danny Briere ($6.500m) / Wayne Simmonds ($1.750m)
Eric Wellwood ($0.580m) / Claude Giroux ($3.750m) / Matt Read ($0.900m)
Evander Kane ($4.100m) / Maxime Talbot ($1.750m) / Jakub Voracek ($3.250m)
Sean Couturier ($1.375m) /Brayden Schenn ($3.110m)
Zac Rinaldo ($0.544m) /
DEFENSEMEN
Kimmo Timonen ($6.333m) / Andrej Meszaros ($4.000m)
Braydon Coburn ($4.500m) / Andreas Lilja ($0.738m)
Nicklas Grossmann ($3.500m) / Matt Carle ($4.500m)
Tobias Enstrom ($3.750m) /
GOALTENDERS
Ilya Bryzgalov ($5.667m)
Sergei Bobrovsky ($1.750m)

------
CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(these totals are compiled without the bonus cushion)
SALARY CAP: $70,300,000; CAP PAYROLL: $66,546,944; BONUSES: $3,555,000
CAP SPACE (21-man roster): $3,753,056

So for PURE FANTASY FUN I thought about offseason moves. Heard some rumblings about Evander Kane not wanting to reup in wpg...

To Winnipeg: JVR, Gusty, 1st +

To Phila: Evander Kane, Tobias Enstrom

I don't think that would do it, but that's the gist of my trade scenario.

Forgive me as I am on my phone and this is hard to do, but here is the cap geek breakdown.

CAPGEEK.COM USER GENERATED ROSTER
My Custom Lineup
FORWARDS
Scott Hartnell ($4.200m) / Danny Briere ($6.500m) / Wayne Simmonds ($1.750m)
Eric Wellwood ($0.580m) / Claude Giroux ($3.750m) / Matt Read ($0.900m)
Evander Kane ($4.100m) / Maxime Talbot ($1.750m) / Jakub Voracek ($3.250m)
Sean Couturier ($1.375m) /Brayden Schenn ($3.110m)
Zac Rinaldo ($0.544m) /
DEFENSEMEN
Kimmo Timonen ($6.333m) / Andrej Meszaros ($4.000m)
Braydon Coburn ($4.500m) / Andreas Lilja ($0.738m)
Nicklas Grossmann ($3.500m) / Matt Carle ($4.500m)
Tobias Enstrom ($3.750m) /
GOALTENDERS
Ilya Bryzgalov ($5.667m)
Sergei Bobrovsky ($1.750m)

------
CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(these totals are compiled without the bonus cushion)
SALARY CAP: $70,300,000; CAP PAYROLL: $66,546,944; BONUSES: $3,555,000
CAP SPACE (21-man roster): $3,753,056
- jak521

lol

Exactly. I dont think anyone is saying that Richards and Carter weren't great additions because they were. However, the Kings already had a solid core and just need to fill some pieces. Theres a big difference being the show and playing in it. Those guys were on the second line. No C or A on the jersey. Just playing hockey and supporting the current cast. I give them credit because while they didnt play well during the regular season they showed up this playoff year.
- stveshdy

There seems to be a need to downplay and minimize the roles of Carter and Richards. While I agree that the 4 Kings players mentioned were the biggest reasons why. Adding Richards and Carter was huge for the Kings. And was absolutely a key component to the Kings Cup run. Look at the icetimes among Forwards and the situations in which they were used. Adding Richards, and especially Carter later, changed the entire dynamic of the team. And allowed players like Stoll and some of the other players to be placed in a proper role that they're better suited for. That has been by far an overlooked reason for why the Kings were so successful. No team wins a Cup with one line. Assign whatever number you want to Richards/Carter/Penner. That's a top line and a very good one. And very important to the Kings.

It's an unknown Bill. You can't know what other moves would have been made. There are far too many factors involved to say they would have or wouldn't have. They could have done worse also. But we don't know. It's just speculation.
- MJL

I think the biggest positive that the Richards and Carter deals brought was the development of Claude Giroux. Lappy touched on this as well. It would never have been G's team with those two guys here. He needed them to leave for his growth as a leader and superstar player.

On top of that we wouldn't have had Grossmann. JVR was hurt most of the year and Meszy missed considerable time. Carter with his injury plagued season. Also by getting Bryz they would have not been able to get Jagr..
- jak521

They wouldn't have had Talbot either. Assuming they still signed Bryzgalov, traded Versteeg and Powe and the injuries (Pronger, JVR) played out the same way, the most common lineup would have ended up looking something like this due to severe cap constraints:

JVR/Hartnell - Giroux - Carter (?)
Hartnell/JVR/ - Briere - Read
Wellwood - Richards/Carter- Carter/Harry Z?
Sestito/Shelley- Holmstrom - Rinaldo

Timonen - Coburn
Carle - Meszaros
Bourdon - Lilja

So for PURE FANTASY FUN I thought about offseason moves. Heard some rumblings about Evander Kane not wanting to reup in wpg...

To Winnipeg: JVR, Gusty, 1st +

To Phila: Evander Kane, Tobias Enstrom

I don't think that would do it, but that's the gist of my trade scenario.

Forgive me as I am on my phone and this is hard to do, but here is the cap geek breakdown.

CAPGEEK.COM USER GENERATED ROSTER
My Custom Lineup
FORWARDS
Scott Hartnell ($4.200m) / Danny Briere ($6.500m) / Wayne Simmonds ($1.750m)
Eric Wellwood ($0.580m) / Claude Giroux ($3.750m) / Matt Read ($0.900m)
Evander Kane ($4.100m) / Maxime Talbot ($1.750m) / Jakub Voracek ($3.250m)
Sean Couturier ($1.375m) /Brayden Schenn ($3.110m)
Zac Rinaldo ($0.544m) /
DEFENSEMEN
Kimmo Timonen ($6.333m) / Andrej Meszaros ($4.000m)
Braydon Coburn ($4.500m) / Andreas Lilja ($0.738m)
Nicklas Grossmann ($3.500m) / Matt Carle ($4.500m)
Tobias Enstrom ($3.750m) /
GOALTENDERS
Ilya Bryzgalov ($5.667m)
Sergei Bobrovsky ($1.750m)

------
CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(these totals are compiled without the bonus cushion)
SALARY CAP: $70,300,000; CAP PAYROLL: $66,546,944; BONUSES: $3,555,000
CAP SPACE (21-man roster): $3,753,056
- jak521

Evander Kane is a prototypical Flyer: skill, grit, toughness. The very same reasons that WPG won't move him. I like the idea though

This carries over to the coaching philosophy as well. There's been a lot of talk of Lavi needing to clamp down/adapt to emulate the Kings/Rangers/etc. People need to remember that the Kings could have easily heeded the calls from their fans to hire a coach that would 'liberate' their big guns, but in keeping with the trajectory of their organizational approach, they hired Sutter and it got them to where they wanted to be.

The worst thing the Flyers can do this summer is to try to build to counter the Rangers or copy the Kings. This team is built to attack and to attack with speed -- changing midstream (again) will just serve to further prolong the Cup drought.
- Tomahawk

Agreed. Play your style and play it well, and you can win with it. It's not my preference of how to play. But that's neither here nor there. If the Flyers play their style to their potential, add a peice on defense. And get Bryzgalov on track. They can be as good as anyone.

You think they were central parts I take it?
- NickTheKid87

No. He knows they weren't central parts.

But comes on Meltzer's blog and says it to get us going.

T-R-O-L-L.

I've seen a total of 5 trolls here since the Cup, and 4 of them are Leaf fans. Stay classy.

And as far as the team itself goes, stay terrible, because it's hilarious

I dont want them to change the system. I just want the forwards to work harder coming back into their own zone and supporting. Thats the most important issue with this team. The forwards stand still and hang out at the blueline instead of working hard in their own end. Just my opinion of course.
- stveshdy

Misreads and mistakes there were aplenty, but lack of effort didn't strike me to be as big of an issue. When they actually executed Lavi's system 100% and limited their mistakes, they were a hard team to beat. When they were running around trying to do too much, that's when things got dicey.

I think the biggest positive that the Richards and Carter deals brought was the development of Claude Giroux. Lappy touched on this as well. It would never have been G's team with those two guys here. He needed them to leave for his growth as a leader and superstar player.
- NickTheKid87

I have no issues with the Flyers changing course and building the team around Giroux. He's grown into a special player.

There seems to be a need to downplay and minimize the roles of Carter and Richards. While I agree that the 4 Kings players mentioned were the biggest reasons why. Adding Richards and Carter was huge for the Kings. And was absolutely a key component to the Kings Cup run. Look at the icetimes among Forwards and the situations in which they were used. Adding Richards, and especially Carter later, changed the entire dynamic of the team. And allowed players like Stoll and some of the other players to be placed in a proper role that they're better suited for. That has been by far an overlooked reason for why the Kings were so successful. No team wins a Cup with one line. Assign whatever number you want to Richards/Carter/Penner. That's a top line and a very good one. And very important to the Kings.
- MJL

I dont disagree that that line was important but it wasnt the focal point. Brown, Williams and Kopitar was. Those guys were unbelieveable during the cup run. Richards and Carter are very good players and were a huge factor to LA winning. To say they were the exact reason for winning is being overlooked also.

Misreads and mistakes there were aplenty, but lack of effort didn't strike me to be as big of an issue. When they actually executed Lavi's system 100% and limited their mistakes, they were a hard team to beat. When they were running around trying to do too much, that's when things got dicey.
- Tomahawk

Agree 100%. Never saw effort as an issue with this current team. Effort in the wrong direction and as you said. Mistakes and misreads.

It's an unknown Bill. You can't know what other moves would have been made. There are far too many factors involved to say they would have or wouldn't have. They could have done worse also. But we don't know. It's just speculation.
- MJL

The thing is that they would have had a real struggle to stay within the cap if they still went ahead and signed Bryzgalov while keeping Richards and Carter (which would have meant no replacement for Leino, trading Versteeg with no NHL level replacement, no ability to sign Talbot, etc).

It would have made those "other moves" very hard to make.