imagine the amount of pressure that would put on lehtonen. he goes from playing on a losing team in front of empty crowds every night to playing in philadelphia. nothing less than stellar #1 goaltender play would be acceptable as he would have been traded for a top prospect.

word on the street is JVR has regressed some and the flyers are unhappy with him, but hes only 19 years old thas no reason to give up on a guy. especially with the cap issues we have, young cheap talent is necessary. I wouldnt consider JVR untouchable if he can bring us a bonafide star in goal or on the blueline, but dont trade him for a question mark

I don’t like this trade at all. This would be a knee-jerk trade if it is true, unless something much, much bigger is coming. I don’t care if Homer is mad at the kid. Just think of how mad he’ll be when he turns into the next Peter Forsberg.

This immediately reminds me of Adam Oates for Max Ouellet and, because of it being the Trashers, Braydon Coburn for Alex Zhitnik. The Oates deal didn’t work out for either team, but who’s to say Ouellet wouldn’t have done well in Philly with the team we would have had in front of him? And we flat out robbed the Thrashers because they were desperate for a veteran D-man. This is a terrible deal.

I think it’s just that, a rumor. I remember Homer saying he will be patient and let JVR do his thing; but there are those reports that he is getting impatient with JVR not making a commitment as of yet. I don’t think this is going to go through though, Kari isn’t much of an improvement over Nitty/Biron.

Atlanta blogger here. The Thrashers will have to choose between Lehtonen and Pavelec before next fall’s training camp. I wouldn’t be surprised to see one of them dealt. Lehtonen could put up eye popping stats with a better defense in front of him. This is one deal that might not happen until summer when the Flyers assess their goal tending future.

I don’t like giving up talent before you have had a chance to coach him yourself, whether that is in the AHL or before next season with the flyers.

It’s obvious by the head-to-head play that Niittymaki is the better goalie of these two.

Niittymaki’s career save percentage is .901; Lehtonen’s is .912 and he’s been on mostly terrible teams. Maybe Niittymaki’s turned the corner for good, but I think it’s from obvious that he’s the better goaltender.