Friday Morning Fly By: So Long Garrett Klotz

There truly is no winning The Garrett Klotz Argument.

I’ve got nothing but love for The Third Period Game Thread last night, and all people involved in it.

Toronto thought it was upset? Jeeze. Shelly is totally worthless, he obviosly did NOT keep people from taking runs at Ville and Briere and the likes. Bring back Carcillo. Sure he does dumb things, but at least its entertaining.

Poor Garrett Klotz. I didn’t even know you could be assigned to the CHL.

Carcillo adds spark that needs to be there. We don’t need Shelley every game, although probably should have in the lineup against Toronto. But we don’t need a slow heavy hitter every game who contributes nothing. I would be sitting Nodl, how many defensive forwards do we need who contribute a handful of goals? Seriously, if Carcillo got the same line assignments as Nodl (w/ Richards, i.e. not 4rth line) and the same playing time, there is no doubt (extrapolate from last year) that he would have 20 goals or so this season.

Toronto threw waffels at the Flyers. For reals. All Chris Pronger wants to know is “who brings waffels to a game?”

well….thats a first. Whats next, omlettes?

Oscar Milton

If only that guy were Latvian… he could be Oskars Miltons.

Capitals analyst Craig Laughlan might want to think about his word choice a little more as he is analyzing goals. He is trying to call a Florida Panthers goal “shinny” (shinny meaning an informal type of street hockey), but he did not put enough stress on the “n” sound, so it sounds like he is calling the goal something else. Something hilarious.

Really, Leafs fans? Throwing waffles? Is there anyway we can call over the PPPers to find out what this is about?

That article at Cpper and Blue be more interesting if I could actually find a straight up explanation of what a fargin “scoring chance” is.

Sarah Baicker comes through with a story on how great Brian Boucher has been: [CSNPhilly]

To add: His even-strength save percentage is 0.915, higher than Marty Turco, Michal Neuvirth, Cory Schneider, Jose Theodore, Johan Hedberg, Martin Biron, Chris Mason, Martin Brodeur, Pascal Leclaire, Jonathan Bernier, JS Giguere, Antii Niemi, Rick DiPietro, Dan Ellis, Ty Conklin, Mike Smith, and others.

So… Does Tampa Bay want to trade for Michael Leighton?

So I don’t have school today and was reading through some of the seven bajillion Flyers websites I read, and found some nifty YouTubes

Baby Ian with hair which made me kinda sad:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a-OTRwHT80&feature=player_embedded
Tough guys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07RRt7Syr6o&feature=related
Bobrovsky: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhnan7CiPDs&feature=player_embedded

Thats all. Did Bobs stop doing ass-taps? I haven’t seen one in a while.

Oh, I didn’t want to overload the sentence for Tim McManus’ article, but since no one is talking about it:

• In a linked article, Tim defends Glens Falls by saying distance isn’t the problem (it’s not, and he firmly wins that point), then throws this in: “This is the way the Flyers approach their minor league system. It has everything to do with trading away draft picks and poor choice of veterans. We just have the bad fortune of having their affiliate here at a time when that has coincided spectacularly.” [PostStar]
• Luke Pither is going to get a chance this weekend, playing with Mike Testwuide and Denis Hamel. Come on Luke!
• The Phantoms just can’t get healthy, with Jon Kalinski joining Stefan Legein out of the lineup, and Andrew Rowe is questionable.
• With Pither’s promotion, Shane Harper gets a spot on the fourth line with Rob Bordson and Logan Stephenson.
• The Phantoms are going with “two scoring lines”, an “energy”/“checking” line, and a “WTF?” fourth line. Injuries or not, there is no depth on that team up front whatsoever.

Aggregated power rankings for the week: [From the Rink]

Every week I do a double-take, thinking this says “aggravated power rankings.” Dunno why. But there it is.

Btw, I taped the wrong game feed so i watched the TSN broadcast. Well done of course.

Brendan Ranford got a nice mention.

They talked about the former cups winners from the Ducks that were in the game.

But they didn’t mention that you had former Hartford Whalers in the game as well.

The Bruins play you guys tomorrow. I just want your thoughts on the matchup.

Denis Gauthier played 60 games for the Flyers. He was brought in two months after the Flyers traded Dennis Seidenberg. Why would you trade Seidenberg for Nedved, only to then go back to the same team and say “crap, we gave you a defenseman, now we need another one.”

That cost the Flyers two second round picks.

Then they just have to have a goon, because, obviously, Todd Fedoruk is crucial. There goes a 4th round pick.

Move to 07-08 and the Flyers kid themselves into thinking they can go from worst to first. So they go get Vinny Prospal. Yes, Prospal played well for them. But he cost Alexandre Picard and a 2nd round pick. Why be “ballsy” when your team simply isn’t that good?

But most egregious, the Flyers need some defense going into the 08-09 season. So rather than go the free agent route, they trade a 1st round pick (John Carlson!) for Steve Eminger and a 3rd. Steve Eminger is terrible. He’s awful. He is easily replaceable in free agency, but the Flyers give up a first round pick for him.

Two weeks later, the Flyers realize they had Denis Gauthier all along! Crap, guess we don’t need him. Let’s trade him. But let’s throw in a second round pick and get Patrick Hersley and Ned Lukacevic in return. Clearly, that’s a move that will improve the team.

You may remember the name “Ned Lukacevic”, because the Flyers later traded him for… a defenseman. Andrew Alberts. Why can’t the Flyers deal with their defensemen? They give up a first for Steve Eminger, then realize, crap, we have too many defensemen. Let’s trade a guy who’s just as good as Eminger for nothing, giving up a draft pick in the process.

Wait, now we need another defensemen because we just traded Gauthier. Let’s trade the guy we got in the Gauthier trade for Andrew Alberts. Shit, we have to throw in a 4th round pick as well. Crap, Eminger really is terrible, so let’s trade him, a former 1st round pick, and a fourth round pick for Matt Carle – yes, this puts the Flyers WELL over the salary cap, but we have Danny Briere on LTIR, so that’s not a problem…

Let’s recap: The Flyers give up John Carlson for Steve Eminger, when we could just sign an equally shitty defenseman. But now we have too many defensemen, so let’s trade Denis Gauthier AND a 2nd for two terrible players. Start the season, realize shit, we don’t have enough defensemen, trade one of those terrible players for Andrew Alberts. Wow, Steve Eminger really is terrible, so let’s trade Eminger, Downie, and a 4th for Carle and a 3rd, putting us over the cap.

That’s: Steve Downie, Denis Gauthier, Steve Eminger, Ned Lukacevic, a 1st, a 2nd, and a 4th for Andrew Alberts, Matt Carle, and a 3rd. BUT WAIT, There’s more: AND salary cap problems down the line, costing the Flyers Ossi Vaananen, Glen Metropolit, Scottie Upshall, and a 2nd for Dan Carcillo.

And that’s not even touching the Mike Comrie, Vladimir Malakhov, Alexei Zhamnov, Danny Markov, Tony Amonte, Eric Chouinard (He cost a SECOND ROUND PICK), or Adam Oates trade.

While you like bringing up the Jeff Carter and Joni Pitkanen trades, the Flyers got Carter and a 2nd for Daymond Langkow. That’s a great move. No idea why Phoenix did that. Pitkanen cost Ruslan Fedotenko and two second round picks. That one makes a lot more sense for Tampa Bay. So there’s one good and one bad. What does that matter when you run through all the other trades I just explained?