Leighton feels fine, he says, but Holmgren appears to have other plans

Maybe this is payback for Leighton lying about not being wheelchair bound when he signed his new contract.

They just shipped the tape from the game and the league approved it! Sarcasm

Didn’t Homer make a lot of “I don’t have to do anything right this moment” type statements right as he was trying to move Gagne? I’m just drawing a parallel, it’s speculation of course….

Have you seen even seen NBC40 News? It is all fluff. The “What’s happening on town” pieces are shot with a cell phone.

Travis – Homer asking the league for 2 more games, how does that work? Who does he call on Monday morning (or today) to ask, and who makes that decision to allow Lieghts 2 more games. Doe the games have to be the next Phantom’s games, or can they ask for 2 more Phantoms games and play them next week? Is a Flyers doctor involved in the decision, meaning does he have any say in asking for the extra two games?

All fairness aside, if Bobs wasn’t playing this well there wouldn’t be a Leights article about him needing 2 more days.

At first I was of the belief that we should just send Leights down to spend the season with the Phantoms. Naturally, I saw the Bobrovsky/Boucher tandem doing pretty well together and figured that there’d be no need for Leights. As the old saying goes, “You play for the crest on the front, not the name on the back.” This team owes Leighton nothing. What happened last season is in the past, and moving forward from this point the team needs to do what is in it’s best interest as a whole.

But then I got to thinking about things: Bobrovsky has played, at most, 35 games in a season. Boucher hasn’t played more than 40 in a season since 2003-04 (unless you count the 42 with the Phantoms in 2007-08. That doesn’t count the postseason. Frankly, I don’t think either has enough in the tank to carry this team all the way.

Of course, neither does Leighton. So when you think about it, neither Bobrovsky nor Boucher nor Leighton can do it single-handedly. But together—perhaps we’re onto something.

I know Homer likes the whole “8 defenseman” thing, but we’ve got Bartulis sittin’ around growing moss in the press box while Walker recouperates. I believe that sending Walker down to the Phantoms for the season is in the team’s best interest to allow Leights to stay up with the Flyers and take some of the workload off of Boucher and (more importantly) Bobrovsky’s shoulders.

Waive Shelley (who cannot play or win a fight) and Walker (who simply can’t play). This frees up money and clears the ice for Carcillo to play on the 4th line. They can carry the 3 goalies to see how healthy Leighton really is before a move is made. They can also extend the contract of Leino with the money saved! The 2 guys I am suggesting to go have contributed ZERO to the team so far this year!

Gormley got a bit more out of Homer over the phone, apparently. Not much, but its something. Updated the post with it.

Ideally, we’ll try to get him some more games somewhere else.

When Homer says “somewhere else” hopefully he means trading Leighton to an entirely different NHL franchise so we don’t have to ever talk about his poor rebound control and gaping five hole again. . .

Travis, in the course of you covering this issue, what do you think the overall attitude towards Leighton in the inner Flyers circle is? I know that a lot of us, as fans, seem to not want him anymore despite the fact that he did take us to the Stanley Cup Finals (and then let in that Patrick Kane shot…) Even in the offseason a lot of us just wanted to ditch him, which is pretty unusual for a SCF goalie. But do you think the upper management look at him from the same perspective?

I feel kinda bad saying this but I like Bobs better….loose Leights

I am very conflicted. I have a soft spot for Leighton. It’s a small one, but its there. I think that in the back of my mind I hope he comes back and provides solid goaltending, and adds to the good tandem we have already with BOB and Boosh. I can"t figure out why Boosh is always getting crapped on. Consumate teamate, provides good work in relief, and doesnt cost all that much. Its like he is a throw away player that you keep just because you MIGHT need him. It’s like he is the chubby fat kid, with the lisp and pigeon toed, who is alway the last to get picked for dodgeball, who always gets drilled in the face and laughed at, but always gives 100%, has the rocket arm and gets the job done, but gets no respect . Boosh does his job. Granted he isnt a #1, but is Leighton worth #1 pay, or for that matter, a #1 goalie. I can pretty much assume that everyone here is in agreement that BOB isnt a flash in the pan. So we just foresake whats working, and throw Leighton in there, drop Boosh to the Phantoms and what, HOPE for the best? I here alot about BOB not being conditioned for the long haul. I honestly believe that he is a much better option “TIRED” than Leighton is “HEALTHY”. This is a good problems to have I suppose. We do have dead weight in Walker, with adequate relief on defense in the Latvian Wolf and 2nd times a charm man Syvret, that free’s up CAP space, with dumping one or both (Leighton-Walker) gives us options to pick up a true winger to compliment a potent offense, that is in need of that “FINAL PIECE”. As a fan, this kind of stuff isnt that big a deal, because we"re winning, so LETS GO FLYERS, keep winning and this BS can stay in the shadows till Homer screws it up totally, or fixes it. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, PAY VILLE LEINO. Just sayin.

From a DN article today:

“Mike was down on his conditioning and there’s really no decision that needs to be made right now,” Paddock said. “We’ll bring him back to Philadelphia, there’s some issues that we need to look at with his injury. We’ll get him checked out by our doctors thoroughly and we’ll work from that once we get that information.”

That first sentence is just so completely, factually wrong.

I liked the waive shelly/walker save Leino option. I do think that Leights is a rental goalie and keeping all three could help us win two more games this year, that is until Leights gets hurt again in 3 weeks. Plus we have to extend Leino his beard is awesome!