Ok, so as we all know the Flyers are trying to negotiate a deal with Ilya Brzgalov before July 1st which is when he hits the free agent market. We also all know that with only $430,845 we will not be able to sign Bryzgalov and resign enough RFA and UFA to make up the rest of our team even if the cap does manage to go up to around $63 million for next season.

At the minute, the odd man out seems to be Jeff Carter, who everyone is suggesting will be traded in order to be able to sign Bryzgalov. Before the Flyers acquired Bryzgalov's rights I remember reading here a suggestion to trade someone like Versteeg or Hartnell to the Islanders for Nabokov. Personally I would have been elated if this type of deal had been made because Nabokov's coming to the end of his career, wants to win a championship, would be a great mentor for Bob and he's dirt cheap.  But I'll get back to why this is important in a minute.

Since Scott Howson said that he was open to anything to do with the 8th overall pick there has been speculation that the Flyers could trade Jeff Carter to Columbus for that pick (possible others as well) and a player. This would make sense since the Flyers don't have a draft pick in the first two rounds this year and don't have enough young talent in the farm system. This deal would seem to make sense but if we lost Jeff Carter just to sign Bryzgalov I would be livid. Although he gets a lot of stick he is an elite goal scorer and it won't be easy to replace his production if he's gone.  So, back to the bit about Versteeg and Hartnell. I propose that we trade Versteeg and Hartnell to Columbus for the 8th overall pick, Jakub Voracek (who I only really thought about thanks to Flyersfan94's post a couple days ago) and whatever other picks you guys think we could get with that. I'm not too good at judging pick value since I've only been a fan of Hockey for two seasons.   Yes we would be giving up two 40 point scorers this season but Voracek has been a consistent 40 point scorer since he entered the league so he would replace one of them, and how many points did Versteeg actually score when he came to us? We already had good scoring depth before he arrived. The second replacement man could be newly signed Tom Sestito, who a lot of people seem to think would be able to replicate what Hartnell does. Now, I'm a little sceptical about whether he could put up 40 points in his first full NHL season because I'd most likely see him playing on the fourth line.

With Versteeg and Hartnell gone under the current cap we would be able to sign Bryzgalov, Powe, DSOD and we could resign Leino to a 3 million a year deal (but I think he should only get 2.5 mil) and still be under the current cap. Now we would still need another scoring winger and there has been mumbling round here about resigning Gagne who won't be making 5 million this season. If we can get Gagne for a cap hit of 3 million then our cap hit would be 62,292,488 for the season. Which would be under what the projected cap is to be.

However, this is only possible with Backlund as the backup which I don't think would be such a bad move because there would be no point in keeping Bob in the NHL to play 15 games a season at this point in his career. It would be better for him to go down to the AHL where he would be the starter and get more experience playing in the smaller rink and get more puck playing experience.

If this happened my line up would be

Gagne  -  Richards  -  Nodl

Leino  -  Briere  -  Voracek

JVR  -  Giroux  -  Carter

Sestito  -  Betts  -  Powe

Pronger  -  Carle

Timonen  -  Coburn

Meszaros  -  DSOD/Bartulis

7th D-man DSOD/Bartulis

Bryzgalov

Backlund

I don't think that looks that bad a team but what are your guys thoughts?

UPDATE

Sorry didn't realise I could copy the cap geek team to this

This first team is for if the cap was $62,500,000

CAPGEEK.COM CAP CALCULATOR

FORWARDS

Simon Gagne ($3.000m) / Mike Richards ($5.750m) / Andreas Nodl ($0.850m) 

Ville Leino ($2.500m) / Daniel Briere ($6.500m) / Jakub Voracek ($1.270m) 

James Van Riemsdyk ($1.654m) / Claude Giroux ($3.750m) / Jeff Carter ($5.272m) 

Darroll Powe ($0.725m) / Blair Betts ($0.700m) / Tom Sestito ($0.577m) 

Eric Wellwood ($0.580m) 

DEFENSEMEN

Kimmo Timonen ($6.333m) / Chris Pronger ($4.921m) 

Andrej Meszaros ($4.000m) / Matt Carle ($3.437m) 

Braydon Coburn ($3.200m) / Oskars Bartulis ($0.600m) 

/ Danny Syvret ($0.600m) 

GOALTENDERS

Ilya Bryzgalov ($5.500m) / Johan Backlund ($0.800m) 

CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)

(these totals are compiled without the bonus cushion)

SALARY CAP: $62,500,000; CAP PAYROLL: $62,522,488; BONUSES: $850,000

CAP SPACE (22-man roster): -$22,488

This second team is for a salary cap of $63,500,000

CAPGEEK.COM CAP CALCULATOR

FORWARDS

Simon Gagne ($3.000m) / Mike Richards ($5.750m) / Andreas Nodl ($0.850m) 

Ville Leino ($2.500m) / Daniel Briere ($6.500m) / Jakub Voracek ($1.270m) 

James Van Riemsdyk ($1.654m) / Claude Giroux ($3.750m) / Jeff Carter ($5.272m) 

Darroll Powe ($0.725m) / Blair Betts ($0.700m) / Tom Sestito ($0.577m) 

Ben Holmstrom ($0.750m) 

DEFENSEMEN

Kimmo Timonen ($6.333m) / Chris Pronger ($4.921m) 

Andrej Meszaros ($4.000m) / Matt Carle ($3.437m) 

Braydon Coburn ($3.200m) / Oskars Bartulis ($0.600m) 

/ Danny Syvret ($0.600m) 

GOALTENDERS

Ilya Bryzgalov ($5.500m) / Johan Backlund ($0.800m) 

CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)

(these totals are compiled without the bonus cushion)

SALARY CAP: $63,500,000; CAP PAYROLL: $62,692,488; BONUSES: $975,000

CAP SPACE (22-man roster): $807,512