Did this last year, going to start 'er up again. We're going to have two leagues this year.

LEAGUE ONE (full)

- Link: http://hockey.fantasysports.yahoo.com/league/bsh1011

- League ID: 3617

- Password: spectrum

Members: Travis Hughes (Lou's Rejected Deals), Geoff Detweiler (Babych's Stache), beatniche (The Fall Guys), jello44 (jello), DragonGirl (DG's CBA Geeks), Flyrsfrk05, San Diego Scraps, ToddTheFox (The Awesome Mikes), KreiderDesigns (The Flying Dutchmen), Fezzlekway (Fezzys Phylerz), Ben Feldman (Don't mess w/ Johan), jph89, Lindbergh 31 (Captain Elbows), zachswider (China Squat), Psy09 (Berzerkers), DLJr (Get Awesome), billy_pilgrim (The No Merciers), Snevik, Hans S (Cll Wannabees), PhillyPhan85 (Philumbus Connection)

LEAGUE TWO

- Link: http://hockey.fantasysports.yahoo.com/league/bsh2

- League ID: 10015

- Password: spectrum

TO JOIN, click here and enter the ID and password.

RULES

- Standard points leagues.

 - Points system as follows: 3 for a goal, 2 for an assist, 1 for every "plus," .5 per PIM, 1 for a power play point, 2 for a shorthanded point, .4 for a shot on goal, 1 for a faceoff win, -1 for a faceoff loss, 1 for a blocked shot. 4 per goalie win, -1 for a goal against, .2 per save and 2 for a shutout.

- Right now, the drafts are tentatively scheduled for Monday, September 13 at 8 PM ET. We can reschedule if this doesn't work for most people.

- The top 5 (according to playoffs) in each league will join an exclusive 'Champions League' next season.

So I know that there has been a lot of discussions about how to fix the cap problems. There have been people suggesting moving Carter, to moving Danny Briere and Scott Hartnell. Some even went as far as saying moving Kimmo Timonen, which I believe is ridiculous. This is my solution to this whole issue.

The first option should be Jeff Carter. Carter is a phenomenal player don't get me wrong, but it just seems that the right thing to do is move him. With Leino, Giroux and Zherdev up for new contracts after this season, I think Carter is the easiest way to keep the core together and have some cap space. Assume the Flyers give Giroux 4, Leino 2 and Zherdev 3.5, that's an increase of 5.8 million right there. So how can the Flyers afford to pay Carter around 6 million with these new contracts. I would rather have Giroux, Leino and Zherdev rather than Carter and Giroux. Plus Carter will bring you a lot in return (high draft picks and good forward prospects). Although, should Carter expload for a 40+ goal season, and Briere and Hartnell have sub-par seasons again, I would move one of them. Hartnell needs to get to at least 20 goals this year if he wants to be kept around, and Briere should hit 30 goals with at least 65 points.

The other thing I see happening is one of Andrej Meszaros, Braydon Coburn and Matt Carle getting moved. I thing one will be the odd-man out so the other you defensemen can step up. I think Carle is going to stay here for awhile because of his incredible breakout year with Chris Pronger helping him out. But he needs to keep playing at that caliber. Coburn really needs to have a bounce-back year. He needs to show that he is the playoff Coburn and not the regular season one. Meszaros will need to prove he just needed a change of scenarie to get back on track. He needs to become the player he was back in Ottawa. I think one of them will be moved with in the next two seasons, and it will also depend on the developement of Oskars Bartulis, Kevin Marshall and Marc-Andre Bourdon.

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We've found out that the prospects game will be played on THURSDAY September 16th at 3p.m.

I'm assuming that this means many of you can no longer attend and play our game against Japers that day? Let me know in the poll.

Thanks.

Every single thread at some point on the BSH regardless of topic pretty much contains a comment along the lines of ...

Flyers have to trade Carter we can't afford him next year and keep Giroux, Leino, and Zherdev. 

Giroux will be here no doubt and Leino and Zherdev still have to prove themselves in my book before I pencil them in as long term core guys. But Carter has done it he is the best goal scorer on the team clearly now that Gagne is gone. But we can Carter's merit all day some people clearly don't like the guy for some reason or another but none of that matters.

Why do you ask? 

Because if look at the way our franchise is setup and our depth in the organization, it is all on the blueline not much up front. Whoever you lose up front should be replaced by the next up and coming forward from our farm system on low priced entry level contract. But there isn't much there especially at the level/potential of a Carter, Zherdev and Leino all of whom are 26 or younger.

But the Flyers system blueline is stacked and that is where we can save the money next year to keep everyone up front. One of Coburn, Carle or Meszaros could be moved along with O'Donnell and Walker in favor of Marshall, Bourdon, Bartulis, and Lehutruvi from the Phantoms or impressive Bodrov, and Bertilsson who are playing overseas. That would free up 4-5 million bucks.

We already ready have by a long ways the highest paid D in the league. If two of those names can crack the roster full-time in 2011 we can easily keep all the forwards including Carter in our lineup for years to come. It will certainly weaken our blueline compared to this season but that is salary cap hockey you have to have a steady influx of entry level contracts to keep your team together and the only entry levels guys in the system you look even remotely close to being NHL ready are D-Men.

Plus with stars like Pronger and Kimmo as D partners they can carry the young guys and Backlund taking over goal full time we won't need the overloaded D in 2011 anyway. 

This is something to watch in training camp, not who will be making the team this year, but which D-men are poised to make the jump next year when someone will pretty much have to. 

This past season was a dream come true (except for a road game 7 win, and Carter drilling an open net, but that's irrelevant). As a fan, I loved every part of this team. They picked each other up. They got hot at the right time. They were fun to root for. And they took us all on a rollercoaster ride. All of that being said, there was a little sourness to it, deep in the back of my head because I knew it was the end of either the Gagne or Carter era and I knew Ash was playing his last season here.

I had a gut feeling that it was Gagne and Asham and unfortunately, I was correct. I guess the point of this post is to share my favorite moments that I had with both of these guys during the playoff run. Before I get into it, I want to tell you that I was the luckiest Flyers fan in the wolrd this year. I was at 6 of the best 10 or so homegames this year. I managed to get tickets to the Blackhawks regular season game, The Carcillo Game, The Gagne Game, The ECF Clincher, and both stanley cup wins. I don't know how I managed to avoid all of the losses but those 5 games, IMO, were the most exciting home games and for whatever reason (me spending all of my money on tickets aside) I was there.

My most memorable Gagne moment as a Flyers fan was his return to game 4 vs. the Bruins. I am a confident fan. My facebook status after game three was "I Believe." Swear on my life. Two years ago vs. the Pens, I was convinced we were going to come back from three down. After the first win, I told EVERYBODY: Timonen comes back, we steal game five on the road, then we obviously win at home, and then with the momentum we take game seven. We all know how that turned out. Last year, like everone else in the world, when we had the 3-0 lead at home, I really thought we were going to come back, and then that debacle happend. So, naturally this year I was still confident that with Gagne's return, we'd take that game, then steal game five on the road, blow them out in game six at home then take the cake in game seven. Back to my story... Anyway, I remember watching how well Gagne was skating early on in game four and then he dissapeared. I don't think he had a shift from the end of the third period untill overtime but as soon as he stepped on the ice, I looked at my brother and told him that Gags was going to score. Sure enough he did it. That must have been one of the most amazing feelings for him in the world to come back for one shift in OT and put in the winner. The "SEE- MONEEE- GAAA- NEEEE *Clap*Clap*Clapclapclap" chants in the Wachovia Center Wells Fargo center leaving that stadium were amazing. All Flyers fans had that little bit of hope that we needed to take that series all the way, and we can all credit that to Gags. I will miss him.

The Asham story was totally different. For game 5 of the ECF, after the win, my friends had passes to go down to the locker room (not in, but right outside), and all but one wanted to run down Broad St., so he called and asked if I wanted to go down. Of course I did, and it was life changing down there. Ash wasn't even showered, but he was out of the locker room, five feet away from me, when Ed Snyder congradulated him on a great game, and a great goal. Ash looked at Snyder and said something like, "Yeah, but I should have had five that game." With out hesitation Snyder looked at him and said, "Save them for the cup." The chills that I had up and down my body when they shook hands were like nothing I've ever had before. That was when it hit me that we were going to the finals, and to this day one of my best memories ever. On a side note, a different friend of mine works for the Flyers and asked Gagne why there was no major champaign celebration and Gags replied with, "This isn't baseball. We havn't won anything yet. We don't celebrate after every series win." I thought that was an amazing answer, and I found out later that Gags was one of the few who did NOT touch the ECF trophy.

Now that its final that Gags could be on one of the best lines in hockey next year (St. Louis/Stamkos/Vinny) for the Lighting and Ash is a *caugh*vomit*caugh* Penguin, what are your guys best memories of the two of them?

Last year the Flyers were considered to have one of the top defensive cores in the league. But as the season went on, we saw that the Flyers lacked some defensive depth. I still believe that even last year the Flyers had the best top four in the league, but did in fact lack a solid third pairing. But the aquisitions of Andrej Meszaros, Matt Walker and Sean O'Donnell has given the Flyers questionably the best defensive core in the entire league.

But there are other teams that have upgraded their defenses in a big way this year. There were tons of defensemen on the market this year so it gave teams the opportunity to get the right peices they neede for their defenses. Let's take a look at the top seven defensemen of teams that are challenging the Flyers for the top defense in the league.

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We've found out (Thanks to Red Army Line) that the game will be at Kettler Capitals Iceplex at 3 p.m. On ThurFree tickets will be available for fans who RSVP at WashingtonCaps.com starting Wednesday, Sept. 1.

At the last BSH pick-up "game" we kicked around the idea of combining our game against Japer's with a group trip to the Flyers vs. Capitals prospects game. This would mean getting together and carpooling down to Washington as a group. I think it would be a lot of fun, we can all chip in for gas for those that drive.

We believe that the game will be on either the 11th or 18th of September. (I can't find details, if anyone knows when and where it is please post the info in the comments)

So new poll: Who's interested?

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The Stanley Cup Playoffs: The second season; the real season. 

Call it whatever you want but it’s simply the greatest sports championship tournament in the world. 

We just finished our first BSH street hockey gathering and were happy to have at least an extra 10 days of hockey.  Who thought a shootout would be so important!

During the first playoff game we reached a record +1,300 comments and 56 fantastic hockey filled days later comments reached well above 3000.

Game after game, series after series, the improbable run made for a fantastic spring. As the quality of play improved on the ice, so did the insights, insults, witty remarks and in game breakdowns on line.  Tons of new fans joined BSH and lots of people who would come to read the board became inspired to type a comment too.  Because the enemy of my enemy is my friend, comments from other teams fans as well as friends from across the globe loged onto BSH to join the conversation.   After the jump, enjoy the Flyers incredible 09/10 Stanley Cup Playoffs, expressed through the CotN

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I noticed as we started talking / joking about The Garrett Klotz Argument, it took on a life of its own.  I also noticed that, the more we talked about it, the more I realized I was serious about wanting to try to do something about it.  Unfortunately, I've also noticed how hard it is to arrange get-togethers for the BSH community.

Therefore, my fellow musicians, I have a proposition for ye, fair and true.

I say we act like the group The Postal Service and send each other tracks either through the mail or through a shared internet host where we can download files for recording / playalong.  For example, I could record a guitar / metronome track and send to Lindbergh31.  He can add a bass track to it and send to The Dark for marimba or percussion.  Then The Dark could send to Fezzlekway for vocals.  Fezz could send back to me and I could mix. 

We could collaborate entirely by mail and FTP server in a low-key fashion - no gigs, no rehearsals, just people making music for ourselves and our e-friends here at BSH.  And who knows - maybe someone will throw a Stanley Cup party at the end of next season and The Garrett Klotz Argument could provide the entertainment.

So what are your thoughts?  I'd love to hear what you all think.  If anyone's game, let's get crackin'.  I already wrote a song, which I've tentatively titled "Through The Wickets."  I can record and send it, probably by the end of next week, if anyone's interested.

(For the record, I'm aware I didn't reference all of the musicians from the original thread.  It's nothing personal - I just picked a few at random, largely because I remembered what they played.)

Now there has not been much of all going on as of late this off-season. Everything is basically in place for the up-coming season. Now everyon is laying out their projected lines and guessing who will be the back-up goalie. A couple of posts have been talking about the All-Time Flyers team with all of the best lines. Well I'm just going to take a look at the the best Flyers from the past decade. I'll go by position, so some player will not make the cut due to their position even though another may be better. I will also name the captain and the four alternates just for fun. Al players will be judged by how they were in their primes. Not all the lines were actually were put together, all players are in their place one depth chart according to their performances. This is purely for fun and because there has not been much to write about lately. Let me know what you think.

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