More photos » Keith Srakocic - AP

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UPDATE: Craig Custance of The Sporting News says he got a text from Guerin that says he's "just in town" and "not hoping for a tryout, just skating." According to his agent in the same article, "he simply needed needed a place to skate" and that they've "had discussions with a couple of teams." Still, you have to assume the Flyers are one of those teams, given that they've let him train in Flyers orange at their practice facility.

Bill Guerin is interested in playing for your Philadelphia Flyers. This is both a good thing and a bad thing, for many different reasons. Let's stop messing around and get into them, because that's what Bill Guerin would do. (See, one good reason to sign him already.)

It should be noted, of course, that the Tim Panaccio article linked above says that Guerin simply wants a tryout contract with the Flyers. He was officially, publicly cut loose by the Penguins a few days ago, and now he's skating and working out at the Skate Zone in Flyers gear. I'm sure he needed team permission to do that anyhow, so it's clear the Flyers are looking at him hard as we speak.

Let's set one thing straight: there are literally no cons to bringing a guy like Guerin in on a tryout contract. Try to find one. They aren't there. He's been around, he's won the Cup, he'll push other guys hard. It'll be like having another coach in the room, except this coach can steal your job.

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BSH at the Winter Classic, just because it's a little hot in my house today.

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Editor's Note: We don't get into politics on this blog often. In fact, I don't believe we ever have. This, however, is an issue that could directly impact this blog and, honestly, any one of you. We want your opinion, but don't let it get out of hand and please, don't use any labels -- liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican, etc. Just debate the issue on its merits.

This site might not exist if a new law being enforced by the City of Philadelphia were in effect a few years ago.

An article in this morning's Philadelphia City Paper (h/t @dchesnokov and @emcerlain) details a new decision by the city to charge bloggers a $300 fee for a "business privilege license," even if said blogger makes no money off of their blog.

That's right. Do you run a small, nobody-reads-this-anyway-so-I'm doing-this-just-for-fun blog about how many different ways you can tie your shoelaces into clever little knot-puppets? Do you happen to have little Google ads on the side, perhaps there only for the sole reason of paying server costs?

Oh, well, City Hall wants your money. A lot of it.

From the City Paper:

After dutifully reporting even the smallest profits on their tax filings this year, a number — though no one knows exactly what that number is — of Philadelphia bloggers were dispatched letters informing them that they owe $300 for a privilege license, plus taxes on any profits they made.

[...]

Even though small-time bloggers aren't exactly raking in the dough, the city requires privilege licenses for any business engaged in any "activity for profit," says tax attorney Michael Mandale of Center City law firm Mandale Kaufmann. This applies "whether or not they earned a profit during the preceding year," he adds.

I'm not going to sit here and argue that the City doesn't have the right to tax legitimate business within their limits, but that's not what this is about. Do kids have to get these licenses and pay these taxes on their allowances, now? After all, they're providing a service in exchange for money -- isn't that a business?

They've made the decision to tax people out of money they don't even have.

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More photos » Jim McIsaac - Getty Images

4 months ago: PHILADELPHIA - APRIL 11: Daniel Briere #48 of the Philadelphia Flyers scores a shootout goal past Henrik Lundqvist #30 of the New York Rangers on April 11, 2010 at Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Flyers defeated the Rangers 2-1 after a shootout. The victory clinched a playoff berth for Philadelphia. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

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Step 1, eliminating shootouts in tiebreaker situations.

Step 2, extending overtime in one way or another to make shootouts less likely?

Step 3, eliminating shootouts all together?

Check off number one on that list, as according to ESPN's E.J. Hradek, the NHL next year will go to a convoluted system where the first tiebreaker will go to the team with the most regulation and overtime wins. Shootout wins are pushed aside. In previous years, of course, that first tiebreaker was simply the greater number of wins, whether via shootout, in regulation or in overtime.

So what difference would this rule have made on the NHL standings last season? There were three ties at the end of the season -- CGY-STL, CAR-TBL and the Flyers and Canadiens. Obviously, only one of those impacted the postseason. Montreal had seven shootout wins last season while the Flyers had four.

So, besides a few potential changes in draft order (what's a draft?), there wouldn't be much consequence. The Flyers still would've taken seventh place in the East over the Canadiens.

The bigger news here is that it certainly seems like the NHL is on a path to either marginalize shootouts to the point where they're almost never needed or perhaps even get rid of them altogether.

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More photos » Matt Rourke - AP

Newspapers aren't always right.

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Over the last several years, blogs like ours here at SB Nation and around the web have been discovering stories before the mainstream North American press, causing a real, live lesson in journalistic ethics to break out right before our eyes. 

In the hockey world, this typically happens when blog readers from Europe stumble upon candid reports in local papers. They translate these articles into English and offer it to the blog editor for publication.

When members of  the mainstream press discover these stories, they'll sometimes act as respectful colleagues and credit the original source of the translation. Tim Panaccio and Sarah Baicker at CSN Philly do this often, such as earlier this week when they cited 'Euroflyers.com' as the source for a translated report on former Flyers defenseman Lukas Krajicek (see the end of the story).

Granted, 'Euroflyers.com' is actually our own Teemu H (euroflyers.com isn't even a registered domain name), but the point is that they're making the attempt to credit where they picked up the information. They're not overlooking the source simply because it is a blog, and they're not claiming to have found the information on their own, because they likely wouldn't have without reading the blog in the first place.

Unfortunately, the way CSN shows respect for their blogging friends is the exception, not the rule.

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More photos » Matt Slocum - AP

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With ESPN putting up an article from Timo Seppa (unless you have Insider, you can't see it yet) teasing the upcoming VUKOTA projections yesterday, I figured I should probably publish the recap from last years.  When the article goes up on Puck Prospectus, you can find the Insider article it in the Fly By.

If you recall, last year we looked at the VUKOTA projections for the 09-10 Flyers.  There, we looked specifically at the GVT projections, which I thought were a bit low.  Well, it turns out VUKOTA did a pretty good job.

To make things simple - and fair to the system - I only looked at players who actually played in 40 games this past year and had a projection from VUKOTA.  This created a 16 player sample - 11 forwards and 5 defensemen - to look at.  The total team results were:

Looking just at this, the system as a whole did a pretty good job at predicting the 09-10 Flyers.  But what about the projection in it's entirety?

Jump to find out.

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More photos » Bruce Bennett - Getty Images

Probably my favorite picture from all of 2009-2010.

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Ed. Note: Sorry for all the legal, CBA-related stuff the last two days. It's August and there's nothing else going on. Plus, this stuff is still important, as far from the hockey rink as it may seem.

A Tim Panaccio report on CSNPhilly.com -- which we cited yesterday -- was updated at some point since to include a bit of news on the collective bargaining agreement. The claim it makes is that Article 11.5 (d) of the CBA, the section on the "Filing and Approval Process" when it comes to contracts, contradicts Article 26.10 (d), the section on "Investigations" of the "No Circumvention" rule.

It is true that 26.10 (d) does contradict 11.5 (d), but that's only if you ignore 26.10 (b), which is truly the relevant portion here. Let's take a look at all three of these sections after the jump.

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Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

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"The contract with Chris Pronger that we registered with the National Hockey League is one we certainly feel was a compliant contract," Flyers president Peter Luukko said Tuesday afternoon.
 
"The Pronger contract is structured differently than the Kovalchuk contract. And it’s been in effect well over a year."

That above quote comes from a Tim Panaccio story over at CSNPhilly.com this afternoon. Peter Luukko is responding to arbitrator Richard Bloch, who implied in his ruling in the Ilya Kovalchuk matter that Pronger's contract is questionable and could still be thrown out by the NHL.

Luukko, apparently, disagrees, and he tells Panaccio that the organization has considered the matter closed for some time. The crux of Panaccio's article is that, should the NHL challenge the Pronger deal, they'll face a tough battle from the Flyers in doing so.

Fair enough. That's expected -- of course the Flyers would defend their contract in every way they possibly can. But for Luukko to say that "it's been in effect for well over a year" and that it's "structured differently" than Kovalchuk's is kind of misleading.

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More photos » Matt Slocum - AP

2 months ago: Philadelphia Flyers players watch as the Chicago Blackhawks celebrate after the Blackhawks beat the Flyers 4-3 in overtime to win Game 6 of the NHL Stanley Cup hockey finals on Wednesday, June 9, 2010, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

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Okay, so that title is a little misleading. But in the wake of the Ilya Kovalchuk arbitration ruling yesterday and the dismissal of his 17-year contract with the Devils, one other fascinating point has been raised.

We talked last night about how Richard Bloch mentioned in his ruling that contracts for Chris Pronger, Marian Hossa, Marc Savard and Roberto Luongo could still be thrown out by the NHL for circumenting the salary cap, as prohibited in Article 26 of the CBA. Outside of tossing the contract out, there are penalties that the Commissioner could levy on teams if they are found to be in violation of Article 26.

According to the CBA, Gary Bettman himself may fine any team that circumvents the cap up to $5 million, force forfeiture of draft picks as determined by the Commissioner, and force forfeiture of games. Ah, yes, that last one got your attention, didn't it?

The exact language of that section:

(iv) Declare a forfeiture of any NHL Game(s) determined to have been affected by a Circumvention;

Which leads me to where we're going with this: could the Blackhawks be forced to forfeit their Stanley Cup victory? Hear me out on this.

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