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Step one, solving the issue of the no-trade clause.

Step two, finding a team willing to trade for player.

Step three, negotiating a return on player.

Step four, completing trade.

While the Flyers may have skipped step one (or maybe not, we don't really know for certain) in the Simon Gagne trade mess, they've officially moved on to step two. According to ESPN.com's Pierre LeBrun (probably the hardest working man in the national hockey media this summer), the Flyers have given Simon Gagne and his agent, Bob Sauve, permission to speak with other teams about a trade.

LeBrun also points out that a deal is not close, but this of course is another step in the process. The wheels continue to spin. Also, Sarah Baicker passes along the translation of yet another French interview today by Gagne. According to her, Gagne said "the more it goes, and the move we see the chances to stay in Philly are slim."

Like has been the case for several weeks now, it appears it's just a matter of time before Gagne leaves Philadelphia for good.

Click the image above to jump to video of Gagne's interview at RDS.ca.

According to the French-language, sometimes journalistically inaccurate RDS, Simon Gagne has not waived his no trade clause, as previously reported by local Philadelphia media. I don't speak much French, so I don't understand what Gagne is saying in the video above. I can, however, translate what's said on that graphic, and it says that Gagne hasn't waived any type of no trade clause.

Despite the reputation RDS has of reporting information that can be less than true, this is coming straight from Gagne himself. It doesn't get any more direct than that. At the same time, this doesn't necessarily mean that Gagne won't waive his no-trade. It just means he's yet to do so, potentially because the Flyers haven't come to him with a potential destination yet (although, that's just speculation on my part).

Who the hell knows what to think anymore?

Simon Gagne is on the market, but according to reports from Los Angeles, he won't be heading to the Kings.

Here's Rich Hammond of LA Kings Insider:

Incidentally, something I neglected to mention in the previous post is that according to a team source, the Kings no longer consider themselves in the market for Philadelphia’s Simon Gagne. So everything is right…back…to…square one.

The Kings reportedly backed out of the Ilya Kovalchuk sweepstakes this weekend, and there's one report saying Kovalchuk is on his way back to New Jersey. We'll see what happens, but it appears the team thought to be the front runner for Gagne is out of the mix.

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The Flyers made an offer to more than one soon-to-be free agent goaltender this weekend. According to ESPN's E.J. Hradek and Pierre LeBrun, Paul Holmgren contacted Marty Turco with the permission of the Dallas Stars.

From Hradek, in a portion of his blog that's thankfully in front of ESPN's ridiculous "Insider" pay wall:

In fact, Holmgren offered Turco a three-year deal worth roughly $6 million (or a bit more than $2 million per season). The 34-year-old Turco, who confirmed the offer via text message, politely declined, opting to test the market on Thursday.

He declined. But, this does tell us two things:

- We know that the Flyers have interest in Turco. We heard the rumors back in February that the Flyers were interested in Turco. We weren't sure. Now, we know that the Flyers have interest, and that could matter come July 1. Just with Evgeni Nabokov, the Flyers can still land this guy on July 1.

- An idea of what the Flyers want to spend on goaltending? This isn't that cut and dry, obviously, as different players are going to yield different contracts. But could this be an indication that the Flyers want to spend around $2 million a year on goaltending? That's not to say they're out on Nabokov or any other goalie who wants more than $2 million/year, but perhaps we can read between the lines a bit.

- Holmgren is targeting goaltending, even before he's conventionally allowed to do so. He's just as uncomfortable with Michael Leighton in goal as most of us are, and he's only going to sign him as a starter if necessary after exploring all of his other options.

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4 months ago: SAN JOSE, CA - APRIL 14: Evgeni Nabokov #20 of the San Jose Sharks looks on before his game against the Colorado Avalanche in Game One of the Western Conference Quarterfinals during the 2010 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at HP Pavilion on April 14, 2010 in San Jose, California. (Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)

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With Dan Hamhuis and the potential of paying him four or five million dollars a season to patrol the Flyers blueline now out of the picture, Paul Holmgren has some options. Late in the first round of the NHL Draft on Friday night, Holmgren was frequently seen speaking with San Jose Sharks general manager Doug Wilson, and the news soon filtered out that the subject of their conversations was soon-to-be free agent goalie Evgeni Nabokov.

The Sharks announced two days ago that they were going to let Nabokov walk on July 1, ending his tenure in San Jose. Following that announcement, you have to assume that the Sharks lose a lot of their ground in any negotiations for his rights. They're already getting rid of him anyways, so how much bargaining room do they have?

At the same time, though, we learned tonight that at least one other team is interested in acquiring those rights, which makes things a little more attractive from the Sharks perspective. Still, the Flyers would have the upper hand in these talks, and you'd have to expect they wouldn't be sending anything major back to the Sharks in a potential trade.

To start, let's examine the goalie market. We saw Jaroslav Halak, a much more attractive option than Nabokov, return a decent prospect and a lower-level prospect. That's for a guy who's younger, arguably better and only a restricted free agent.

For the Flyers, acquiring Nabokov would be a much bigger risk in that they don't get anything if they fail to sign him before July 1, so if we had to guess, we'd have to assume the Flyers would only give up something like a second or third round pick. Note: the Flyers picked up a third round pick in the 2011 draft tonight.

So, assuming that they don't get ripped off for the rights to the guy, and I would consider anything outside of a second (pushing it) or third round pick and perhaps a low-level prospect a severe overpayment. After all, Hamhuis only got the Flyers a third.

Let's jump ahead, then, and think about the ramifications of the Flyers acquiring the rights to Nabokov. Assuming they don't overpay and assuming we're okay with the risk of possibly losing something for nothing to get the chance to sign him before he hits UFA, would we be okay with Evgeni Nabokov as the next Flyers goalie?

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Let's just look at a few Tweets from a few different people today, shall we? These are in chronological order.

What the hell is going on here? This story isn't done, and now other people are saying the Flyers are looking to trade Hamhuis' rights to Vancouver. Meanwhile, Seravalli has a source saying the Flyers aren't looking to move Hamhuis' rights. This is a mess.

Honestly, if you want a baseless opinion from me on this, the Vancouver media and their fans have been all over Hamhuis because he's a local boy. That should be taken into consideration -- they want this guy, and they have reasons to start rumors because of that fact. Again, that's just an uninformed opinion from me, but it's something I've noticed ever since the Flyers traded for the guy last weekend.

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Tim Thomas probably missed this puck.

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UPDATE 1:30 AM: Sam Carchidi is quoting a source that says the Flyers have "no interest" in Tim Thomas. He's also reporting that the Flyers would have to be "knocked over" to deal Jeff Carter, but to me that means he's not as "untouchable" as a source told Tim Panaccio earlier.

That's not to say that we're asking for Jeff Carter to be traded or anything, but the notion that Carter would be untouchable when the Flyers are a) stacked at center and b) Carter is the only big contract without a no-trade clause seems a bit off.

Holmgren not giving up Carter easily, but still open to the sheer possibilty of it, makes a lot more sense and should help us sleep a little better on Draft Eve. When all is said and done, as Ben Feldman points out in the comments below, it seems as though nobody really knows what the Flyers have up their sleeves.

ORIGINAL POST 10:39 PM: We got a lot of laughs out of the Boston Bruins this season. There's a possibility that those laughs are quickly going to be turned in the opposite direction, though.

If reports are true, Paul Holmgren and the Flyers have talked with Peter Chiarelli about a trade that would bring goaltender Tim Thomas to town. It looks like those reports are true, too, as reporters in both Boston and Philadelphia have made note of it on Twitter this evening.

First, Tim Panaccio reported the news, and quickly thereafter, Joe Haggerty of CSN New England responded, saying that he's heard the same thing. Yep. The Flyers are actually talking with the Bruins about a trade for Tim Thomas. Get that into your brain for a second.

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Finally!  In news that Flyers fans have been waiting to hear since the team traded for Eric Lindros, Anthony SanFilippo is quoting a source from inside the organization that the team's number one priority is acquiring a young goalie this off season.

Obviously, this is but one anonymous source, so it is by no means a guarantee.  However, with the way this season has gone -- Emery, Boucher, Leighton, Backlund all getting hurt -- the team appears to finally want to resolve their goaltending issues once and for all.

The relevant portion of the quote:

"It's already been decided that our No. 1 priority for next season is to get a goalie. We have to go out and get that player and commit to him as our guy.

"It's probably going to mean somebody is going to have to be traded away, especially if we go after a young goalie on another team, but that's what we're going to have to do. We can't keep going the way we have been. The goalie has to be the most important target and we don't want to keep replacing one veteran with another. We want to get a guy who can be our goalie for several years.... We have to go in another direction."

You'll notice that there weren't any names mentioned in that quote, but SanFilippo proceeded to toss out Antti Niemi, Cory Schneider and Carey Price.

While it shouldn't need to be said, going out and acquiring any "young goalie" doesn't immediately mean you've acquired a guy who will "be our goalie for several years."  But the simple fact that the team is looking to do that via trade should at least instill some optimism among Flyers fans.

This also could mean that the team is not going to resign Ray Emery or Michael Leighton, though that isn't guaranteed.  Any trade with another team could mean Brian Boucher goes the other way, leaving the Flyers in need of a backup goalie. with Leighton or Johan Backlund being two possible targets.

But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.  The news today is that the team finally realizes they can't just keep signing veterans and hoping they have another run or two in them.  It also means that their many young goalie prospects (Joacim Eriksson, Nicola Riopel, Jacob De Serres, Adam Morrison) aren't any where near being ready to take the reins of the Flyers.

So, Flyers fans, rejoice.  But stay modest, since this is just a quote from an anonymous source.  Don't forget to head on over to SanFilippo's blog to get the whole quote and analysis.