You're Holmgren... Your defense is...?

[Polaris922]

Recent conversations have me curious... If you're Holmgren, who do you put where in your defense and why? Short term plan? Long term? Does it matter? Actively seeking FA's or trades? What would YOU do?

[Bertmega]

(I am playing armchair GM)

I would purposely tank a few seasons, get 3 very, very, very high picks, get in the good graces of Gary Bettman, use picks to build a NHL brand, then ask Uncle Gary to make sure I get a cup out of it. Lastly, I would consult a Pittsburgh fan if I have the ingredients right.

Speaking of ingredients, how's old Marshmallow head? Any chances he plays out this season let alone his contract?

Edited August 21, 2012 by Bertmega

[Podein25]

@Polaris922

I would sign a cheap UFA like Carlo C and roll the dice with what we have, see if the young guys have what it takes to take their game to the next level. This means more minutes for Bourdon and Gus and perhaps others. If it's not working, we're losing, maybe make a trade, but not one that sees Cooter or B Schenn leaving. Anybody else is tradeable, if necessary.

[Bertmega]

@Podein25

Ok your plan seems a little more logical. Mine is long term though homie....

[murraycraven]

Pods is a genius... I vote for his plan.

[mojo1917]

if i was homer i'd be thinking i'm going to need to get two more top 4 pairing players in the next 3 years. I have to wonder about whether or not Timmonen will want to continue playing , if he would accept a lesser role and less money.

I believe the Metzaros will be a UFA the next year 13/14 , so i'll need to consider if he's been a good value , the skills are there but he has not been very durable of late is this a mid-career bump or will it be his SOP. So i'll need to sign or replace him.

will schenn step up ? will any of my top d-men prospects show they are truly NHL players ? Does the giant Oliver Lauridsen make any sort of progress with his skating to where he can be a bottom pairing guy... there are a lot of questions surround the defense.

I would personally buy shane gostisbehere some HGH so he fills out into an NHL players body.

there are not a lot of RFA soon to be UFA guys that i would consider top 4 pair guys that haven't been extended, so it will be likely that to improve my defense i'll need to trade from my strength forwards or try to go the offer sheet route for the young blue chip prospects.

Maybe i beef up my scouting of the swedish elite league, or the finnish elite league and look for free agents from there and the NCAA.

i think this team's defense in the future will be where my efforts would go.

Edit: @bertmega your post is hilarious.

[DaGreatGazoo]

I would do what I always do..I'd drink a lot of rum. The rest always seems to work itself out.

[flyercanuck]

. Anybody else is tradeable, if necessary.

Pods says trade Giroux for Hal Gill !?!?

[AJgoal]

@Bertmega - You forgot "Threaten to declare bankruptcy and move to another city."

All seriousness aside, I think Podes and Mojo are on the right track. With the exception of trading Giroux, Podes.

[Bertmega]

Now being serious:

Short of doing a trade that will probably set the team back in the long run, I'd do nothing. I would stand pat.

Hopefully this team is respectable enough to compete with what they have and maybe at the deadline I would make a move. There really isn't too much in the UFA department next season, so this could be a slow building process for the Flyers.

It may be nice to see what the kids have to offer and what is in Europe that can act as a respectable stopgap. In any case, it is a tough call and I would not move anything of value to fix the short term.

Perhaps, and this is a long shot, the could morph Hatcher and Rathje to make a super defenseman. We will call him Hathje. He will be a 7'3" pylon that cannot skate backwards.

Ok that won't work either.

In time we will have Meszaros back along with Coburn, Schenn and Grossman to look forward to. Timonen will probably be gone and I expect one of the kids namely MAB to make the leap to the big club. Aside from that, they may actually have to be patient and develop a defender.

[JackStraw]

Pods says trade Giroux for Hal Gill !?!?

I'm reporting Pods for that.

[blocker]

Unless some great opportunity arises, I'd sit pat and see what happens. I dunno what effect the lockout will have. The length of the resulting season will affect the plans of everyone. Despite the lack of a real horse on offense, Flyers have lots of pretty good young forwards. To me, that's their strength. But, often GMs trade away an advantage to bolster their weaknesses. Usually ending up with a team with no real weapons.

I have more to add, but the telephone is ringing. Godam Holmgren is probably calling for advice again.

[RonJeremy]

@Bertmega.You wrote, We have to develop a defenseman....before we can develop one, we have to draft one. We don't have one dman in our system that is a potential top 3 dman.

We have had several opportunities over the last 7 or 8 years to draft some pretty good dmen, but each time we went for the centered made a bonehead trade.

Chose Carts and Richards had shot at Seabrooke

Chose to trade pick had shot at Carlson

Chose Coots had shot at Hamilton

Chose Laughton had shot at several dmen.

I'm not saying we made bad picks, but several of these dmen like Hamilton and Seabrooke were can't miss prospects. Maybe since our luck with drafting dmen is horrible,Homer may have felt safer picking a forward. Either that or he has a hard on for centers.

We are going to be forced into a trade when Timmo retires if not sooner, who the heck is gonna work the PP when Timmo is gone.he is not even that good on PP and he is the best guy we have. We have lost our top PP guys in Carle and Prongs, with Timmo retiring next year that's the third guy and Mez is our other PP guy and who knows when he is coming back. Good young dmen are like pitchers in baseball,there are not enough good ones and everyone wants them. So be prepared to give up something good to get one. The FA market is not looking good and the UFAs seem to be impossible to sign. Even if we draft a stud dman next year ,it's 3 years before he makes an impact. One thing a bout the Flyers management is ,they are not patient, we are not writing off the next few years while we wait for an UFA or for a draft pick to make the NHL. Homer will make a trade.

[mojo1917]

@RonJeremy

couple of things; seabrooke was off the board by the time the flyers picked richards. and jeff carter was a sweet shooting, fast skating prize, can't fault that pick at the time.

I would take Couturier over Hamilton every time the opportunity presents itself and there are many more who will agree with me than will you.

eminger for the pick which turned into carlsson well who knows who the flyers would have used that pick on...but that didn't work out so well with eminger but did eventually turn into a couple of years of matt carle so ugh, let's move on this is depressing.

this year was the year that stuck out to me as far as "now is the time to draft a defenseman" and the team didn't . so i was as dumbfounded as you as to why we have Laughton whom i think we'll like, instead of maata, that was a head scratcher.

we should hope for shane gostibehere to grow because he played well for the US in the recent world event, and had phil housley saying good things about him, but he's years away from being a factor.

the track record, MAB is a fringe guy getting thrust into the prime time... we'll see about him. but moving up to draft the lumbering marshall, jeff woyewitka, joni pikanen, luca sbisa, i'm not sure this scouting staff has the touch with the blue liners that they do with the forwards.

so hind sight is 20/20 and your point is valid for me but only up to a point.

[DaGreatGazoo]

ut that didn't work out so well with eminger

Maybe not, but he has a training camp invite, so we get to try him out a 2nd time!!!! :ph34r:

[RonJeremy]

@mojo1917 , the main point of my post was, really where and how are we getting some defense from? We could debate who we picked ,who we passed up etc. Like I said , I'm not saying we made bad picks, but sooner or later we need to draft a dman. We can't keep hoping to trade for defense,we have been doing that for 30 years and now our backs are against the wall. Our four best dmen ever, Howe, Desjardins, Pronger and Timmo, we're all acquired via trade. I do like Bourdon and he may pan out higher than we expect, but by the end of next year,we will have lost our top 3 Prongs,Timmo, Carle. I don't see anyone we have being as good as those 3, especially when it comes to offense. The dmen we have now have limited offensive skill. Even if we make a trade , we can only get one good dman without gutting the offense. So now the past is coming back to haunt us, by not drafting any dmen over the years, we have nothing in the pipeline, no standout dmen waiting to step in.Some people argue that one defensemen can't help a team all that much, but look at our history...Howe , Desjardins, Timmo and Prongs all made our defense immeasurably better,and whenever any of them were hurt over the years, the team was like night and day without the top dman playing. So in the end we may have to give up one of our coveted young forwards to get a much needed and equally talented dman.

[Polaris922]

(I am playing armchair GM)

I would purposely tank a few seasons, get 3 very, very, very high picks, get in the good graces of Gary Bettman, use picks to build a NHL brand, then ask Uncle Gary to make sure I get a cup out of it. Lastly, I would consult a Pittsburgh fan if I have the ingredients right.

Speaking of ingredients, how's old Marshmallow head? Any chances he plays out this season let alone his contract?

I agree 10000% with your shots at my Penguins. I think it would be FAR FAR better to just spend more money than there is revenue... model our spending after the Flyers even though we've never had that kind of money. Remain "competitive" every year.. make a few bad trades, maybe some prima donna players.. we can always look back fondly on when we won all those years ago, 37 to be exact... and celebrate the six times we've gotten there since without winning...

Oh wait.. that won't happen... because we'll be bankrupt and bought out by some Canadian guy who will move us to Quebec...

fair is fair no killing me...

[Lindbergh31]

@Polaris922

I would sign a cheap UFA like Carlo C and roll the dice with what we have, see if the young guys have what it takes to take their game to the next level. This means more minutes for Bourdon and Gus and perhaps others. If it's not working, we're losing, maybe make a trade, but not one that sees Cooter or B Schenn leaving. Anybody else is tradeable, if necessary.

Once again Podein, you have a plan for Holmgren to follow. I like the idea of signing Carlo C for one year and letting the younger defensemen play. By signing Carlo C, Lavi might be able to limit the minutes for Timonen so he'll be fresher for the playoffs.

[Podein25]

Pods says trade Giroux for Hal Gill !?!?

Oh dear. Look what I've done. In fairness to me, it was after lunch and I had had a couple of drinks.

Obviously I meant any other prospects were tradeable. But really, I think we should hang onto Laughton. And Wellwood.

So, basically, I should just shut up.

[Polaris922]

Oh dear. Look what I've done. In fairness to me, it was after lunch and I had had a couple of drinks.

Obviously I meant any other prospects were tradeable. But really, I think we should hang onto Laughton. And Wellwood.

So, basically, I should just shut up.

Ha ha ha! I think we all knew what you meant but it IS funny.

[jammer2]

Yep, I'm in the sign Carlo C club (as we all know by now...lol). Don't know what the hell they are waiting for! He could be Kimo's replacement at pp qb also. Think his points would go up consdierably with the Flyers top 6 talent at forward. The other thing to do is ramp up the scouting in the NCAA and go find yourself a Schultz type of kid....or a Euro who is off the radar. Somthing like that, or troll the AHL and see if you can rip off a up and comer for cheap. Other than that....pay out the nose for an established guy...don't like that route. FIrst thing we have to do is see what we really have in our kids, can't do anything else until we know about them.....baptism by fire....lol.

[mojo1917]

if I were homer i'd also preach patience to the fan base and press corps whenever they're in my grill about " so young guy X really stunk tonight , how much longer do you anticipate him being with the big club ?" l tell them we need to see what these guys can do; there will be mistakes when you're a young guy playing the difficult position in the best league in the world we want to evaluate their resiliency as well as their talent i expect player x to learn from those mistakes and improve.

i would copy and past that and hand that **** out every presser, with the guys we have seeing significant ice time we're going to see some bad play, and if we want these guys to improve we can't be howling at them all the time. i realize there is a time with players where you have to fish or cut bait, but this fan base never lets the fisherman get the bucket to pier, it's always he's played 20 games wtf ? where are the goals ? where's that perfect strech pass from the half wall on the breakout ? ... if these kids are battlling we should get up off them a little.

[brelic]

What's the story on Carlo C? I haven't watched him very much... how is he on the defensive side? Or is he more of an offensive guy (I see a few 30+ point seasons)?

[Dynamo 47]

First and foremost I would not panic. Yes we lost Weber (I saw the offer for Sutter more to drive up the price). We lost Carle who despite his turnovers and being soft was an experienced vet and we lose Mez again.

I still believe the defense is more solid to start this year than last year. Last year we had no physical presence on defense most of the season which impacted our goaltending more than people realize. We had no one to clear the porch and no one to make opposing forwards keep their head up in the nuetral zone and defensive zone.

Starting the season with Schenn and a full season from Grossman will have a big impact as Bryz will see more shots clearly from the point and clear the porch and reduce rebound chances. Not to mention they will eat up a lot of minutes which will help Kimo.

We also had a carousel of rookies and 6/7 guys playing quality minutes. The rookies will have more experience this season and I am pretty comfortable with Gus, Bourdon, and Manning filling in when needed.

My plan would be to wait. We have cap space. We had a lot of talented young forwards who I don't want to lose. I would sit tight, evaluate what we have and make a decision at the trade deadline where we could get an impact player for a reduced cost.

[mojo1917]

good post @dynamo47