The Broad Street Blog

It’s been a week since Flyer’s GM Paul Holm­gren made a deal with the Ana­heim Ducks which sent Jof­fery Lupul, Luca Sbisa & 2 first round picks to the Ducks in exchange for vet­eran defense­man Chris Pronger. When I first saw the deal I thought “what the hell is Holm­gren think­ing trad­ing away Sbisa.” That was a bad habit of his pre­de­ces­sor, trad­ing away young tal­ent for aging play­ers. It was a pat­tern that often time didn’t pan out.

How­ever, the more I thought about it over the past week, this was a deal that was just right for the Fly­ers. Yes, the loss of Sbisa is going to sting for a while, but Pronger brings the Fly­ers things that Sbisa wouldn’t for a few years, if at all. I’m not at all wor­ried about the loss of Lupul.

Pronger brings a nasty atti­tude that the Fly­ers were obvi­ously lack­ing in the first round of the play­offs against the Pen­guins. I keep hear­ing that the Fly­ers’ “old school think­ing of sign­ing tough guys” won’t win in the “New NHL.” Really? The Pen­guins just won a Cup, with grit and nas­ti­ness as a con­tribut­ing fac­tor. Granted, you can’t win with a bunch of goons and tough guys alone. But watch­ing the NHL play­offs, the Pen­guins had Hal Gill, Brooks Orpick and Chris Kunitz hit­ting every­one for four rounds. It made a dif­fer­ence in the series against the Fly­ers, Caps, and ulti­mately, the Red Wings.

Two sea­sons ago, Jason Smith and Der­ian Hatcher brought intan­gi­bles that helped the Fly­ers make it to the East­ern Con­fer­ence finals. With the loss of Hatcher to injury and Smith to free agency, the Fly­ers were a softer team this past sea­son. Mike Richards is a good leader for the Fly­ers and plays with inten­sity, but he is still young and still learn­ing. Pronger will bring what the Fly­ers lacked this year, and by all reports is in bet­ter con­di­tion than Smith and Hatcher.