Dream Waivers

I slept in absurdly late, and woke up realizing that the Flyers had probably already gotten rid of people to get ready for Daniel Briere's return Friday. As I staggered toward my computer, I decided that the two players I could most do without were Glen Metropolit and Ossi Vaananen.

Well hot damn, I was sure excited to see my dreams come true. Metropolit is by far the least productive offensively of anyone on offense, and he's probably too classy to be a Flyer. Never seemed to fit in at all.

Vaananen I kinda liked, but he was clearly seventh on the Flyers depth chart of defensemen. He's a phenomenal guy to have in case of injury or this damned flu, but he's pricy for that role.

The thing that most worries me about Vaananen's exit is my Finnish readership here. My little tracker thing shows that I have loyal readers in southwestern Finland, and I'm hoping that they're not just Vaananen fans, but either Niittymaki or Timonen fans (or even Kapanen or Sinisalo relics).

The other buzz is around Jay Bouwmeester coming to the Flyers from Florida in exchange for Lupul and Coburn. Hell no is clearly the answer to that scenario. Lupul is kinda overpaid for his production, but he's a glue guy in the locker room, and Braydon Coburn is the result of the best deal the Flyers ever made, so it would be absurdly negligent for them to deal him away so soon. Plus he's pretty awesome.



Bouwmeester also has got to be the dullest player in the league. And "Bouwmeester" is a bitch to spell.

Back

Sorry for the prolonged absence--pieces keep breaking off my computer, which is not a good thing. I'm trying to fix it myself, by just fiddling around with a screwdriver in an electrical appliance cluelessly (always a good idea). It's still not really better, but I soldier on...

So what happened while I was on hiatus? The Flyers beat the Thrashers (shocker), Jeff Carter was the second fastest in the fastest skater thing, Jeff Carter got knocked out of the breakaway contest in the first round with the worst shot anybody took the whole night, Jeff Carter did nothing in the All-Star game (except manage to keep possession of the puck for like 4:59 of the five minute overtime), Jeff Carter scored no goals, Jeff Carter came home with a #7 jersey I'm kinda surprised he chose since it's retired by the Flyers. (Flyers Goal Scored By... does a much better job treating Carter's all-star flop with the snark it deserves)

The other main thing that kept Flyers beat writers from getting time off over the break was more plot twists in L'Affaire Briere, with the Flyers seemingly forcing Danny Briere to get surgery so he could stay out of the lineup longer. That's a new one, even for the Flyers medical staff. He's out another four weeks, guaranteed, conveniently right until the trade deadline.

I have to think this is all leading up to trading Briere, or at the very least dumping Glen Metropolit for him. God, Metropolit is utterly useless, and his name is desperately missing a syllable. He has all of one goal this year in forty-two games. To put that in perspective, that's only one more goal than Lauren Hart has tallied.

Lastly, there was some nonsense about Paul Holmgren looking into getting Peter Forsberg back for the late part of this season. Because it was just SO great when he was here before, and he's SO not injury prone, and he played SO great for Colorado last year. With the Canucks getting Sundin, I think that's enough NHL scouring of Stockholm-area assisted-living communities for one season.

Flyers get to go on their second Florida trip of January (seriously, nice scheduling there) for a game in Sunrise on Tuesday, and Friday in Tampa.

But despite what will sum up to five straight games against the Southeast, the Flyers have the toughest remaining schedule of any team in the league, according to some website. That's never a good thing. All four games against Boston remain, plus four against the Rangers and a game each against Detroit and Calgary. Not fun.