Monday, June 18, 2007

Flyers Get Aggressive

The Flyers today traded a first-round pick (23rd overall) to Nashville for the rights to free-agents-to-be Scott Hartnell and Kimmo Timonen, then promptly signed the two to $10.5 million per year of contracts (trivial asides: Timonen is Nashville's all-time leading scorer, and his younger brother, Jussi, was drafted by the Flyers in '01 and is still in the organization).

The pick - which Nashville had previously sent to Philly in the Peter Forsberg deal back in February - gives the Preds a first round pick for two guys who were going to walk in two weeks anyway, so it's a bit of a win-win... until you consider that Nashville got two months of Forsberg and gave up a third-round pick, Scottie Upshall, Ryan Parent and the chance to re-sign Hartnell and Timonen. Ouch.

As for this deal itself, the Flyers have just shelled out $10.5 million in salary per year and a first round pick for a second-liner and a #2 blueliner. I'm glad we lost a year so we could have cost certainty, aren't you?

8 comments:

CD said...

Well, that's going to screw up my UFA pool pick.

Unknown said...

Newsflash: Bobby Clarke apparently still works for the Flyers.

admin said...

omfg that is fanfriggintastic! I came home and checked all the sites because there was a lot of talk about something like this, but there was no news yet. Now I wake up from my nap and find this!!!!

woohoo!

Anonymous said...

Cost certainty applies to the team's payroll. Teams are limited to the amount of total payroll they can have, but they're not that handcuffed on how to spend it.

If this is how the Flyers want to divvy up their share, that's their perogative. Questionable may be how much they're shelling out, but it's the market.

JP said...

Part of cost certainty is the assumption that teams will be rationale in how they spend their money. Of course the "hard" certainty is the cap. But necessarily related is the value of players.

While this move doesn't impact anyone's cap, it does impact the market, say, for free agent blueliners, which was just adjusted upwards.

Unknown said...

In an unrelated story: If TSN doesn't post their draft preview soon, the draft will be over.

Anonymous said...

Mark these down for the first two guys the Caps missed. Especially Timonen.

I'm really trying to give them one more chance, so I hope this isn't a sign of another sit-on-our-hands summer in Washington....

JP said...

Those guys aren't worth what the Flyers gave up for them. Kudos to Philly for their creativity, but at that price and for those terms, neither fit what the Caps should be doing.