Let the Offseason Begin!

So today Philly trades and signs for two of the biggest fish in the pond. Timmonen and Hartnell are in Flyer silks (and I mean SILK with those contracts) which makes things very, very interesting for the Oilers. Those pesky Pitkanen rumours just won't die and then Matheson jumps on bandwagon. I have to say I get a little sloppy and drool over the idea of getting Pitkanen QBing the PP. So with the Flyers acquiring a #1 defenceman, Matheson backing up rumours Pitkanen is being shopped, and contract issues between the teams being reported, we have to agree something could very well go down here. Another point made was that Pitkanen's agent feels that with arbitration they will get less that 2 million and so may demand a trade before then.

I'm going to start now by saying that I'm against a big trade. It will hurt our team without helping. There are not enough available players to right this ship at the moment and giving up large amount of assets would be a waste leading to some April golf lessons. We need to develop the large pool young talent this team possesses and see where it shakes out at the end of the season. By then we will have a better idea of who should stay and who should go, and maybe we will have less holes to fill due to young players coming into their own. By this time next year young players will be taking over declining veterans roster spots and we will have a better free agent pool to fill in the rest. Lets face it, we are not doing major damage this coming season.

But Pitkanen intrigues me, he's the name the strays from this philosophy. Instead of trading for an over payed veteran who can't save this team while he's still valuable, we would be getting a player who can deliver today (43 pts last year) and the next 10 years. If we were ever going to pay a price for a player, this is the time.

The Flyers need depth in every department, so i'm thinking a roster forward, defencemen, then an assortment of picks/prospects.

Would you do Lupul, Smith, Schremp, our #6 pick FOR Pitkanen and their #2? Keep in mind the Flyers are in more of a win soon mode than a rebuilding mode. Then next year rolls around and we sign a top pairing defenceman and our defence is looking more like this:

#1 - Pitkanen
Staios - Grebs
Smid - Greene
Gilbert

Clearly some guys will out play others (a Smid vs Grebs debate may insue) but right now as it stands that group could work well offensively and defensively. I'm thinking it will need a veteran presence in the bottom 3 so one of those guys gets shipped for a solid bottom pairing vet.