A few weeks ago, we reached out through various social networking mediums and asked our readers for ideas on a new segment to add to the blog. After an alarmingly low response, a week later, we asked again. That time, we got a good 50-75 responses on possibilities for things to add to the site. At this point in time, some of your suggestions cannot be fulfilled, but they’ve been taken into consideration for the future. They’re excellent, but we don’t have the resources to pull them off at the moment.

We made a list of five segment suggestions that got a ton of votes from our Twitter followers and Facebook friends, and the selection of our new segment seemed unanimous; The WeBelieveInOrange Reader Mailbag segment was born.

Once a week, either Friday or Monday, we’ll be taking all of the questions that you, the reader, leave for us during the previous week, and answering them in one big post. Questions can range anywhere from personal questions about the writers to our opinions of players and things surrounding the team.

How To Ask

You can submit your questions to one (or all) of our social networking pages. Shoot us an @mention on Twitter (@WBinOrange), leave a comment with your question on our Facebook page, or shoot us an email at mailbag@WeBelieveInOrange.com. Or, you can simply just leave us a comment here on the blog. We always love to read those.

The Flyers salary cap situation gets a little breather with Cote’s 500k immediately coming off the books. With the team’s acquisiton of Jody Shelley and re-signing of Daniel Carcillo, Cote’s role for this upcoming season would have been in an Adirondack jersey anyway.

Now, Riley Cote, 28, will be an assistant coach in Adirondack aside Greg Gilbert and Kjell Samuelsson.

Cote has spent the last six years in the Flyers organization. Cote has played in 156 games for the orange and black, tallying just 1 goal and 6 assists for 7 points. Cote totaled 411 penalty minutes with the team.

Blair Betts and Dan Carcillo are also recovering from their surgeries. Betts is recovering from shoulder surgery and should be ready for training camp, but will stay away from contact, of course. Carcillo is recovering from a late abdominal surgery.

Arthroscopic knee surgery sounds extremely frightening, but Chris Pronger is a tough dude. Here’s hoping we don’t have to start the regular season without 20.

It was mutually agreed on by every Flyers journalist, beat-writer, blogger, and fan that there were just a few things that the Flyers absolutely NEEDED to do this off-season. Solidify a number one goalie, re-sign Arron Asham, Daniel Carcillo, and Darroll Powe, and find a defenseman on the open market who would push our third pairing over the hump. That’s it. So, what has Paul done so far this off-season that has everyone so ticked off? I’ll break it down positionally, because it’ll be easier that way, starting from the tail back end, then I’ll wrap it all up at the end. I apologize in advance if this feels like it’s “all over the place”.

In The Net

Heading into this off-season, our only goalie under contract was Brian Boucher. Ray Emery’s career is toast, for the most part, and many thought that Michael Leighton was sure to get the “thanks for your hard work, we appreciate it and wish you luck” treatment. That wasn’t the case. On the day before the free agency market opened up with a plethora of goalie talent, Paul Holmgren seemingly panicked and threw Leighton a $1.5 million deal. I really don’t hate the Michael Leighton contract. I tend to disagree with a lot of people when they speak negatively of him, but it’s no question that if we had just a SLIGHTLY better goaltender in the finals, we could have won it all. Let’s take a look at Leighton’s numbers, compared to some of the other names the Flyers were rumored to be looking at this summer, shall we? (All stat images taken from player’s team’s respected websites)

Micheal Leighton

Dan Ellis

Chris Mason

Evgeni Nabokov

Marty Turco

Without digging too deep into why I don’t feel like any of these guys would have been any better than Michael Leighton, I’ll try and sum it up as easily as possible.

Marty Turco’s old. His best years are clearly behind him. And even though the Flyers claim to be “looking for a guy to hold us over until prospects are ready,” Turco’s age doesn’t come close to justifying his price.

Evgeni Nabokov went back to Russia, because he wanted entirely too much damned money. I’m still not sold on Nabokov as a playoff goalie, either. Aside from a few instances of brilliance, he never really did show any flash with the Sharks. Both Turco and Nabokov have less than appealing playoff numbers, granted Nabokov is actually over the .500 mark.

I can’t really say I know much about Dan Ellis, but I think there’s reasoning behind that, because not many people do. The Flyers not signing Dan Ellis reminded me a lot of when the Phillies traded away Cliff Lee. Social networks were all about slandering Paul Holmgren for letting go of this gem. If he’s such a gem, why wasn’t he Nashville’s starting goalie in the playoffs? Why didn’t Nashville lock him up? Ellis posted a 2.69 GAA last season, which is just marginally better than Leighton’s 2.83.

My point is, all of these guys would have been fill-in Band-Aid guys, and the same people who are complaining about not signing them, would be the same people complaining about them when they didn’t give us “what we thought they’d bring” between the pipes. We KNOW what we’re going to get out of Michael Leighton, so there’s no sense in starting yet another experiment with another unproven goalie, who will more than likely be shipped out in a year or two, anyway. So, while Paul Holmgren may have panicked and locked up Leighton prematurely, there wasn’t much difference on the open market that would have made this team ALL THAT better in net.

Defense

It’s a rarity in Philadelphia when fans aren’t pointing fingers directly at the man minding the net. This season, instead, fans and critics alike turned their negativity to the Flyers defense. Yes, the same exact defense that was touted as the #1 defense heading into last season and the same exact defense that was supposed to FINALLY bring us the Cup, as the HockeyNews predicted.

This is where things start to get hazy.

The Flyers biggest need on defense was to sure up the third pairing, so we weren’t left guessing who’s stick the next goal was going to come off of when Ryan Parent and Lukas Krajicek stepped onto the ice. Everyone got excited when we traded Ryan Parent back to the team that drafted him in Nashville for the rights of Dan Hamhuis. Hamhuis would have been a great fill for that third pairing gap, but the Flyers were unable to get a deal done prior to the NHL Draft, so his rights were dealt to Pittsburgh in exchange of a draft pick next season. Hamhuis didn’t sign with Pittsburgh, either.

So, again, doing what he does best, Holmgren decided to panic and pulled the trigger on a trade with the Lightning, acquiring Andrej Meszaros. Again, there were far better options for third pairing defenders on the market, but Holmgren had to have a deal done before free agency started. So now we have Andrej Meszaros who may or may not be beneficial to us this season, and he’s making $4 million on top of all that.

Holmgren then signed Sean O’Donnell. Probably my favorite of his free agency signings this summer. O’Donnell isn’t a superstar defender, but he’s a HUGE physical player who is going to do one thing. Be affective while allowing Chris Pronger and Kimmo Timonen to take a breather every once in awhile. O’Donnell is older than Chris Pronger by a year, but has only missed 5 games since 2005. That’s reliability at its finest, folks. And even if his age does catch up with him, he’s signed for 1 year at $1 million, so it’s a very low risk move.

That brings me to Matt Walker, our newly acquired, $1.7 million making career 7th defenseman. Walked was acquired in the Gagne trade with Tampa Bay, which was essentially Paul Holmgren just giving away Gagne, because there was really nothing else for him to do. Matt Walker will be lucky to crack the Flyers line-up because he’s no more than an overpaid depth defenseman.

There was plenty of defense available on July 1st, instead, Holmgren took the easy way out again. Here are a few names I would have liked to see Holmgren make a run at.

Kurtis Foster ($1.8 million), Anton Volchenkov ($4.5 million), Henrik Tallinder ($3.375 million), Toni Lydman ($3 million), Derek Morris ($2.75 million), Zbynek Michalek ($4 million)

Up-Front

I don’t know what’s been more frustrating. The salary ignorance toward the defensive positions or the ignorance at the forward positions. At the end of last season, Arron Asham, Dan Carcillo, and Darroll Powe were all unrestricted and restricted free-agents respectively. At season’s end, it quickly became more and more evident that the Flyers had no interest in re-signing Arron Asham.

Dan Carcillo also thought it would be a good idea to take the Flyers to arbitration, where he was rumored to be seeking a substantial pay increase from last season’s salary. The Flyers and Carcillo, who was a restricted free agent, agreed to terms on a 1-year, $1.075 million deal, which, in my opinion, is too much for Dan Carcillo to be making, given the fact that Homer had already given Jody Shelley an absolutely terrible monumental mistake of a 3 year, $3.3 million contract.

Signing Jody Shelley to such an alarmingly large contract for a guy of his skillset (or lack thereof) basically gives every player that the Flyers discuss contracts with the right to say, “Well hey, Jody Shelley barely gets ice time when he’s not in the press box, and he makes $1.1 million, so why can’t I?” And do you blame them?

So, we lose Asham, who is a player with a tremendous upside, as he showed us during the latter parts of last season and essentially replace him with Dan Carcillo and Jody Shelly. If you ask me, we get worse. Though, the Flyers and Asham’s agent are still in negotiations, but I just don’t see how he can fit back into the picture.

Then we decided we’d take another player coming back to North America from the KHL who’s desperate for a team and signed Nik Zherdev. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great deal financially, but we don’t really know which Zherdev is going to show up for the Flyers this season. Zherdev says he’s put a lot of work and commitment toward his defensive game, but I just don’t see how that’s even remotely possible in the KHL. Zherdev is likely Gagne’s replacement, and number-wise, I’m pretty sold that it’ll work. That said, I highly doubt that he’ll be able to replace Gagne’s 2-way contributions. Surely, we can’t rely on Jeff Carter for that. So, who’s going to take Gagne’s spot? Briere isn’t a great 2-way guy. It’s up for debate, but I still think trading Gagne instead of Jeff Carter was a mistake.

Wrap-Up

So here I sit on July 20th, 2010. The Flyers are currently $1.52 million under the salary cap. They have 8 defenseman. And possibly a few questions still looming in net. They just traded away the longest tenured Philadelphia Flyer and got absolutely nothing in return. Would the Flyers have had to trade Gagne if they hadn’t acquired Andrej Meszaros and signed Jody Shelley, Braydon Coburn, and Daniel Carcillo to contracts that they don’t necessarily deserve? What about Sean O’Donnell? Was his $1.3 million really necessary with all of the defensive players on the market? All of this remains to be seen, and there are still a few moves probably up Homer’s sleeve, but for now, I remain extremely skeptical of Paul Holmgren’s ability to manage a salary cap era NHL franchise. His mismanagement of this team has done more harm than good to the team this off-season and it’s hard to say if he can dig himself out of it. He sure couldn’t yesterday, so he figured he’d trade Gagne for a $1.7 million nobody.

Bobby Clarke drafted Simon Gagne with the 22nd overall pick in the 1998 NHL Entry Draft. Simon Gagne played his first game as a Philadelphia Flyer on October 2nd, 1999 against the Ottawa Senators; I night that I remember clearly. Just ten days later, in a game against the Washington Capitals, Gagne tallied his first two NHL goals. Simon Gagne wasn’t always my favorite player. In fact, he didn’t become my favorite player until the 2001 season when he scored one of the prettiest goals I have ever seen. Simon Gagne made the NHL All-Star team that season. He played in-between Mario Lemiux and Joe Sakic. Gagne never really talked about that game to the media, but former Flyer captain Keith Primeau once told the Philly media that Gagne couldn’t stop talking about how amazing it was to be playing alongside two of his childhood idols.

I molded my own playing style after Gagne’s.

I would love to continue to ramble on about the things that helped me discover Simon Gagne as my favorite NHL player, but it would just take entirely too long.

This is an ode of nothing but the best wishes for Simon, wherever the rest of his career takes him. This is an ode to the man who nearly sent me tumbling over the mezzanine in section 210A when he scored an overtime goal to send the Flyers to a game seven in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Tampa Bay Lightning. An ode to the man, no matter how painful the loss, would never shrug away from the media. We may not see Simon Gagne as a leader in the locker room, or even, at times, on the ice, but I see Simon Gagne as a role model and the type of person that every hockey player should strive to be. A player who can over come the worst of adversities. A player who doesn’t know the meaning of “quit”. A player and a gentleman who was always willing to give back to the Flyers, the city of Philadelphia, and the fans that loved him so much. A player who always kept quiet and did what was asked of him, no matter how big the odds.

We’ll miss you, Simon. I can’t get my #12 Lightning jersey quick enough. A big part of me will be smiling if you pull off one of your OT winners against the Flyers this season.

UPDATE: 2:35pm – D Matt Walker & a 4th Rd Pick headed back to Flyers

Sad day in Flyerdom.

I leave you with this.

The 25 year old signed a one-year, $2 million deal with the team today after spending a season in the KHL. Zherdev has played 5 seasons in the NHL; 4 with the Columbus Blue Jackets and 1 with the New York Rangers.

His last season in the NHL was the 08-09 campaign with the Rangers. He played all 82 games that season and tallied 58 points (23 goals/35 assists).

Like we mentioned a few days ago when these reports first began to surface, Zherdev is a hot-and-cold player and has a tendency to be a defensive liability at times.

With the addition of Zherdev’s salary, the Flyers are officially $1, 422, 263 over the NHL’s salary cap.

Whether or not this means the end of Simon Gagne being the longest tenured athlete in Philadelphia remains to be seen, but there certainly is no wiggle room and Paul Holmgren has created a problem for himself. More than likely, someone is on the way out, but we still have no idea who. With the way this off-season is going, Chris Pronger could be traded tomorrow (we aren’t serious).

Offensive Standouts

We’ll start off with Shane Harper (RW, Everett – WHL, Contract signed Mar. 4th, 2010), who I was actually the least impressed with today. He just didn’t seem like he knew what he was doing on the ice. Messed up a lot of drills in practice, missed many passes, and fired many passes and shots off-target (Jeff Carter version 2.0?) He regained some of all that in the scrimmage, but was still mostly invisible throughout.

Mike Testwuide (RW, Colorado College – WCHA, Contract signed Mar. 19th, 2010) is a prototypical power forward. He’s got a huge frame that’s filled out well. He’s a quick and solid skater who can win battles in the corners, which he did almost all day today. Testwuide boasts a decent and accurate shot, but really failed to do anything with it in the scrimmage, which isn’t saying much for a game that ended 1-0. He and Eric Wellwood were on the same page which was nice to see out of prospects who rarely play with each other this early in their careers.

Speaking of Eric Wellwood (LW, Windsor – OHL, Drafted 6th round in 2009), he continues to impress me every time I see him. By far my favorite of the prospects. He’s probably around a year — or less — from seeing AHL time, with NHL time not following too long after that. He’s a fast, gritty player who sees the ice well. Always makes good, crisp passes that seem to hit targets in stride perfectly. Wellwood is always extremely involved in the play and he’s a hard guy to miss, which reminds me of Claude Giroux’s defensive abilities in this instance.

Luke Pither (C, Barrie – OHL, Contract signed Mar, 4, 2010) was somewhat impressive today, especially during the scrimmage.  He showed off the flash for one sequence.  He swooped in and kicked a loose puck up to his stick and burst into the offensive zone.  He then sidestepped a defender, and was in on Nic Riopel, he tried going back across the crease and Riopel stayed with him and made the stop.  He may have been able to bury the rebound had the defender not stepped in and the officials lost sight of the puck.  Other than that, he was solid today, no major mistakes.  He’s certainly got the potential and the skills.  Keep an eye on him.

What is there to say about Zac Rinaldo (C, London/Barrie – OHL, Drafted 6th round in 2008), who resembles a heat seeking missile. Literally, Rinaldo hits anything and everything that’s wearing the opposite color. Aside from — at all times — being a bully on the ice, Rinaldo shows plenty of other skills. He’s got a decent shot which we saw more of in drills, since he was too busy being a missile in the game, which is somewhat worrisome. Whether or not Rinaldo will succeed in the NHL depends on his ability to refine his playing skills. He’s not the biggest guy, either. At 5’11, 169LBS, he’ll be easy to knock off the puck at the NHL level. If he can fill his frame and work on his puck skills, he’s got a great chance of being a cross breed of Darroll Powe and Dan Carcillo.

Finally, Andrew Rowe (LW, Michigan State – CCHA, Contract signed May 6th, 2010) caught our eye as the day went on, mainly because we had a rough time figuring out who everyone was until the scrimmage, since nobody was wearing names or numbers. Although he can show a slight lack of judgement in his cross-ice passing, he’s certainly a player who plays a well rounded game and has the tools to become a great player, hopefully at the NHL level.

Defensive Standouts

Marc-Andre Bourdon (D, Adirondack – AHL, Drafted 3rd round in 2008) stood out today, only because of how calm and collected he was. It may just be that I was watching a player with at least AHL experience playing against a bunch of recently drafted amateurs, but he really just knew what he was doing. He didn’t make any glaring errors, but also didn’t show much that was outstanding. He just played hockey, very well. Because of the Flyers latest commitments to the defensive position, it could be a few years until Bourdon sees NHL time. Hopefully he isn’t traded, and actually sees that time in Philadelphia.

Nick Luukko (D, Gunnery Prep, Drafted 6th round in 2010) actually showed me more than I thought he would. Shows a lot of poise and patience at the point and never tried to do more than he should have with the puck. Of course, he’s got a long way to go before entering the professional level, but he’s certainly a defenseman that does what he’s supposed to do. At the moment: nothing more, nothing less.

Oliver Lauridsen (D, St. Cloud State – WCHA, Drafted 7th round in 2009) is huge. Lauridsen is a physical player who can definitely throw big hits. For his height, 6’5, he’s a very smooth skater. It’s surprising, actually. His point shot wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t great, either. He made a few good outlet passes during the game.  Didn’t make any big mistakes in that regard, got the puck out nicely or chipped it off the glass when needed.  He stayed in position pretty well while defending the rush.  Blocked a shot or two.  With his size, he’s got a hell of a reach which he used well, knocking the puck loose a few times.  He did well in the corners and in front of the net, thanks to his size which he really uses well.  He’s not going to give the offensive numbers, but he should make a very reliable defensive-defenseman.  And did we mention he’s huge?

While a lot of the tryout players didn’t show me much today, Jesse Dudas (D, Bloomington – IHL – Corpus Christi – CHL, tryout) really stood out to me for some reason. He had a hell of a shot from the point and was very smart with the puck. More so than previously mentioned  Nick Luukko. Who knows if he’ll see anything more than a tryout here in Philadelphia, but he can definitely splash into the NHL someday if he plays his cards right.

Goalies

Sergei Bobrovsky (G, Novokuznetsk – KHL, Contract siged May 6th, 2010) didn’t see much action today and we didn’t get to see him on the other rink, so there isn’t much to write on him.   Bobrovsky’s a tough read right now, he’s dealing with new gear.  And any goalies know how rough that can be.  So some of his awkward movements/saves may be related to that.  Hopefully he’ll get accustomed quickly and there will be more information about him available quickly.

Brian Stewart (G, Northern Michigan – CCHA – Adirondack – AHL, Contract signed May 6, 2010) looked pretty solid today.  He made some nice saves during the scrimmage.  Including one sprawling stop with  the paddle.  He got knocked down behind the net after a collision with one of his own defenders and quickly scrambled back up and dove across the crease to stuff a rebound attempt.  He also challenged shooters well, taking the angles away.  He also seemed to anticipate things well, which was more noticeable during drills early on.  Quite a few times he’d slide across as the shooter got the puck, leaving him nowhere to shoot it but directly into him.  Much like Riopel last year, he was a pleasant surprise in goal.

Nic Riopel (G, Adirondack – AHL – Moncton – QMJHL, Drafted 5th round in 2009) was solid again this year.  He really impressed us last year and stood out quite a bit.  He started out pretty rough in the AHL this year, but was outstanding once he returned to the QMJHL.  From last year, he seemed to improve his lateral movement.  He’s still very solid positionally.  While he wasn’t tested during the scrimmage, he made the saves when needed.  I look at the Pither sequence here.  He stayed with him as he cut cross-crease and got his leg pad on it.  He still looks like one of the better goalie prospects in the system.  Should be interesting to see if he can land the backup job in Adirondack behind Backlund, or if he gets loaned out to another AHL team or the ECHL.

Thanks to Geoff Detweiler over at Broad Street Hockey, we’ve embedded a video of Riopel practicing over on the other rink, which we missed completely.  So, here’s that.

A Slideshow of Photos From Today
(Individual shots can be found on our Facebook page)

Thanks for reading. If there’s anyone that we missed that you wanted to know more about, don’t be afraid to leave a comment down below. We’ll either edit the post or leave a response comment.

Zherdev certainly brings the skill, but the knock on him has been his consistency.  He goes hot-and-cold often, and can sometime be a liability in his own end.  If he can find the chemistry here in Philly, this may be a good signing for the Flyers.  Adding Zherdev would likely spell the end of Carcillo, depending arbitration results.  And Zherdev wold slot in as the Flyers top winger on the right side.

Stayed tuned for further updates on Zherdev.

4:25PM – Deal is still not official.  Both parties confirmed interests.  SanFilippo reports that Zherdev’s KHL team reports the deal as finished.  Other sources expect it to be complete within the next 24 hours.   Stay tuned for more.