Why trading for Marty Turco is a horrible idea
The Stars recent acquisition of former Thrasher goalie Kari Lehtonen almost certainly means the end of Marty Turco’s career as a Dallas Star. The end of Turco’s tenure in Dallas instantaneously jump starts the rumors of Turco being traded to Philadelphia.
Marty Turco is 34 years of age and is clearly on the downswing of his career. It’s clear that Turco still has the ability to be an effective goalie in the NHL, but he has Marty Biron syndrome. Turco lets in some terribly soft goals and doesn’t have the best positioning I’ve ever seen. He’s become disliked in Dallas and fans are ready to move on from the Turco era.
Dallas/Atlanta still waiting for trade call to complete Kari Lehtonen deal. Dallas/ Philly talks ongoing for Marty Turco.
On the other hand, you have TSN’s Bob McKenzie who is reporting that the Flyers aren’t as interested in Turco as the Chicago Blackhawks are.
Whichever way you look at it, this is a terrible idea. Why?
Marty Turco comes with a $5.7 million cap hit which is absolutely insane for a goalie of his skill level. He doesn’t deserve that kind of money and he flat out will not be able to fit here unless the Flyers move a big money maker. Namely, Danny Briere and Scott Hartnell, Simon Gagne, or Jeff Carter. Briere and Gagne have NTC’s, and Jeff Carter has already been deemed untouchable by Paul Holmgren.
In order for this to work, the Flyers would have to do several things that they’d end up regretting, one of which includes trading for a 34 year old goalie who can barely play anymore. That, and the Flyers don’t need a goalie.
TweetA balanced attack beats the struggling Stars
Let me start by getting the stupid cliche out of the way, since nobody is done focusing on football yet. WHEW, AT LEAST SOMEONE CAN BEAT A TEAM FROM DALLAS!
Alright, awesome. Let’s focus on hockey now.
The Flyers came into tonight’s game being the obvious favorites. The Stars are a struggling team right now. They now stand at 1-5-0 in their last six outings and, in the eyes of most Star fans, they’re fading quickly. The panic in Dallas seems all too familiar. I’ll put it right next to what we were experiencing here in Philly two months ago under the helm of John Stevens. Dallas is a talented team who just isn’t skating up to their ability.
Early on, Danny Syvret would take a big hit from Dallas tough guy, Steve Ott. Syvret quickly hobbled off the ice clutching his left shoulder and headed down the tunnel. Syvret didn’t return and the team is calling his injury an “upper body injury”. What else do you expect the Flyers medical staff to say, really?
The Flyers would eventually open up the scoring on their second power play of the game. Matty Carle would patiently rip a shot from the point to create a scramble in front of the net. Scott Hartnell would poke in the loose puck and score the game’s first goal that was credited originally to Danny Briere. That was pretty much the setting for the rest of the game. Dallas would have their chances and ended up capitalizing on three of them, but every time they got a breath of air, the Flyers were there to punch them in the chest to take it away.
The Flyers are really starting to show progression under Peter Laviolette’s new system. They’re moving quickly with the puck, and they’re constantly skating in fives on both ends of the ice, which is something we’ve been waiting to see from this team all season long.
Questions heading into tonight’s match-up, answered:
- Does Michael Leighton continue his success in the net? He does. Leighton looked confident, calm, and collected during tonight’s game. Again, the three goals that he gave up do not do his performance justice. Despite Ray Emery being healthy and back on the bench, Michael Leighton continues to hold the hot hand. If I were Laviolette, I start him again on Thursday night vs Toronto and then again against Columbus. If you really want to see what we’ve got from this guy, throw him in again against a team like Pittsburgh (who won’t bow down to us again) or Washington. We’ll be able to tell then.
- The Flyers offense has been red hot. Does it cool off against a Western Conference opponent or do they take advantage of the Stars struggles? The latter. The Flyers started scoring goals in this game and they didn’t stop until the final buzzer. Offensive pressure was great in tonight’s match-up. In fact, 14 different Flyers tallied points tonight.
- Can the special teams keep up their stellar play? Indeed, they did.
Also, it’s not posted yet, but around 12AM, take a look over at TheOther6Seconds. We won the bet. I was able to post on Cole’s blog tonight. Some fun stuff. Thanks for the bet and sportsmanship, Cole. How ’bout a cheesesteak?
TweetFlyers vs Stars Gameday Preview!
January 12, 2010 by Andy G.
Filed under Game Previews, Geleff
The Philadelphia Flyers are hot right now. The Dallas Stars? Not so much. In their twenty three games on the road, the Stars have come away victorious in just seven of them. Like the Flyers of yester-month, they’re also having trouble putting the puck in the back of the net. The Stars have scored five goals in seven games. Four of those goals came against the New York Islanders. So, if you take that game out of the equation, they’ve scored a miraculous one goal in six games.
The Flyers, however, are seemingly red hot at the moment. Scoring twenty-one goals in their last four outings and scoring them evenly throughout all four games. Dallas’ biggest job tonight will be keeping the Flyers off of Marty Turco.
The story will then shift to the Cinderella goal keeper for the Flyers, Michael Leighton (See: Leighton, A Pleasant Surprise in Goal by Ryan Sassaman). Leighton has yet to lose a game (technically) in regulation, and his only statistical loss came at the hands of the Bruins on New Year’s day. Leighton has won seven games for the Flyers since being claimed off of waivers, a career high. The Flyers success hasn’t been all at the hands of the 28 year old net minder; the defensive team in front of him has played extremely well, and better than it has all season long. The Flyers are finally healthy (for the most part) and their special teams play has finally shown signs of revival.
Questions heading into tonight’s match-up:
- Does Michael Leighton continue his success in the net?
- The Flyers offense has been red hot. Does it cool off against a Western Conference opponent or do they take advantage of the Stars struggles?
- Can the special teams keep up their stellar play?
Oh, and if you haven’t already, be sure to check out what’s at stake for the blog tonight.
We’ll see you on the other side.
TweetJust some friendly blogging trash talk
A couple of days ago, an idea popped into Ryan’s head and he suggested it to me. Take tonight’s game against the Dallas Stars and create a cross-blog event between ourselves here at We Believe in Orange and our buddy from the TBN community, Cole Jones, who is the writer of TheOther6Seconds.
Ideas began to float around in my head, but nothing really seemed to click. I reached out to another friend of mine from the TBN community, Greg Ezell, the writer of Something’s Bruin and he helped me brainstorm some fairly interesting things. With some minor deliberation, I came to a conclusion on which of his ideas I liked best.
Basically, it goes something like this: If the Flyers win, we’ll get to post a blog on Cole’s site gloating about how good the Flyers were and how bad the Stars were. If the Stars win, Cole gets to attack our blog. Neither Cole or myself were very high strung on this idea, but after some thought, we each thought it could be fun, solely because it’s something different and out of the ordinary.
With the recent struggles of the Dallas Stars, and the sudden resurgence of the Flyers, this could be a friendly wager that we’ll not regret. 
Stay tuned to the blog for tomorrow’s game preview.
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