Post Trade Deadline Rant

The NHL trade deadline is always a time of excitement for hockey fans. Many teams make trades that try to improve the team to be more of contenders for the Stanley Cup. The Flyers are almost always a team that will trade assets for an aging player, who most likely may not even sign back.

This year the Flyers started off by trading Matt Mangene from the AHL, 3^rd round pick in 2014, and a 2^nd round pick in 2015 for Andrew Macdonald from the New York Islanders. Shortly after, the Flyers traded Andrej Meszaros to the Boston Bruins for a 3^rd round pick in 2014. In all likelihood, the organization thinks this move will help them be more competitive in the playoffs. This may help them get into the playoffs and maybe to the 2^nd round, but not much further.

Kimmo Timonen is a 38 year old defenseman who has been on the team for a few years now. The current group of defensemen on the team simply aren’t good enough to win it all. Timonen is the best defensemen on the team, but has been slowing down showing signs of his age constantly throughout the season. Last season the team resigned him, which I thought was a mistake. There really is no excuse to not trade Timonen to a contending team for picks or prospects. At his age, he is not going to lead a team to the Cup, but he has a much better chance of winning one helping out another team. The trades that were made this year will not improve the team at all. Macdonald is only a slight upgrade over Meszaros, and in getting him the Flyers gave up more and got a later 3^rd round pick. Hopefully next year the Flyers will learn their lesson and try to build a good group of defensemen, but probably won’t. This year though the team missed out on upgrading the team.