The Flyers fired coach Ken Hitchcock, among other things, in an attempt to salvage a season that had gotten off to a rotten start.
If they trade Peter Forsberg, in the final season of a contract that pegs his cap number at $5.75 million, they will be admitting they have written off the season. Entering Friday’s games, Philadelphia indeed was 15th and last in the Eastern Conference, yet was “only” nine points out of the final playoff spot after consecutive road victories against Anaheim and Los Angeles.
That – making the postseason – is at least doable, in theory, for the Flyers.
So trading Forsberg, who returned to the lineup for the Southern California games after sitting out two with a sprained right ankle, again makes little sense.
Not that it ever did.
Flyers fans are a picky lot, and unloading the man who still can be the best in the world when he’s able to be on the ice, regardless of where Philadelphia sits in the standings, wouldn’t go over well. The only way it would would be if the Flyers land such significant compensation in the form of prospects and draft choices that the deal can be sold as a major step forward for the future.
But why would a team offer that without assurances Forsberg will be anything more than a short-term rental? The rules of that game have changed since the Avalanche made the deals for Rob Blake and Ray Bourque, for example, and Colorado also had the resources to be reasonably confident they could be re-signed – in Bourque’s case, if he decided to play another season.
Any team landing Forsberg, who would have to approve the deal because he has a no-trade clause, would have to have significant cap room. Acquiring him for a player or players with anything approaching “matching” big-number contracts contradicts the white-flag spirit of the trade for the Flyers.
Unless the team has assurances from Forsberg and agent Don Baizley that he intends to remain in the NHL after this season, instead of packing his Crocs and ABBA compact discs and heading home to Sweden, and has a shot at re-signing him, he could turn out to be a short-term rental – and one who still has to be considered suspect physically.
And the Avalanche?
In the past, the Avs have shocked me and pulled off what seemed to be the unlikely.
But this is a new world, so let’s talk about something more realistic.
Like, for instance, the still-mustachioed Lanny McDonald announcing he is coming out of retirement at age 53 and wants a second stint with the Rockies – this time as a left-handed relief pitcher who, most important, would work cheap.
Roy’s speech
I admit I was a bit surprised when Patrick Roy delivered most of his six-minute Hall of Fame induction speech in French on Monday night in Toronto.
I probably shouldn’t have been.
Because Canadian media for the most part downplays the actual night-time ceremony itself and base Hall of Fame induction coverage on quotes gathered at the morning news conference, it didn’t cause a major furor. But the ceremony was televised nationally in prime time, and Roy’s choice did raise some eyebrows, especially in largely English-speaking Toronto.
It shouldn’t have been controversial at all.
Canada is officially bilingual, a reasonable acknowledgment of Quebec’s French-Canadian roots and continuing influence. Roy is a native of Quebec City, where French is even more dominant than in Montreal, for example. And other Canadian-born inductees think nothing of giving their speeches entirely in their primary language, English.
Roy did it his way.
For the record, here’s how the passage of his speech went when he was thanking some former teammates: “Merci a Raymond Bourque, Mike Keane et Pierre Turgeon, avec qui jai developpe de grandes amities.”
It also was interesting to note the wording of the French-language newspaper translation of the short passage in English when Roy thanked his Avalanche roommate, Adam Foote, for his friendship and for being his “best” English teacher.
In those accounts, “English” is “la langue de Shakespeare.”
The speech, as translated, was eloquent and heartfelt. In light of what I’ve said about how Roy had every right to speak in his native tongue in an officially bilingual nation, this isn’t a criticism as much as it would have been a suggestion: It would have been a nice touch for Roy to include a brief English passage, thanking Colorado’s fans. That clip could have been shown on television or the Pepsi Center scoreboard screens, and directly quoted in news accounts here.
In closing
The two visiting players who suffered what looked to be more serious injuries in Denver last week turned out to be OK. Ryan Smyth, taken out by Colorado’s John-Michael Liles on Monday night, was back in the Edmonton lineup at St. Louis on Thursday night and had two goals. And the Sharks’ Jonathan Cheechoo, the league’s leading goal-scorer last season who had to be helped off the ice during the second period against the Avalanche on Wednesday night after suffering a leg or knee injury in a pileup, was listed as day to day as the weekend began. … If you’re in San Antonio in the near future and spot former Avalanche center Mike Ricci at Mi Tiera Café, don’t be shocked. The Coyotes on Thursday sent him to the American Hockey League’s San Antonio Rampage on a conditioning assignment. Ricci hasn’t played this season because of neck surgery, but he was cleared to begin skating Nov. 9. … A U.S. District Court judge’s refusal to grant an injunction, preventing Evgeni Malkin from playing for the Penguins this season, doesn’t necessarily end his former Russian team’s attempt to get compensation from Pittsburgh. But by the time the Russian team’s suit could go to trial, Malkin’s deal with the team – which the young forward maintained he could walk away from by giving notice under Russian law – will have expired, anyway.
Terry Frei can be reached at 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
