All sports bloggers wish they could call themselves an insider for a major sports team and break story after story. However, as most of you already know, I'm just not that cool. I get my sports news the way the rest of you do....Sports Center, the newspaper, internet, etc.
The closest I've ever come to having any pertinent inside information was when I had a real life NFL Coach living on my block. Some of you may recall that my old neighbor was the Assistant Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Birds, but the only inside news this guy ever gave me was that the Birds were signing Jeff Thomason to replace the injured Chad Lewis in the 2005 Super Bowl. Yes, I realize that such news will not put me on par with Len Pasquarelli or the guys at Profootballtalk.com. Anyhow, after this past weekend's events, there may be hope for me yet!
On Saturday, while working on the landscaping in my tiny backyard, I finally had the opportunity to talk to the neighbor who has lived behind me the past three years and discovered that he is on the training staff for the Flyers. My neighbor was watering his freshly planted sod which was laid courtesy of former Phantoms Phan Favorite, Frank "The Animal" Bialowas (more on that in another post) and we got started talking about the Orange and Black's off season plans. To no surprise, he indicated that he expects the team to be aggressive in free agency due to all the money they have under the cap, but also gave me one interesting tidbit. It is likely that Joni Pitkanen is a goner.
He said he just doesn't seem to be mature enough to make it in the NHL. He is a loner and acts more like a 16 year old than a guy in his early 20's. He said he wouldn't be surprised if he returned to Finland in a year or two to return to his family and friends. As such, he thinks Holmgren might look to move him despite his protests in the media that Pitkanen is a guy he wants to build around. It seems like he has come to the same conclusion that many of the phans arrived at last year....the kid is the NHL version of Nuke LaLoosh. A million dollar body, but a 10 cent head. Best to trade the guy now before he loses any more of his remaining value.
If he does go, you can put me in the category of people that will be ecstatic. I just don't think this kid is mentally or physically tough enough to ever be a factor in NHL playoff hockey. Despite for the changes in the new NHL, you still have to have some grit to succeed in the playoffs and Pitkanen is sorely lacking in this category. I still remember when he freaked out during last year's team building exercises in training camp last year when he was the only guy on the team unable to complete the obstacle course. I knew right there and then that this kid was soft.
In any event, I'm all for cutting our losses with this kid and using the savings to pursue another free agent or to trade for a player from a team that is trying to shed salary.
Ok, now that I have a source, I'll try to cultivate it and break some more Flyers' news. Maybe I'll even become the Peter King of the NHL! Unfortunately, even if I did gain some level of inside information for the Orange & Black, only about three of you would read the posts because the rest of you don't care about hockey. I guess that's just my luck, folks.
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