Monday, June 23, 2008

See Ya Later, RJ


You ask and you shall receive.

As demonstrated in the comments today, the locals are not happy with the Flyers' trade of RJ Umberger the other night. Apparently, you aren't the only ones. In fact, the guy that decided to pull the trigger on the move, wasn't crazy over it either. Flyers' GM Paul Holmgren had the following comment:

“We signed R.J. as a 20 year old, put time and effort into him, and we had to give him up for an unknown future. That sucks to put it bluntly. That’s the nature of our business because that’s the position we got into for whatever reason.”

(Christ, I wish we received more plain talking like this from the rest of the GM's in this city.)

Well Paul, if you and your predecessor didn't over pay for a couple guys, you would have been able to re-sign RJ, but that is besides the point.

As for the trade itself, I'm not all that upset about it the more I think about it. They traded a guy that will score 20 goals in his best season for a first round pick that could turn into a guy that could anchor the defense for a decade. I don't think this was a dumb move. Plus, it opens up badly needed cap space to help improve the team this offseason. Which brings us to....

The other trade the Flyers made on Friday to give away their own 1st round pick for Steve Eminger, a reclaimation project defenseman, made absolutely no sense. It seemed to me that they totally overpaid for a guy that wasn't even in the Caps' plans. Not sure what the thinking was on that move or why it was necessary to give up a 1st round pick. I'm still scratching my head.

In any event, we are in store for an interesting offseason.

2 comments:

Jon1BSP said...

When I read they made the Umberger move to make cap space to try and resign Carter, I softened my stance on it. Initially I was against it, but now, yeah, I'd rather have Carter.

George said...

Umberger was a flash in the pan third line player. Nothing to be upset about.