State of the Flyers...Homer

As we get closer and closer to the start of training camp, I decided to take the next couple weeks and do a "State of the Flyers" post. Ill start at the top, with General Manager Paul Holmgren. Homer spent 8 seasons rocking the orange and black as well as coaching them for about 3 1/2 years. After Bobby Clarke resigned/quit early in the 06/07 season, the team named the Brett Hull look-a-like as interim GM. Many people including myself thought his tenure would be short, as it was widely speculated that the team wanted a high profile name to take over (rumor has it they tried to get one of the biggest d-bags in the league Colin Campbell to take the job) Although the Flyers suffered through the worst season in team history, Homer laid the groundwork for an immediate turnaround. Among his moves during his first year-

Trading Alexi Zhitnik to Atlanta for a young prospect named Braydon Coburn

Giving a second round pick to Buffalo for Marty Biron (say what you want, he played pretty well here, we've certainly had worse)

My personal favorite was the way he used Nashville- Trading an over the hill Peter Forsberg for Ryan Parent, Scottie Upshall, and 2 first round picks. Then sending those picks back to music city in exchange for Scott Hartnell & Kimmo Timonen, not bad eh?

Homer wasn't done rebuilding, he then proceded to trade Joni Pitkanen & Geoff Sanderson to Edmonton in exchange for Jason Smith & Joffery Lupul. Then he went out and got the #1 center that we needed at the time in Danny Briere (more on him in a future post) We all know how that team fared, very well. Despite battling injuries they made it to the conference finals. I believe that Holmgren thought the team was good enough to win it all if they could stay healthy, not that he really could upgrade the roster if he wanted to, as they Fly Guys were pressed up against the cap, which lead to Glen Metropolit, Ossi Vannanen, and Aaron Asham.

The second full season of Holmgren was pure salary cap hell, among other things, we had to put Vannanen and Metro on waivers and trade Upshall for Carcillo to make cap room for Briere to come back after injury. If the cap had been managed better, likely those moves wouldnt have had to happen. After another playoff loss to the Pens, Homer signed controversial goaltender Ray Emery & pulled off one of the biggest trades in team history-sending Lupul, Luca Sbisa & 2 1st round picks to Anaheim for Chris Pronger. The bottom line is-I think Holmgrens legacy as GM will be determined by the results of this trade. If Pronger & Emery help bring us a cup, than Homer is a genius-if not, Paul Holmgren may lose his job and history will not look back at him very kindly.

Next up-Head Coach John Stevens