Pre-Season Notes

By: Patrice L. Leonard

This pre-season has many of Flyers’ fans shaking their heads. First, we had to listen to GM Bobby Clarke excuse his poor off-season antics by saying, “We made our big signings last summer. We didn’t have to do that this year.” Excuse me? Are you serious? I thought a good GM wanted to make his team better whenever he could, however he could. That is why he’s paid the big bucks. That is why he has never had a bad off-season or made a bad personnel decision, right? Can you feel the sarcasm oozing off this page?

He turned this organization into Waste Management by collecting other team’s garbage. Most notably Mark Cullen, Marty Murray, and Nolan Baumgartner. We cannot even manage our own “waste” in Niko Dimitrakos, Denis Gauthier, and Petr Nedved. What Mr. Clarke has done is given us a great big scoop of vanilla ice cream for a team. Would it have hurt to give us a little whipped topping, too? They were out there, dangling for a while. They are the “big” names available this summer, either via free- agency or trade. Patrice Bergeron, Brendan Shanahan, Chris Pronger to name a few. Any one of those people would have helped this team immensely. They list is much longer, like a kid’s wish list at Christmas. I will give myself another headache if I try to name all the players that would have been a good fit here.

Right now, this team is as boring to watch as the New Jersey Devils. All shiny and ready to go, but without any personality. That will hurt us in the end. Where is the chemistry? Where is the grit? Heck, I would settle for someone, anyone to barrel over people. There will not be many boards rattling when this team is on the ice this year. You have a young Steve Downie who is not ready for the NHL by a long shot. Then there is one of my favorites, Mike Richards. He is small and mighty. He does not back down from anything. He showed it the other night when he introduced his fists to Washington’s superstar, Alexander Ovechkin’s face. He will do it, just out of pure heart and zeal. Hatcher even put on his tough guy shirt and bloodied one of the Capitals.

That aside, what are we going to do? We are weak in the true sense of the word. Coach Hitchcock states that his team is “team tough”. What the devil does that mean? They can only go to the bathroom in groups? My son does that in his Kindergarten class. I think it’s a load of you-know-what personally. An excuse and a way to get around the where is the toughness that this team has always prided itself on in the past? In addition, do not give me the it’s the new NHL stuff again. The NHL was new last season. You always need the intimidation factor and the only way we will be able to intimidate any team is if a few of our guys start spraying opposing players with their numerous cans of hairspray. Those players shall remain nameless. However, I will tell you that one of them has 25 million new reasons to try every product on the market.

This leads me to the “bubble”. At practice the other day it was more than obvious that the players on the ice, there were only about ten of them, were the bubble players. Their jobs are in jeopardy. Bobby Clarke had called them out specifically and voiced his opinion. Peter Forsberg and Sami Kapanen were there to run the practice and show these rabble how to do the most menial of plays. Most notable on the ice were Freddy Meyer, last year’s Cinderella story. He came back from a broken leg in pre-season to have a great rookie year. Denis Gauthier was there too. He just stinks. No way around it. But Cullen, Cote, and the others were all Clarke’s fault. Dimitrakos has already been put on waivers and we’ll see if anyone is dumb enough to risk signing a player that has no ambition.

Bottom line, this team is in potential trouble. Sure, it has talent. Sure, it has speed now. But a team that has no chemistry with each other is doomed to a fate worse than playing in Florida. I hear Dr. Phil is running a clinic on growing up and reaching your potential. But, then again, you’re only as good as your front office makes you.