Here is my best guess as to what the Flyers base lineup will be.
Notes to this chart
-Nearly all of these salary numbers are final, except for Bourdon and Voracek. They are RFAs, and I have guessed at salaries for them
-Pronger, Kubina, Carle and Jagr are not in this lineup.
-A salary cap of $69 million, which is a number that has been thrown around. Obviously with the CBA expiring things could get interesting regarding the cap.
THE ISSUES
-Is Jagr coming back?
That is the first question to answer. If the season ended in January, I would say definitely. He looked tired and beat up as the season carried on though, and his role was reduced. Jagr loved everything about playing for the Flyers this year, and he sounds like he wants one more year in the NHL, but he won't sign here unless he feels he will get significant minutes. He signed with the Flyers against expectations last year because he thought it was a good "hockey fit", and he will leave if that "hockey fit" no longer applies.
-The Defense
By signing Grossmann to an extension, the Flyers took care of their top offseason priority in April. That seems like a decent contract, provided his knees hold up. The Flyers still need help back here though, with Pronger seemingly done, and Timonen is at the end of his career, undersized, and has not survived an 82 game season without sustaining performance-inhibiting injuries the last 2 seasons.
I don't think Carle will be back, because someone will be willing to give him $5m+ a year for several years, and I don't think the Flyers should be that team. You never know though with the way Clarke is talking. There's also a (very) small chance Timonen could retire, freeing up his $6.3m salary, and the Flyers could chase Suter for big money.
Lastly, I've seen spitballing the Flyers could trade for someone like Weber, would involve trading significant assets. Such a move fits the Flyers MO, and while it would hurt to trade away more picks and young forwards, a defense corps with Coburn, Carle and Weber could be rock solid for several years. So many variables to that though...
-Size up front
The Flyers score a ton of goals, but their forward corps is small and not very physical. A big body for the 2/3rd line (who plays big) would balance the roster.
-Goaltending
Nothing to discuss here really. Bryzgalov did not have a good year overall, but I expect improvement next year now that he knows what to expect in Philly. His instincts with the media are wrong for the town, but he's figuring it out.
If you recall, at the end of February, Bryzgalov made comments about "finding the peace in his soul" to play in this city. Most commented that this was a very troubling sign reflecting a discouraged player, and I said it was a good sign. For the record, on the day of that comment, Bryzgalov's save percentage stood at .898. After that comment, he had a spectacular month of March and had a .929 save percentage for the remainder of the season. He will still makes gaffes, but now he knows the lay of the land in Philly and will be better for it.
THE PLAN
There are a ton of ways you could go, but this is what I would do:
-Trade JVR, preferably for an up-and-coming dman. I'm not sure what the trade value of JVR is right now, and if it's diminished in the last few months, but surely the Flyers could make a "hockey trade" for a talented young defenseman whose career is also experiencing less than an exponential growth. Personally, I don't see JVR as a player who will ever consistently perform at all-star level, and the team needs defense more than another skating forward.
JVR could also be the centerpiece of a larger deal for a prominent defensemen.
-Sign a rugged 2/3 line winger to fill JVR's now vacant spot in the top nine. Unfortunately there aren't many such candidates out there on the UFA market, though Shane Doan, Ryan Smyth, Paul Gaustad, Dustin Penner, Alexei Ponikarovsky, Travis Moen and Daniel Winnik might be worth looking into.
-If you can skillfully pull these two things off, the Flyers will still have $3-7 million in cap space to play with, allowing for other signings or taking salary in a trade that could further bolster the defense.
-Make an executive order for system adjustments. I've been beating this drum for a few months. I was really hoping that, as a silver lining to a deep Flyers cup run, would be to buck the trend of tight defense in the NHL today. Alas, look at the teams left in the playoffs; LA (2nd in goals against, and they eliminated VAN and STL who were 4th and 1st respectively), Phoenix (5th), NY (3rd), NJ (9th) and the Caps, who are 21st but only because they started a season with a different coach. Clutch-and-grab is creeping back into the game.
I also believe Bryzgalov will look like a different goalie in a defense-first scheme. This is how he did it in PHX, and his clear weaknesses are side-to-side movement and shot recovery. Defense-first is the way the wind is blowing, and could maximize the talent the Flyers have. Can Lavy make that adjustment? If the team is still leaking goals and looking unspectacular in December, his seat will begin to get hot.
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