Still Trading

The Flyers completed another trade yesterday, acquiring Pavel Kubina for the 2nd round pick acquired from Florida for Kris Versteeg (which is a 2012 or 2013 at Florida's discretion), a 2013 4th round pick and Jon Kalinski.  Kalinski is pretty much a throw-in--he performed adequately for the Flyers in the past, but has been surpassed by other players on the Flyers call-up depth chart.

Together the Flyers acquired Pavel Kubina and Niklas Grossman, and traded away FLA's 2012/2013 2nd round pick, LA's 2nd round pick in 2012 (acquired in Richards trade), Minnesota's 3rd round pick in 2013 (acquired in the Powe trade), and a 4th round pick in 2013.

I have previously wrote how Grossman fits the Flyers needs for a defensive defensemen with size that has been needed since Pronger went down, and also how Kubina's skill set matches the Flyers needs.  In many ways, this goes back to what I said in December--that Pronger's absence created defensive and power play holes that would likely need to be filled by multiple new defensemen.

Focusing specifically on Kubina, I like his skill set, but there is an open question if his skills are declining.  I guess we'll find out.

More broadly, the wisdom of trading a handful of draft picks for players that may only be 2 month rentals has to be questioned.  These trades definitely make the Flyers a marginally better team, but not necessarily a contender.  Too often Flyers games this season turn into anarchy on ice.  It makes them a lot of fun to watch, but defensive calamity and backbreaking goals never feel far away.  These trades cannot address deeper issues that have persisted into last season.  Holmgren, it seems, is incapable of holding onto draft picks.

More to Come?
The Flyers name is still being kicked around in rumors for Nash and Nabokov.  I'm not sure how much sense it makes to acquire either player, particularly with the Bryzgalov situation and Nabokov being another rental player for a team that may be staring at a very short playoff run. 

Also, Nash is super expensive, and may not be worth the assets and cap space.  It was widely reported yesterday that the Columbus GM was at the Flyers game yesterday and met with Holmgren for 45 minutes, but I will take Darren Dreger's word for his summary of the situation: "Price too high for Flyers(at moment) for Nash. May re-engage later. JVR,Bobrovski, Schenn or Couturier believed to be part of asking price."

A JVR+Bobrovsky deal basis isn't too bad, as I do think JVR will never be the player Nash is.  Consider this chart as evidence of that;

This consideration, however has to be weighed against the fact that it's been 3 years since Nash hit the 40 goal mark, and Nash has only hit 70 points once in his career.  I have also previously written that goal scorers tend to be their most productive in their early 20s.  Now I know the obvious counter to this line of thinking is that Nash has been playing with crap players in Columbus and his production will immediately jump elsewhere, but it is very dangerous to expect significantly different production merely by new teammates.  I'm not sure I could bring myself to part with Schenn or Cooter for Nash.