Upshall Sent to the Desert

Thursday, March 5, 2009 ·

The NHL trade deadline was yesterday and the Flyers made a few moves that they feel may help them come playoff time. The biggest name to be sent packing was Scottie Upshall, who along with a 2011 second-round pick, was traded to the Phoenix Coyotes for Dan Carcillo.

Yes, it is disappointing to lose a high energy guy like Scottie Upshall, especially after the chemistry he had with Claude Giroux was showing promise, but it is unlikely that the Flyers would have been able to re-sign Scottie Upshall before next season. Scottie would have been a restricted free-agent next season and will likely see a raise over his current $1.25 million cap hit.

The upsetting part of the move was that the Flyers also had to throw in a second round pick. When you think about it though, the Flyers are so deep in their organization that they almost have to move picks or they will not even be able to keep all of their young stars. When the better part of your core players are all under 25 years old, you can get away with moving second round picks.

The Flyers also moved a sixth round pick to San Jose for defenseman for Kyle McLaren. They made the move for McLaren clearly for veteran insurance on the blue-line. McLaren has fallen victim to the salary cap and has spent the entire season in the AHL, where he'll stay unless the Flyers need him in the playoffs. Not a great move, but not a bad move at all either.

Link: CSN Philly

Follow after the jump to read more about Dan Carcillo and watch a few videos.

Dan Carcillo instantly becomes the Flyers leader in hits to go along with his 174 PIM that lead the NHL. I know what you're thinking, "Oh, great, the Flyers just added more penalty minutes." When you dig deeper into the numbers, Carcillo has 27 minor penalties to Scottie Upshall's 24. Both players were high energy players, but they needed to add another hitter to the team to help protect their young stars. Sure, the captain willingly accepts the job, but he's a young star himself.

According to Paul Holmgren's press conference, he feels that Carcillo will be a top 9 forward and I'd expect to see him on the same line as Giroux and Briere. This will be huge as players have already taken a run at Giroux twice. Carcillo will be out there to protect them.

Carcillo's scoring totals should also go up as well. Last year, Carcillo had 13 goals compared to Scottie's 14. Yes, Scottie may have more upside, but how many times can we go out there and say he's going to have a promising year? Carcillo is also under contract for next season at a price under $1 million. I know a lot of people may have fallen in love with the energy Upshall brought, but I doubt they'll be disappointed with Carcillo.

I was a little down on the trade at first and that is why I did not want to write about it last night. Daniel Carcillo will be wearing lucky number 13, but it has not been declared whether or not he'll be in the lineup tonight.

More importantly, this move did provide a little bit of cap room. Claude Giroux will no longer have to go down if another AHLer has to come up.












1 Comments:

John "Roose" Russo said...
March 5, 2009 at 10:23 AM  

But Metropolit wheres #13...

Yea after reading your whole post, that's all I got from it haha. I like the positives and anyone you talk good about isn't that bad at all haha.

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