Flyerdom Speaks: The Reactions to the Trades

Credit to @ItsAFez66

Might  be a tad bit over the top, also from @ItsAFez66

Hi.
I wanted to know why the Flyers couldn't just release Carcillo, Leighton, Boucher, Shelly, Zherdev and not resign Leino instead of moving Richards.
Thanks.
Art

Ok, I'll tackle this on a player to player basis:

Carcillo: RFA, he's already "off" the books until his situation is resolved.

Zherdev and Boucher: still not enough, Giroux got a 3M raise and losing these to covers Giroux

Shelley and Leighton: Waivers don't go into effect until training camp, there's nothing to do about them until then

So yes, both "had" to go. But this comes back to Holmgren overpaying Timonen, Briere, Hartnell and Pronger all of whom should be making about 1-1.5M less then what they are, Blame Holmgren.

And finally, I leave you with this, a letter from another fan:

I don't understand why direction the front office is going in. The returns for Richards and Carter aren't too bad. Voracek and Schenn could become top line players, Simmonds is a good, young, gritty two-way forward who will endear himself to the fans and has been praised by Giroux. 2012 looks to be a great draft, and according to Anthony SanFilippo, the Flyers are looking to move into the top 3 to select Gabriel Landeskog or Adam Larsson. 
This youth is all well and good and could lead the Flyers to a Cup in five years, but the organization isn't committing to a full rebuild. The defense relies heavily on Chris Pronger (who is on the cap, whether we like it or not, for the next 6 years) and Kimmo Timonen (who has publicly indicated that he will retire after his current contract). Andrej Meszaros, Braydon Coburn, and Matt Carle can all be very good top 4 defense, but neither of them has shown they can anchor a top pairing. Meanwhile, the Flyers really have no top pairing defensive prospects, outside of who they select with the 8th overall (if they keep it) or Adam Larsson (if they move up to 3rd overall and miss out on Landeskog).
Signing Ilya Bryzgalov gives them a Cup-caliber goaltender for the next 5 years or so. After that, Bryzgalov will likely not be worth his $5.667 million cap hit, as only two 35+ year-old starting goalies were in the top 30 in save percentage (Tim Thomas and Dwayne Roloson). The fact that Bryzgalov is signed to a 9-year deal indicates that Sergei Bobrovsky will be traded, as it is hard to imagine Bob wanting to wait for a starting job until he is at least 29 (which is an optimistic assumption of Bryzgalov retiring after the front-loaded 7 years of his contract). The Flyers record of developing goalies leads one to think they will not have a replacement in mind when Bryzgalov does in fact retire.
So my reaction is this: what are we dealing with here? The defense and goaltending is set to compete for the Stanley Cup now, but the offense's youth will likely hold them back. The offense is set to compete for the Stanley Cup in 5 years, but the defense's and goaltender's age and lack of star power will likely hold them back. These moves make no sense.
Perhaps my biggest concern though is how this will affect the future of Claude Giroux and James van Riemsdyk. Mike Richards said, among other things, today, "I probably wouldn't have signed the deal, actually, if I knew I'd be traded." Why would either of these two sign a long term deal with the Flyers now at less than market value? Maybe if Paul Holmgren is fired, this notion would change, but I tend to believe that a lot of this is due to Ed Snider. Part 4 of Holmgren's interview on the Flyers' website makes me believe that his hand was forced, along with the extreme U-turn the team appears to have taken in philosophy. Plain and simple, I do not believe that Paul Holmgren is to blame for trading Mike Richards.
Basically what I'm trying to say is "What is going on?"

Or a more optimistic approach:

Well at first I thought it was going to be like 06-07 all over again, but after they signed Bryzgalov  I looked at who they got and  I realized they got younger and the kids they got can play. I feel that we have to wait and see to figure out if Homer made the right moves

Keep the discussion going.