On the Philadelphia Flyers …
Sam Carchidi of the Philadelphia Daily News: The Flyers are expected to protect seven forwards, three defenseman and one goaltender as opposed to protecting eight skaters and a goalie.
Easy decisions are protecting Claude Giroux, Wayne Simmonds, Jake Voracek, Brayden Schenn, Sean Couturier and Valtteri Filppula up front and Shayne Gostisbehere and Radko Gudas on the blueline.
Forward Jordan Weal is a pending UFA and could be signed, but would then have to be protected if signed before the expansion draft. Do they make a verbal agreement to sign after the draft?
Michael Raffl is forward they could protect.
If the Flyers sign Weal before and protect him, players they could lose include Dale Weise, Scott Laughton, Raffl, Nick Cousins, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Taylor Leier, or Matt Read.
Protecting Brandon Manning on the blueline over Andrew MacDonald makes sense. MacDonald has three years left at $5 million and that may scare away Vegas.
The Flyers will have to decide whether to protect goaltender Michal Neuvirth or Anthony Stolarz.
On the Washington Capitals …
Sportsnet: TVA Sports Renaud Lavoie was on the Sportsnet 590 yesterday talking about the Washington Capitals and Alex Ovechkin. Lavoie notes that it’s a big problem for the Capitals if their best player continues to struggle in the playoffs.
“I know he’s got a strong relationship with the owner Ted Leonsis, I understand that,” Lavoie said. “But at one point for that franchise, I wonder if they’ll think about the unthinkable, which is trying to find a dancing partner to see if there’s a good trade.”
Lavoie adds that management needs to think about organizations future.
“I’m not talking trading Joe Thornton to San Jose for, you know what, not a lot,” he said. “I’m thinking about a big trade that’s going to be help two franchises. Is it possible, is it feasible in the cap era? I don’t know. But they need to think about that, because they have so many good things. They have unbelievable players.”
