Fired for Winning

The news that the Flyers are speaking with 39-year old free agent winger Brendan Shanahan was not surprising. Shanahan is a sure fire Hall of Famer with 650 goals to his credit, including 23 last year with the Rangers. The Orange and Black are off to a slow start and have never been an organization that sits around when things aren’t going well. Changes were bound to happen. However, it is surprising that the big news didn’t involve a defenseman.

Through Monday, the Flyers had scored 43 goals this season. Only Detroit has scored more, with 44. The problem is that the Flyers have allowed 41 goals – second worst to Atlanta’s 46 in the East.

After Sunday’s 5-4 loss to the Oilers, Paul Holmgren told CSNPhilly.com that he was “tired of looking at their asses as guys come back up ice on us. I’m not happy with the play of our forwards. They are not helping our defense. Our forwards are cheating on the defensive side of the game. This was something that we didn’t do late last season.”

It’s always easy to blame the goalies and defensemen when goals are scored against you. In this era of the NHL, defense is more of a team effort than ever before. If the forwards are not helping out and slowing the opposition through the neutral zone, you have no chance. Granted, the D is inexperienced and has four new faces back there, and the goaltending has been spotty at best. To hear Homer criticize the forwards though was somewhat of a surprise, even if he was correct.

The Flyers are $700,000 under the salary cap, so signing Shanny would almost certainly shake up the current roster. Would he be a welcome addition to a team 10 points behind the first place Rangers (I hate writing that) in the Atlantic Division? I think so. The Flyers don’t look like a championship team right now. Any player with the resume of Shanahan - three Stanley Cups, eight-time All-Star and 20 years in the league - would command respect and accountability in the locker room. Will he be any help in keeping pucks out of the Flyers’ net? I doubt it.

This situation certainly bears watching. Even if Holmgren does bring in Shanahan, more changes are likely to follow.