As we count down to the start of training camp, there's sad news to report as local media outlets are reporting that Keith Primeau will announce his retirement in the next day or two. He's been trying and trying to overcome his post-concussion symptoms, but I guess it's just not to be. His retirement will leave a leadership void on the Flyers. Who will be the next captain? Last year Derian Hatcher didn't cut it last year while Primeau was sidelined. Simon Gagne turned down the C as he apparently didn't feel he was ready. Maybe now with the new 5-year contract he'll change his mind.

This seems to help explain why the Flyers signed Group II free agent Ryan Kessler to an one-year offer sheet reportedly in the amount of $1.9 million. Vancouver has a week to match it or let him go for a 2nd-round draft pick as compensation, and they reportedly only wanted to pay him $850,000.

Meanwhile, you'll be happy to know that Comcast is now going after Ticketmaster. Individual Flyers game tickets are going on sale Saturday, and the online sales will be at comcasttix.com now.

(The site currently lists the following venues on their home page: the Wachovia Center and Spectrum; Temple's Liacouras Center; the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton; the Borgata casino in Atlantic City; the Budweiser Events Center in Larimer County, Colorado; and the Rose Quarter in Portland, including the Portland Trail Blazers. I guess they have a ways to go before they can really challenge Ticketmaster.)

I'm not buying a partial game plan this year so I'll have to get a couple of individual game tickets. If anyone wants to go....

[ September 12, 2006, 11:33 PM: Message edited by: FireCharlieManuelNow ]

Thats really sad, and I only wish the guy the best. I know he will be missed.

The numerous times I spoke with Adam Deadmarsh about his difficult recovery from post-concussion syndrome always left me numb, wondering how its sufferers could function at all with the disorientation they felt. Keith Primeau gave much to the game; here's hoping that he fully recover from his post-concussion syndrome. Is there any chance he could wind up in the Flyers' front office somewhere?

~Adam

They tend to offer jobs in the organ-EYE-zation to retiring players. Eric Desjardins was offered one but said at his retirement press conference he doesn't want a job in hockey yet. I'm not sure if Primeau wants one. He does have some sort of business he's involved in, so he may spend more time with that.

Meanwhile, regarding the new ComcastTix business...I went to their website and since preseason tickets are already for sale, I decided to check out the fees.

For a $20.00 family section ticket there's a $7.10 fee and a $3.50 order charge. So a $20 ticket is going for $30.60.

For a lower level $89.00 ticket they're charging the $3.50 order charge plus a $9.67 fee (what is it with these odd cents?) -- so the $89 ticket is going for $102.17. By comparison, in February I bought a single Flyers ticket ($85.00 at the time) through Ticketmaster and the total charged was $96.20.

Even factoring in the previously announced ticket price increase, Comcast seems to be charging higher fees than Ticketmaster. What's really outrageous is this line in today's paper from the president of Comcast-Spectacor, Peter Luukko:

Yeah, well how about starting with the Flyers? You already own that team, you weasel!

[ September 13, 2006, 04:30 PM: Message edited by: FireCharlieManuelNow ]

Damn, the big leagues are expensive. In contrast my Chiefs have not increased their prices now for 4 straight years, and they have been 4 crappy years too. But if they have a winning season this year, and fingers are crossed, the prices will most certainly go up next year!

With Keith Primeau's retirement becoming official, the new Flyers' captain has been named, and it's someone you all know and love: Peter Forsberg.

Foppa's first job as Captain will be to recruit as many Flyers as possible to play for MoDo. wink

~Adam

The Flyers have signed coach Ken Hitchcock to a new 3-year contract. It replaces the final year of his current contract and adds two more years. There was some concern that if a new deal wasn't done before the season, issues about players and a lame-duck coach could arise as the year went on. With that out of the way, only on-ice issues have to be resolved, like who's going to start in goal and what the defense will look like.

And if the Flyers start the season with a losing streak, how soon before "FireKenHiitchcockNow" becomes a nom de post?

~Adam

I like Hitchcock. That phrase won't be seen on my screen name any time soon. Besides, the Phils have to get rid of their manager (or make the playoffs) first. It's not a sure bet that either will happen.

But if I didn't like Hitchcock, and if I really cared much about the NBA, could you imagine the problems I'd have? I'd either have to choose, or go with...
"FireCharlieManuelAndAndyReidAndMauriceCheeksAndKenHitchcockNow" eek! eek! eek!

The Flyers lost their exhibition opener 5-4 to Pittsburgh in a game in Moncton, New Brunswick, but the real news of that game is that the Pens' touted rookie Evgeni Malkin was hurt in his Penguin debut. He hit the ice after a collision with teammate John LeClair, left the game and was taken to a hospital. It appears to be a left arm injury.

Peter Forsberg will play in tonight's exhibition game against Ottawa. It was thought a while back that he'd be out until January 2007 after his latest surgery, but he's obviously well ahead of schedule.

Goalie Antero Niittymaki was one of the 17 Flyers who had surgery this past off-season. He had a torn right labrum in his right hip repaired. Well, this morning at practice he suffered the same injury in his left hip. He'll see the doctor who did his prior surgery tomorrow, and if it's decided he needs surgery on the left hip he may be out 6 to 8 weeks.

If that happens the Flyers may look for another goalie to back up Robert Esche.

I just read about this today. Let us hope that injuries are not the main story here when the season begins.

Antero Niittymaki isn't going to have surgery yet. It seems that the hip specialist thinks he can get through the season with a series of cortisone injections throughout the season (one tomorrow, one in December and one just before the playoffs) combined with a rigorous strength program. He would then have surgery after the season.

I don't know that I like this. I'd rather him have the surgery and come back strong. It seems to me that he'll be a question mark all season.

The season begins tonight in Pittsburgh!

LET'S GO FLYERS!

It should be a spirited affair. Seems like every time these two teams get togther its always interesting. Pittsburgh was mentioned last night as another team who have made some big improvements. Remains to be seen. I will be watching the outcome of this tilt...wish it was on the tv.

Do you have digital cable? If so there's a free preview of the NHL Center Ice package until Oct. 10th. Something tells me that I'm going to order it again this year...if anyone wants to help me pay for it I accept PayPal.

Used to, no longer..though. Sadly I heard about the promo from my neighbor.

The 40th Anniversary season is off to a pathetic start, with a 4-0 loss at Pittsburgh. The Flyers were 0 for 10 on the power play, including two 5-on-3's.

4-0?? Ouch. .......

Tonights game of the week is the Flyers/Rangers game. Always fun when these two get togther. Versus will be the place to be this evening!!

The Flyers are reportedly trying to sign Brian Leetch.

He would be quite the catch.

He's 38 and reportedly out of shape. Still, he'd probably be better than Mike Rathje.

And yet another Flyer win in enemy territory on Madison Square Garden ice. They came out with some jump, and were rewarded early for their efforts, unlike the Rangers who I thought looked sloppy, esp. in the first period. Forsberg's goal was a thing of beauty. I am guessing the Jagr is still not nearly 100%. He sure didn't look like it.

The Flyers are off to a 1-3-1 start after losing at New Jersey last night. Their next 3 games are at Buffalo, Tampa Bay and Florida. They could be staring at a 1-6-1 start. The power play is something like 4 for 40. Despite the talk about added depth and increasing contributions from the youngsters, all but three of their goals have come from the Forsberg-Gagne-Knuble line.

One thing Ken Hitchcock has done constantly since the first game of the year is change line combinations. It continues tomorrow in Buffalo, with Mike Knuble moved off the Forsberg line to try and get another line going. The Forsberg/Knuble/Gagne line has scored 8 of their 11 goals.

Quote of the day from Robert Esche, who's getting his first start since opening night's 4-0 loss at Pittsburgh -- he was asked about Hitchcock's decision to give him the start:

Esche: "I don't want to try getting into his head."
Reporter: "It's impossible, isn't it?"
Esche: "...it's an empty place."

Robert Esche was the only Flyer who showed up tonight in their 9-1 loss to the Sabres. He was the only reason the game was scoreless after one period. It was 1-0 midway through the second when the Flyers' defensive effort completely collapsed and by the end of two it was 6-0. The third period was garbage time and the Flyers lived up to that name and continued to play like garbage.

Unless you're a real diehard hockey fan there's not much reason to follow this team. Even if they rebound from their 1-4-1 start -- the worst record in the Eastern conference and second-worst in the entire league -- they have NO CHANCE of winning the Stanley Cup or even getting into the finals.

My question is why the heck did they leave Esche in to take the 9 goals???? He could have sued for non-support.

The only explanation Hitchcock gave after the game was really a non-explanation: "We're going to win as a team and lose as a team. This is not on Robert Esche. Robert Esche played great. He played great in the first period, he played great to keep it where it was, he did a great job. This is not on Esche."

This is a disturbing quote from Mike Richards after the game: "Typical Philadelphia Flyers hockey game there. We got behind the eight ball, we had a little bit of pressure on us and we folded."

There's been a shakeup today as they waived center Petr Nedved, winger Niko Dimitrakos and defenseman Nolan Baumgartner. Nedved was doing a decent job early on in a defensive role, especially on penalty killing, so that's a little puzzling. Baumgartner was highly touted by the team when they signed him. I don't know why.

Road trip over: 0-4. The Flyers 1-6-1 record is worst in the NHL. They did actually have a lead tonight in the second period at Florida at 2-1...for 34 seconds. That's progress. But both goals were by Simon Gagne. No one else on this team outside the Forsberg/Gagne/Knuble combo can score.

Speaking of, Peter Forsberg didn't play tonight due to his sprained wrist but the MRI showed nothing broken and he may be able to play next week when the Flyers return home after a 5-day break.

The Flyers have cleaned house, with GM Bob Clarke resigning and coach Ken Hitchcock being fired. It's a bit of a surprise, because it's only 8 games into the season. But it's also amusing in light of this column the other day in which the writer predicted nothing would happen. Clearly one must not misunderestimate Ed Snider, or call him out as this writer did.

Clarke was talking about burnout at his press conference. That's hard to believe. He's never given any indication before of anything other than loving his job. Speculation is he was asked to resign.

Assistant coach John Stevens (who coached the AHL Phantoms to the Calder Cup championship in 2004-05) takes over as head coach and assistant GM Paul Holmgren takes over for Clarke. But if the problem is the players (and having statues like Derian Hatcher on defense would indicate this is so) then Stevens isn't going to be of much help. As for Holmgren:

1) if Clarke really was burned out and, as he said in his remarks, delegating responsibilty, then Holmgren is as much to blame for this mess as anyone
2) if the burnout remarks are just a cover because Snider didn't want to actually fire Clarke, then Holmgren is a complete unknown who's done nothing to indicate he can put together a team. (edit to add) I forgot he was GM in Hartford some time ago. So he's not a complete unknown, just incompetent.

The John Stevens era starts with...holy crap, a win! Okay, it was in a shootout but it was against Atlanta, who came into the game 7-1-2, so it qualifies as a pretty good win even though I didn't think the Flyers played particularly well. Next up is that rookie monster Malkin, diving Crosby and the rest of the Penguins.

So, that makes the Pens 2-0 against the Flyers this year, outscoring them 12-2 (6:1 ratio). Who woulda thunk, eh? It looks like that diving Crosby did a number on your Flyers, recording his first career hat trick and all. I particularly enjoy when teams get frustrated to the point where some players end up with ten-minute game misconducts. The Flyers may be able to win the battle of the rabbit punches, but at the end of the game, it doesn't translate into the necessary two points.

As if the Flyers didn't have enough problems, Mike Knuble will be out about 2 weeks as he had surgery to repair a fractured middle finger on his left hand. With 9 points, he's the Flyers' leading scorer.

The Flyers beat the fading, injury-hampered Blackhawks 3-0. A decent effort but still, all the scoring came from Forsberg (2) and Gagne (empty net). And they were 0 for 6 on the powerplay. On the season 6 for 70, or 8.6 percent! And looking at their stats, we see that the leaders in plus/minus are Randy Robitaille and Stefan Ruzicka, each plus-one. Derian Hatcher is MINUS-14.

TSN reports that the Flyers have offered their GM job to Colin Campbell. Why? Who knows?

The Flyers are back to their old losing ways new coach or not. Tonight they were done in by the Capitals 5-3 after spotting them a 4-1 lead. Ovechkin was unstoppable as usual scoring twice and knocking Gauthier silly to the ice. The team had yet another post game closed meeting as if that is going to matter. This Flyers simply do not have the speed or defense to stop decent teams. I really don't understand how this team tallied 101 points last year only to be so bad this year.

Not so much having 101 points, but that they were on a pace for much more than that. For much of the first half of last season they were tops in the league, even after that ridiculous 11-game road trip. Then after all the injuries they didn't have the depth of talent or speed to compete. They didn't address the problem areas over the summer and fell apart once the season started.

This is going to be an ugly season.

A 4-1 loss at Toronto last night despite 41 Flyers shots on goal. Another useless power play dropped them to 7 for 87 on the season. That's not exactly 1 goal out of every 4 or 1 out of every 5...more like 1 out of every 12.4.

Quote of the day from philly.com:



And Jeff Carter is out for up to 6 weeks with a broken left ankle. It just gets worse...

More Flyers losses: last Thurs. at home to the Islanders, last Sat. (despite rallying from a 3-1 deficit to lead 4-3 in the third) in OT to the Sabres at home, and tonight at Pittsburgh.

The power play continues to suck, they continue to play pylons Derian Hatcher and Mike Rathje on defense, Peter Forsberg can't find a skate that makes his right ankle comfortable -- today they're giving him some brace to wear on his foot, if I heard correctly -- and the rest of the week they're out west with games in Anaheim, Los Angeles (hi Adam, wherever you are) and San Jose.

For some reason they re-acquired Todd Fedoruk from Anaheim. While I don't dislike him, it's not like he's going to be the key in getting this Titanic of a team afloat again.

Well, this makes perfect sense. Anaheim came into the game with a 13-1-4 record, but the Flyers rolled to a 5-1 lead 16 minutes into the first period, sending Anaheim goalie J.S. Giguere to the bench at that point. After that they had 5 shots on goal the rest of the night, but the Ducks got only within 5-3 after two, and the Flyers got 2 more goals in the third and went on to win 7-4. Shockingly, 3 of their 4 goals were on the power play.

Initial reviews of Peter Forsberg's brace are positive, as he had a goal and an assist and seemed to be skating much better than he has all season.



Tonight they try to win 2 in a row for the first time this season in L.A.

The Flyers did get their 2nd win in a row, coming back from a 3-1 gap to score 3 late 3rd-period goals and beat the Kings 4-3. Then they got blasted 6-1 at San Jose. Back to the drawing board.

Head coach John Stevens has been signed to a 2-year deal (this season and next).

Hi Joe, is the season over yet? Very, very painful - and getting harder to watch.

Theoretically, it's not over. But realistically, over a quarter of the season is done and they're 10 points out of a playoff spot with every team in the conference at least 6 points ahead of them. The current roster (especially the pylons on defense Hatcher and Rathje) doesn't hold out any real hope for improvement soon. They seem incapable of giving a maximum effort on a sustained basis. It comes and goes. The coaching change has NOT helped. Joni Pitkanen, of whom much has been expected, has seriously underachieved. The young forwards haven't produced up to expectations either. The offseason roster moves have been mostly a waste (thanks to the burned-out GM?). The goaltending isn't stealing any games. Forsberg continues to struggle with his ankle and skate issues.

The worst part of this is that even if they end up with a very high draft pick, the prognosis is that there are no Crosbys or Ovechkins in the upcoming draft so they wouldn't even get a young star to build around.

The good news -- well, good for me -- is, if this keeps up there should be lots of people wanting to sell their lower-level seats really cheap, as this report from Tuesday's paper indicates:

You nailed what is wrong with them and why we shouldn't expect too much (even after 2 recent wins) in your summary! Good luck getting the 'best seat in the house'

Another two-game win streak down the tubes. A 3-2 loss to Nashville because of a terrible giveaway by Mike Rathje leading to the game-winning goal late in the third period. He was booed by the crowd every time he touched the puck afterwards -- something that I want to continue non-stop until the Flyers finally get rid of him. They keep saying in the papers he's playing hurt. If so, he should be on injured reserve. Either way he has to go.

And if the Flyers aren't old and slow enough, philly.com says they're interested in bringing back ancient, washed-up John LeClair! LeClair was just waived by Pittsburgh. It's mind-boggling to think the Flyers would take him back.

Edit to add: Rathje is out "indefinitely" and he and the Flyers will sit down tomorrow and "discuss his future." What future? Let him retire.

Okay, this is progress, then...a 3-2 win over the Islanders gives the Flyers 3 wins in their last 4 games for the first time this season. With the aforementioned Rathje out of the lineup and Joni Pitkanen also sidelined with a sore hip flexor, the defense corps consisted of 5 rookies/second-year players and Derian Hatcher.

I went down to see the Flyers for the first time this season, and needless to say, they lost. They just didn't show up for the first period, rallied in the second and then fell apart in the third as the amazing Alexander Ovechkin led Washington to a 5-3 win. And besides the continuing Peter Forsberg "my foot won't stay stable in my skate" soap opera which is leading to him missing at least 3 more games, both Geoff Sanderson and Mike Richards suffered abdominal pulls and may miss a lot of time. Joni Pitkanen strained his abdomen the night before and according to the Phila. Inquirer his injury "bears close watching because general manager Paul Holmgren said the pull was very near where his sports hernia surgery occurred last season."

Of course, the same article made mention of Tuesday's upcoming "critical game against the Rangers." Ummm, if a game in December can be considered critical at all, it's only critical for the Rangers, the only team that will be on the ice Tuesday wth a remote chance of making the playoffs.

The Flyers traded D Freddy Meyer and a conditional draft pick to the Islanders for D Alexei Zhitnik.

Meyer is 25. Zhitnik is 34.

What is wrong with this picture? You're supposed to try and get young talent. Not trade someone young for someone old. Oh, and Zhitnik is making $3.5 mil this year and is signed for 2 more years and $7 mil. Meyer is making $525,000.

This is asinine. Completely and utterly asinine. This is a deal that Bob Clarke would have made, probably even before he burned out.