According to TSN’s Bob McKenzie, the Flyers have placed defenseman Matt Walker on waivers on Thursday.

Walker, 30, dressed in only four games for the orange and black after being acquired in the Simon Gagne trade from Tampa Bay. He didn’t register any points.

With Chris Pronger back from injury, it was only a matter of time before the Flyers deemed it best to waive Walker and his heavy $1.7 million cap hit.

What this means for the Flyers is that they’re content with their depth at the NHL level with Oskars Bartulis being their seventh defenseman, but they would like to keep Walker in the system.

Should Walker clear waivers, he’ll be assigned to the Adirondack Phantoms.

It also may be a sign that the Flyers plan to being active at this year’s trade deadline, which is Feb. 28th at 3 PM.

The Flyers can afford a player with a yearly cap hit around $3 million per Dustin Leed of The Fourth Period.

Another possibility is that a contract extension with pending free agent Ville Leino could be in the fold sometime in the near future.

Because the Flyers weren’t forced to dump salary, it’s safe to speculate that general manager Paul Holmgren is up to something.

What it is, however, nobody knows.
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Zherdev could be on his way out of Philadelphia.


For the first time since he suffered a sprained knee against Ottawa last month, Dan Carcillo returned to the lineup in the Flyers 2-1 overtime win in Boston Saturday night.

To clear the way for Carcillo’s return, coach Peter Laviolette made Nikolay Zherdev a healthy scratch for the third time this season.

Zherdev was signed by the orange and black during the offseason for $2 million for one year.

Through 31 games, Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren’s flier isn’t working out as originally planned.

In 28 games, Zherdev has nine goals and one assists with a +2 rating and 10 penalty minutes.

When bringing the 26-year-old to Philly, Holmgren knew what he was getting; pure offensive talent with major flaws in his all around game and attitude.

His thinking was that a year in Russia would remind Zherdev how much of a decrease in competition and lifestyle playing in the KHL is compared to playing in North America.

While it’s still early enough to made a noticeable impact, Zherdev has displayed all the negatives that led to him playing in Russia last year.

The book on the former first rounder was that he floats in the defensive and offensive zone, takes shifts off and is lazy.

Nothing he has done thus far suggest he’s a better player.

Blessed with natural talent, Zherdev thinks he doesn’t have to skate in the offensive or defensive zones, only in the neutral zone.

His style of play and Laviolette’s system is like fitting a square peg in a round hole.

With an inconsistent work ethic on the ice, Zherdev starts out each game on the fourth line with Blair Betts and Jody Shelley. Lavy’s plan is to make the Russian earn his playing time. In most games, Zhe usually makes it up to the third line with Jeff Carter and Claude Giroux.

Laviolette has shown in his year-plus tenure that no player is given ice time based on pure ability. Look at Ville Leino, who couldn’t crack the lineup until an late season injury allowed him to play in the playoffs.

Leino is now a second line winger on Danny Briere and Scott Hartnell’s line.

Earlier this year, Laviolette sat Homer’s second overall pick in 2006 James van Riemsdyk because he couldn’t light the lamp if the puck was on his tape with an open net.

Since JVR cracked his way back into the lineup, he has been a different player. More like the kid who showed up in the preseason than the player who wouldn’t use his size to his advantage.

van Riemsdyk has five goals since returning to the lineup.

The Flyers said that they expected a physical contest against the Bruins, hence the decision to insert Carcillo for Zherdev.

From this point forward, no one knows when Laviolette plans to put him back in the lineup, if at all.

Taking into account the looming roster decisions Holmgren has to make when Michael Leighton returns from back surgery, it’s not a stretch to wonder if Zherdev will be a cap casualty.

The Flyers have the scoring depth to be able to survive without Zherdev’s nine goals. Four players already have double digit tallies with Briere leading the way with 16.

In order to activate Leighton from the lone term injured reserve, the Flyers will have to clear $1.555 million.

Then, if they go with Leighton as the backup to rookie Sergei Bobrovsky, Holmgren will have to make two moves.

For example, waive or trade Brian Boucher and Matt Walker, Carcillo or Zherdev.

As it looks today, Boosh isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon.

Rather than losing defensive depth in waiving Walker, shopping Nik Zherdev for a draft pick would be wise.

It’s never too early to admit a mistake. If Zherdev isn’t playing the system, wouldn’t it make sense to trade him rather than paying him $2 million to sit in the press box?
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Michael Leighton gets two more games of conditioning.


On Monday afternoon, Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren told reporters on a conference call that goalie Michael Leighton is not ready to return to the Flyers after a six-day conditioning period with the Adirondack Phantoms.

Holmgren said that he filed for an extension for the conditioning assignment per the CBA, and a couple hours later, the NHL granted his request. Since the league approved the request, Leighton will return to the Phantoms for two more games.

According to the Flyers website, Leighton will play for Adirondack this coming weekend when the Phantoms play Syracuse and Portland on Friday and Saturday.

That will mean Holmgren will have to make a decision on Sunday on what to do with Leighton, unless they decide to play him on Sunday against the Connecticut Whale in Hartford, Conn. If he plays Sunday, that gives the Flyers an extra day to make a roster decision.

As it stands now, the Flyers have $556,876 in cap space (per CapGeek.com). When Leighton is healthy enough to come off the long-term injured list (LTIR), his cap hit will be $1.555 million, which means Holmgren will have to make a move.

In the conference call, Holmgren said he expects to carry three goalies for “the short term.”

If you’re asking yourself what “the short term” means, Holmgren meant that he’ll have to wait and see what happens before he makes an ultimate decision on what to do with his goaltending situation.

What we know is that Sergei Bobrovsky is not going anywhere, and is the team’s starting goalie.

“Sergei seized the opportunity,” Holmgren said. “We certainly have no intention of sending Sergei down right now because we can, he doesn’t need waivers or anything. We’re not thinking like that.”

Sometime in the next few weeks, the Flyers will move a goalie, whether it’s trading or waiving Brian Boucher or Leighton, but that’s not the move Holmgren will make this weekend.

And with that, what are the Flyers options?

For starters, they’ll have to either waive/trade a player or opt to place Ian Laperriere or Matt Walker on LTIR. As Broad Street Hockey pointed out last week, LTIR may not be the best road to take.

If the Flyers place Laperriere on LTIR doesn’t take his salary off the cap; adding him to LTIR will only allow them to add a player they otherwise could not afford according to George Detweiler of BSH

Another alternative is to transfer Walker from injured reserve to LTIR, who hasn’t played this year after undergoing hip surgery on Oct. 20, or simply waive the 30-year-old defenseman.

Walker has a $1.7 million cap hit, and is expendable given the Flyers’ depth on the blue line.
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Simon Gagne's 10-year career in Philadelphia is over.


As everyone has been expecting, the Flyers pulled the trigger and traded away their longest-tenured player in Simon Gagne. But in an unexpected twist, the Flyers got next to nothing in return for a player who played such a large role in their recent Stanley Cup push.

They traded Gagne away to the Tampa Bay Lightning, and in return received defenseman Matt Walker and a 2011 fourth-round draft pick. So in a move that was supposedly made to free up cap space, why exactly did they trade for a guy scheduled to make $1.7 million per season over the next three years?

"This was a move to solidify our defense," said Flyers' GM Paul Holmgren. "Matt Walker is a right shot defenseman that we like. He brings size, grit and toughness to our backend."

So they traded for a defenseman to sure up their defense. Thanks a lot, Paul.

But that still doesn't answer the question as to why they'd pick up his contract when they're so strapped for cap space. Trading Gagne away was supposed to alleviate that, but now all they've done is perhaps come closer to breaking even.

However, as Sam Carchidi of Philly.com points out, the move likely isn't complete.

"GM Paul Holmgren received lots of criticism after the trade was announced," Carchidi writes, "but the deal cannot be judged until the next domino falls."

Clearly Carchidi believes Holmgren will deal one of the dozen or so defensemen the Flyers have acquired as of late in return for a legitimate scoring threat to replace Gagne.

If he is able to pull that off, then the tone of the next article will be a lot more positive. However, until then, this looks like an absolute misfire on Holmgren's part. If you're going to trade away one of the most popular players on the team, you had better have a sound plan to replace him.

But, it hasn't all been a loss as at least one party in all of this is happy about the move.

"My initial reaction was pure excitement," said Walker after finding out he'd been traded to the Flyers. "To find out that I was coming to Philly, I don’t know if I would say it was a life-long dream, but I’ve always wanted to play in Philly and I thought I would be a good fit there."

Walker had better be right about being a good fit, otherwise he's going to be forever remembered as "that bum we got for Gagne." But at least he'd be able to join Holmgren as "that bum who traded away Gagne."
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