The joke was cruel, even for Flyers fans on April Fool’s Day.

A blogger in Nashville found a photo of Predators goalie Pekka Rinne and defenseman Shea Weber holding baseball caps for a photo shoot and masterfully superimposed Flyers logos onto the caps. The photo was uploaded to an Instagram account that looked like it could have belonged to Rinne.

But it didn’t.

Flyers fans definitely noticed.

Ah, what could have been.

Last summer, Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren signed Weber to an offer sheet for 14 years and $110 million. The Predators thought long and hard before matching it, but in a press release Nashville GM David Poile vowed not to let his organization “be pushed around by teams with deep pockets.”

To put the contract in context, it cost $144 million to build the team’s arena. Granted that was 1996, but Weber makes 25 cents for every second he’s under contract.

Dave Isaac covers the Flyers for 97.3 ESPN and The Courier Post.  Reach Dave Isaac at disaac@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @davegisaac.

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