Burnside: A Conservative Approach To Deadline From Hextall
Before Wednesday's NHL Trade Deadline the Flyers made one trade, sending Mark Streit to Tampa Bay in exchange for Forward Valtteri Filppula, a fourth round draft pick and a conditional seventh round pick. Tampa then sent Streit to Pittsburgh. Meanwhile the Flyers signed Goaltender Michal Neuvirth and Forward Pierre-Edouard Bellemare to contract extensions. Flyers General Manager Ron Hextall said on CSN Philly PST today:
"Our whole goal here is to get younger and better every year....My job is to look every day and try to figure ways where we can get better"
ESPN.com NHL Columnist Scott Burnside joined Mike Gill on Wednesday with reaction to the Flyers' transactions before the Trade Deadline:
"After making the playoffs last year and probably ahead of schedule, there certainly have been some ups and downs for this team and I think it's fair to say when you look at their current level of play...I'm not sure they are a playoff team and I think sort of a conservative approach to the (Trade) Deadline from (Flyers GM) Ron Hextall probably bears that out. I was a little bit surprised about Valtteri Filppula coming to the Flyers, he's got a year left on his deal; while it's not a lot of real dollars in terms of his salary, he comes with a five million dollar cap hit which is why the Lightening were desperate to get rid of him given all the issues that (Tampa GM) Steve Yzerman has in terms of his salary cap issues...And a couple draft picks come back to Philadelphia, so nice move there....It's also a day where Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Michal Neuvirth extended by the Flyers, so lots of moving parts for Philadelphia."
Checkout what Burnside had to say about what Valtteri Filppula brings to the Flyers along with his analysis of why the Flyers gave Neuvirth a contract extension and the direction Ron Hextall has for the franchise