Thank you, Scott Hartnell

After playing some video games for a couple of hours yesterday, I got back to my PC to look up what's new and the world shocked me once again. Scott Hartnell was traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets in return for R.J. Umberger and a 4th round pick. My regular forums, Twitter and Reddit were abuzz and nobody really knew why this trade went down.

Scott Hartnell is simply a favorite among the Flyers fans. He is an upstanding guy who writes childrens books, is always up for any charitable event (including donating his own hair) and a class act all the way through. He took anything in stride, whether it was little rubs from his fans, counting up how often he would fall down during a game, or his enemies throwing juvenile insults at him and him just going along with it.

I checked both his Twitter and Facebook pages immediately, and he had already made posts saying thanks to the Flyers, their fans and the city of Philadelphia and had already created a 50% discount for his personal merchandise.

But Hartnell was more than just a great person to the Flyers fans, he was also a great player during his time in Philadelphia. He scored 326 points with 157 goals in his 517 games as a Flyer in the Regular season, plus another 32 points with 12 goals in 52 playoff games. But even beyond simple stats, Hartnell was great as an all-round power forward. He worked well with virtually every line he was put on, whether as a winger for Jeff Carter, Danny Briere, Claude Giroux, or whomever. He was always there and he always put in effort. And from all accounts he was also always a locker room guy here, true glue and always fun to be around.

In a way, Hartnell was what you think of when you think of a Flyers player. A rough guy with a heart of gold, who will go into the dirty areas, fight if he has to, with questioned but nevertheless present hockey skill, beloved by the Flyers faithful and vilified by their rivals.

Hartnell loved the Flyers, and the Flyers loved him back.

And thus it is even more puzzling why and how this trade happened. Hartnell had a No Movement Clause on his contract, which means that any and all movements of him as a player, whether trade or assignment to the minor leagues, must be approved by him. From the press conferences it appears that it was Ron Hextall who put the trade forward, wanting to speed up the team, and Hartnell agreed after learning of it and believing he was no longer wanted by the organization.

This is Ron Hextall's first major move as the Flyers GM, and it is a shocker for the fans, and even some of the players. Very disappointing and somewhat puts Hextall himself into question about understanding the fans.

At least the Flyers got an acceptable return. R. J. Umberger is a good player, and somewhat comparable to Hartnell in production, age, contract etc. but not in play style. Justin Bourne immediately called the trade for the Blue Jackets, and the numbers seem to agree with him. I myself believe Hartnell to be the better player, but I also think Umberger is severely underrated, and a good playoff performer who unfortunately never really got the opportunity to show it on a weak Columbus team hardly ever making the playoffs.

My thinking is that Umberger will slot in as a left wing on the second line alongside Brayden Schenn, while Wayne Simmonds will take over Hartnell's spot on the first line with Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek. Simmonds is basically a carbon copy of Hartnell in terms of physical presence and play style, making this look a likely scenario.

In any case it will be hard for Umberger to replace Hartnell's presence among the fan community, making it big shoes to fill. Umberger does have a headstart here though, as he was a fan favorite with the Flyers before, but unfortunately was the odd man out when a great playoff performance in 07-08 and a new contract meant he would be too expensive for the Flyers to retain and was traded to Columbus.


But to finally wrap this up, I believe I speak for all Flyers fans when I say "Thank you, Scott Hartnell, for the joy and the memories you gave us. Best of luck to you. We will miss you."

The Hockey Hall of Fame and Eric Lindros

It's the end of June. The Stanley Cup Final is over and congratulations to the Los Angeles Kings for winning the best trophy in sports. Individual Awards will be handed out soon. The NHL Entry Draft will happen at the end of the week and that will surely be exciting. Free Agency is just around the corner.

But there is one more thing that will happen today, and as with every year it will be surrounded with a bit of controversy: The Hockey Hall of Fame will announce its 2014 class of inductees.

As a Flyers fan, this is always a strange time. At least up until recently. We were settled with just accepting that the Hall of Fame committee is an old boys club where old grudges are still being held onto. Fred Shero would never get in because he is the bad guy that allowed the Broad Street Bullies to run rampant. Mark Howe wouldn't get in because he played in the WHA, and people can't be rewarded if they ran counter to the establishment.

However, something appears to have changed, and these old injustices have been rectified as both of those candidates have been inducted. Howe was inducted in 2012, and Shero in 2013, and their accomplishments have been properly honored. It was fantastic and joyous events both times.

It doesn't end there though, as the Flyers have a 3rd candidate who has been passed over a couple of times already, and his name is Eric Lindros. Lindros is a controversial figure. He often butted heads with owners and managers, his career was cut short due to concussion problems and other health issues, and some less than savory rumors were told about him as well.

But it is pretty much undeniable that Lindros was a very important player to the sport. He was a dominant force and he has both the stats and hardware to show for it. He was also the center-piece of what I call the most significant trade in the sport after the Gretzky trade. Lindros's career may not be a story of great triumphs and accomplishment, but I think it is a great story nonetheless. And last but not least, he definitely had the thing the hall is named after: Fame.

Lindros has been passed over twice already though. There are other very comparable players that made it in at the same time, such as Pavel Bure, Mats Sundin or Adam Oates, who like Lindros do not have the defining team victory to them, so Lindros's lack of a Stanley Cup can't be a root cause here. There have also been three veritable star players in Chris Chelios, Scott Niedermayer and Joe Sakic inducted in those two years, and adding in Brendan Shanahan we are now at seven candidates for eight spots. I am not sure why Lindros hasn't been the 8th player.

The Hockey Hall of Fame has the arbitrary rule to not induct more than four male and two female players per year. From an outside perspective this makes at least a little bit of sense, establishing an air of exclusivity and importance to it. It also makes it a bit easier on the organizers and participants of the Induction ceremony, a great spectacle and one of the few high-class events during the season. But it is arbitrary nonetheless.

Yet the Hockey Hall of Fame often opts to not use the full number of slots it made available to itself. Last year it only inducted three male players and one female. While I can see the utility of the limitation from a logistics point, in the overall design and purpose of the Hall of Fame it seems counter-productive. If there are seven similarly great players with a worthy resume to their name, all of them should be inducted at the same time. Should it happen that on occasion there are none, so be it.

But as it is now, there are two sure-fire candidates this year in Dominik Hasek and Peter Forsberg, leaving another two slots for male players. Besides Lindros, some other players are throwing their hats into the ring for it, such as Mike Modano, Rob Blake, Jeremy Roenick and Mark Recchi. Linros's odds here aren't bad at all, but if the committee fills up its slots this year and Lindros is not among the inductees, I can do nothing but chalk it up to the arbitrary four player limit.

But for now I remain hopeful. Let's see of Lindros can make it three-for-three for the Flyers this year.