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."