The Draft is completed, now comes rebuilding

I caught some of the NHL draft on OLN (soon to be VS.) Saturday night. Rather embarrassing that GM Bobby Clarke totally spaced on the name of yet another forward when he got to the podium. My team needs faster defensemen since the officiating really cracked down on Hatcher’s clutch-n-grab, grappling style of play. The Flyers have taken the first smart step in re-signing small-but-fast Marty Murray who is a fourth-line guy yet he is great at killing penalties, a huge weakness last season. Now that Chris Pronger wants out of his contract with the Oilers (rumor has it his wife hates living in Edmonton), I should be making offers to the Hockey Gods that Clarke has the chutzpah to buy out Hatcher, dump his useless ass and get Pronger since the salary cap has been lifted $5 million. The guy is a great fit for my Flyers namely for his mean reputation. Let’s bring back the Bully reputation in the team on Broad Street. Their positions in the draft were mediocre and the players picked up were just as uninteresting. I can only hope there’s a couple of wonderful surprises like RJ Umberger in the lot. 
 
Meanwhile the Canucks finally dumped that thug Todd Bertuzzi on the Panthers for goalie Robert Luongo. The guy should still be banned from the NHL for the rest of his life, now my team will have to deal with him four times a season instead of every other year. I can only hope Flyers defenseman Chris Therien remembers to bring his A-Game against Bertuzzi since he’s the only one capable of neutralizing his speed and hits. I’ll cut him some slack right now, his sister died recently and it’s not a time to kick him. I will give a thumbs up to the people in charge in Vancouver for showing they want a serious change by ditching one of their problematic franchise players. Rumor has it, Bertuzzi’s a cancer like Brett Hull and Owen Nolan. 
 
Now to set aside some PS2 time to play my two NHL games for comparison and try to re-write the outcome in one of them. Flyers v. Oilers Stanley Cup? Hmm. A replay of the 1987 battle which went all the way to Game 7 with Mark Messier, Wayne Gretzky, Craig Mactavish and Paul Coffey against Rick Tocchet, Mark Howe and Ron Hextall.

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