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I think Paul Holmgren should be fired.

Last night, on Twitter, I asked if you thought the same thing.

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I’d say the results were about 3-to-1 in the affirmative. Some of the responsiveness from folks who thought Homer should stay were reasonable. Most weren’t. And while I agree that there are some legitimate counter arguments to firing Holmgren – namely, that the Flyers were decimated by injuries this year and that Ed Snider is a goofy Wizard pulling all the strings – many Type OBs spilled Kool-Aid all over my timeline with total brainwashed nonsense.

Let’s explore. All Tweets are, in one way or another, a response to one of my three Tweets.

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He’s done everything he can and they try? Who is he, Macy Gray? What GM doesn’t try? Having limitless funds to throw at every big-name free agent that comes along (unrestricted and restricted) doesn’t mean someone is a good GM, or trying. It’s entertaining, sure. But it doesn’t mean he did his job. A lot of teams tried to get Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. [Of course, only Holmgren was enough of an ass to ignore unwritten rules and try for Shea Weber by offering him the type of contract that nearly ruined hockey.] But most teams had backup plans for their misses. Not the Flyers, though. Not Paul Holmgren. His swinging dick didn’t need one. He ignored Matt Carle and Jaromir Jagr (two players that would have very much helped the Flyers this season) and instead signed Ruslan Fedotenko and Bruno Gervais, and re-signed Marc-Andre Bourdon to a multi-year deal. That really happened! So Holmgren’s trying was akin to a kid dropping out of college to pursue a career as a musician. I don’t need an edumatication, I’m going to steel Shea Weber like a dick head.


Except he didn’t. And he’s soon to be out of a job.

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I usually like reader Chris, so I’ll go easy: LUKE SCHENN IS THE TALLEST MIDGET IN A CIRCUS OF FUCKING DUMB MIDGETS. AND A GREAT HAUL? THESE NEW GUYS ARE AMONG THE CORE OF AN AWFUL TEAM. Simmonds, a bright spot? What is so bright about this:

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Brayden Schenn has been a mess. Sean Couturier has put his engine in reverse (though he’s still young and I like his upside). The only one who has excelled is Jake Voracek– he’s been tremendous. And for that reason, the Carter trade, both because of its return and that it was made to clear cap space for a goalie (debatable, but understandable), made sense. However, that doesn’t mean having the third leading goal scorer in the league, Carter, might not have been more of an asset to the Flyers now and in the future. It doesn’t mean it was the right move to make. But it made sense.

And Stolarz, a young goalie… yeah, I’m sure that will work out for the Flyers. See:

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First of all, hindsight is always 20/20. Second, Bob, quite literally, beat Boucher out for the job (in 2011), and he was traded long before the Flyers re-acquired Boucher this year. No defense? Whose fault is that?

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I’d say that’s the GM’s job. Bob was here for two years, was named the starter in 2011, and showed tonof upside. He displayed more skill than any Flyers goaltender since the 1980s. He moves laterally more quickly than any Flyers goalie I have ever seen. His reflexes are second to none. He just happened to be very young and got himself out of position too frequently. He didn’t speak the language and was so out of sorts his first year that he had to visit his girlfriend for fuck sessions in Canada because she couldn’t get a fucking visa to fuck in this fucking country. Fuck.

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So did Bob(!!!). But I’ll talk to Ms. CB about that. Thanks!

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Valid argument.

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Another valid argument. Snider was the driving force behind getting Bryz and perhaps trading Richards and Carter. But he owns the team, so he’s not going anywhere. Can’t disagree, though. That’s two reasonable responses in a row. Do we have a third? Looking for a third! Third, going once… twice…

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… ah fuck.

D depth, you say? Bob was traded to clear some cap space so Holmgren could go after Parise, Suter and Weber. But, as we’ve already covered, HE DIDN’T GET THOSE GUYS. He signed Bruno Mars instead. Your team is being run at the whim of a madman:

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No, not Dennis Hopper in Speed— Paul Holmgren:

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This is a bad opinion, and you should feel bad about it.

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Reasonable comment about JVR from Allison, and I don’t necessarily disagree. But, he went elsewhere and quickly had success. And Bob is having an unbelievable year. The Flyers liked all of those guys– they signed Richards, Carter and JVR to substantial contracts, and Bob was given the reigns early. Would not making those trades have won the Flyers a Cup in the last two years? Probably not. But could I see that group winning a Cup here? Sure can. They were one game away from it, sans Bob, in 2010. And how you can say the Flyers won any trade in the last few years is puzzling, and mildly concerning– they’re awful. This is the worst team they’ve had in decades. Part of that is because Holmgren traded away four impact players in 12 months!

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Played like hell? They struggled at the end of the season and then nearly won the Stanley Cup! The next season, they had the third most points in the league. Holmgren then traded away the captain, leading scorer, young power forward (who had just been signed to an extension!) and promising young goaltender – guys in which the team had heavily invested – in the span of 12 months for no obvious reason, and now the team is going to miss the playoffs. Let me repeat that: PAUL HOLMGREN TRADED AWAY THE CAPTAIN, LEADING GOAL SCORER, A YOUNG POWER FORWARD AND PROMISING GOALTENDER FROM STANLEY CUP AND 106-POINT TEAMS, AND TWO YEARS LATER, THE FLYERS ARE AMONG THE WORST TEAMS IN HOCKEY! If that’s not grounds to fire a GM, I don’t know what is.

Sarcastically, Chris comes back for more:

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What, the Flyers plus two two-way forwards and a Vezina candidate? It would be better.

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Carter. Don’t believe me? Check out this article from Broad Street Hockey. Or the fact that Carter was killing penalties for the Kings in the playoffs last year.

But this isn’t just about what Holmgren did… it’s also about what he didn’t do. He made all of these moves and overpaid for a goaltender, but then failed to address to the most basic, and obvious, need: defense. So then he was forced to go for broke and offer mega contracts to Suter and Weber… neither of which worked out.

The Flyers were a victim of their own idiocy. The Flyer way is to win now and panic later. Or panic now and don’t win later. Whatever. For once, however, the Flyer way appeared to be working– the team had young, homegrown talent that they had signed to long-term deals. They had two relatively successful seasons (Finals appearance and 106 points). And they had a young, promising goalie worth building around, especially considering Boucher and Michael Leighton were the alternatives at the time. But thanks to a hilarious goaltending performance in the 2011 playoffs, Mr. Snider panicked and demanded that the team overspend for a goalie. Didn’t matter who– just a goalie, a better one than they had, a more expensive one. And in doing so, they did the most un-Flyer thing ever: traded their homegrown talent for young, win-later forwards and signed an expensive, Russian!win-now goalie. That was like Bizarro Flyers. In the process, they neglected the defense, an area in which they were usually decent, and that forced them to get silly last summer. Left with no backup plan or out, they did dumb Flyer things– bringing back good guys Brian Boucher, Ruslan Fedotenko, Mike Knuble and Simon Gagne to round out the roster and appease fans during a miserable season (I had to double-check that I had that right– the Flyers actually brought back all of those guys in the past 12 months… it’s mind-boggling). The things they do are ridiculous and insane.

I respect Ed Snider for caring. He wants to win. But the nonsensical way he runs the organization makes doing so almost impossible. The Flyers only put their guys in positions of power. So their guys – Holmgren – do what Mr. Snider wants. It’s a cultural problem, but one in which Holmgren plays a big part. So he must be fired. And it would be great if Mr. Snider would back the fuck off and hire an outsider to fix this mess… but that probably won’t happen.