Over at Broad Street Hockey, Kelly Hinkle published the transcript from a portion of Kimmo Timonen’s latest podcast. I did not know Timonen had a podcast, but apparently it’s in Finnish,* so they had somebody do a translation and send it over.

Good idea, that, because Kimmo had some interesting things to say about the Flyers organ-eye-zation. I’ll share two segments, first, one about meeting up with Claude Giroux after his 1,000th game:

Timonen: Well, this Florida team is—Bill Zito did an excellent job strengthening his team. Of course, local, Claude Giroux, a big goal achieved with his 1,000th game, and we went to grab beers after [the 1,000th game]. It was tough on Claude, he was still crying heavily while we were drinking, he was sorry to leave… And he probably never wanted to leave [Philly] but that’s just how it goes. It’s business, the other side of hockey, and when the team isn’t in the playoffs and there’s no hope, they start trading the big names, trying to get picks. And Claude Giroux got to experience that and it was tough on him.

I guess the takeaway here is that he’s a human being. Obviously he didn’t want to leave, he wanted to stay here for the entirety of his career. But the franchise stinks and things didn’t work out, so he became one of the gazillion dudes who are shipped off for assets and they get to try to win a Cup somewhere else. Timonen can speak to this better than anybody.

Here’s another portion, about the Flyers stifling development:

Timonen: They have 19 games left, and if someone didn’t see the tweet, I just said it’s time to let the young guys play. What I mean by that, is that—There’s Cam York, for example, this young defenseman, and a couple games ago, Keith Yandle was playing on the power play before him. What sense does it make—?

(his co host): Absolutely no sense!

Timonen: —now that we’re no longer in the playoff contention—Right, no sense! So let these young players play the 19 games remaining, and I’m not only talking about Cam York—they have others, forwards, they should put them in different roles. Like, put Cam York on the penalty kill, or match him against elite players so you’ll get some idea of what Cam York can do, and at the same time the players can see where they are at on the NHL level, what they need to develop. The Flyers should use these 19 games as evaluation to see where they are as an organisation, what kind of players they have picked and how those players are doing on the NHL level. Because it’s a fact that there’s work to do, and there’s a lot of it.

Hear hear!


I’ll take it one step further and say that Keith Yandle should have politely been asked to turn in his resignation after getting the ironman record. There’s zero reason for him to be taking up minutes that could go to York or anybody else that actually might have a future with this team. The Flyers need to realize where they’re at, and what I mean by that is Chuck Fletcher needs to get on the phone with Sam Hinkie and ask for some advice, because this is a full rebuild, whether he realizes it or not. Instead, they’ll probably tread water with the likes of Coots and Risto and Kevin Hayes and live in purgatory for a little while longer, until somebody else comes in and turns his ship around and starts moving things in the right direction.

Speaking of Finland, do you think Timonen is into Finnish heavy metal? They’ve got some great bands over there. Children of Bodom, Amorphis, etc. We should ask him.

Here’s the full BSH article: