Most fans would agree that blue line depth was what the Flyers needed to address most this off-season. There are few teams in the league who wouldn't benefit from better defense (or the elusive species puckus movingen defensmanus), and the Flyers are one of them.
With depth and talent brimming at the forward positions, the club decided to trade restricted free agent R.J. Umberger and a later pick to the Columbus Blue Jackets for a higher first rounder (19th overall) and a third rounder. They used the 19 to select Luca Sbisi, a 6'1", 180-lb defenseman of Italian descent who was born in Switzerland and played for their national junior team. If you're a frequent reader of the hockey posts here at the Level, now would be a good time to brace yourself for incessant Godfather references when this kid gets called up. Video highlights of Sbisi after the jump.
After having bettered their draft position and selected Sbisi, the Flyers dealt their 27 pick to Washington for defenseman Mike Eminger. For an inside look at Eminger, we turn to our friend J.P. of the Capitals blog Japer's Rink. J.P. did a thorough exit analysis of the Caps players after our boys dismantled them in the first round, and here's what he had to say about the Flyers' new d-man:
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The Good: Eminger stepped his
game up in the playoffs, where he had the most hits-per-game of any
Caps blueliner, scored a big goal and posted a plus-two rating in five
games (he was arguably the Caps' best defenseman in Game Seven, too).
In obviously limited playing time, Eminger had the best
takeaway-to-giveaway ratio of any Caps blueliner and the best
plus-minus of any season in which he played more than 17 games (hey,
I'm tryin' here). Perhaps the best of "The Good" is how professionally
Eminger has acted (publicly, at least), throughout the most difficult
season of his career (then again, if you paid me a million bucks to
just sorta hang out, I could probably suck it up too).The Bad:
After a five-goal/13-assist campaign in 2005-06 (in just 66 games),
Emmy has just one goal and a minus-18 rating in 88 regular season games
since. His points-per-game fell from .27 in 2005-06 to .25 in 2006-07
and all the way to .10 this year, and while his ice time also dropped
in each of the past two years, his production per minute fell off at a much greater rate this season.
Despite taking only four minor penalties all season, he was fourth on
the team in penalties taken per 60 minutes. The biggie under "The Bad,"
of course, is the fact that he couldn't break the lineup for most of
the year, even for some must-win games in which Sami Lepisto was given a shot instead. Eminger's use this past season-and-a-half remains one of the great unsolved mysteries in Capland.
Hopefully the change of scenery will have us seeing a little more Jekyll than Hyde this season.
R.J. Umberger is a talented forward, and we were big fans of him here. However, his 13 goals and 50 points in the regular season aren't exactly irreplaceable, although his playoff heroics may be. In an odd way, the degree to which his surge in the post-season increased his value in free agency might have been a factor in why he's not a Flyer today. This is just speculation of course, but those huge goals could be what priced Umberger out of the Flyers' market. We'll still root for Umberger when he's not playing against the Flyers, and we're pretty sure the organization feels the same way, but this is the nature of the off-season in the NHL.
So after day one of the draft, the Flyers are already making noise, just like always. Clearly, they aren't through yet.