Meltzer’s Musings: Should Flyers Re-Sign Gagne? PLUS Multi-Stint Flyers

One of more interesting decisions the Flyers need to make this offseason is whether to re-sign unrestricted free agent left winger Simon Gagne. The 33-year-old former All-Star scored five goals and 11 points in 27 games after being reaquired from Los Angeles.

At various times during is return to the Flyers, Gagne played on various different lines. He spent a two-week stint on a defensive-orien

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Meltzer’s Musings: Flyers Still in Running for Starkbaum

The Philadelphia Flyers are one of five NHL teams courting Modo Hockey goaltender Bernhard Starkbaum,

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Meltzer’s Musings: Lamarche and Raffl, Undersized Skill in 2013 Draft

The Flyers will not officially confirm any new signings as of this writing, but the team’s announcement appears to be a formality at this point.

Baie-Comeau Drakkar defenseman Maxim Lamarche posted both in English and in French on his Twitter account (@Max_Lamarche) that he has signed with the Flyers. The 20-year-old is coming off a strong overage season in the QMJHL.

Meanwhile, both

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Meltzer’s Musings: The Risk and Reward of Drafting Defensemen in Round One

As a followup to the recent discussion on the Flyers’ historic and recent problems in drafting and developing defensemen who go on to become long-term contributors to the club at the NHL level, I thought it would interesting to revisit an issue that I raised last year: Selecting a defenseman in the first round of the NHL Draft is a dicey proposition.

First of all, defensemen have a steeper lear

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Meltzer’s Musings: Power Forwards in 2013 Draft, Connections Matter

First-Round and Beyond: Power Forward Prospects

Thank you to everyone who provided feedback on my recent blog about sleeper defense prospects available in the 2013 NHL Draft. I agree that the profiles of 46 potential draftees — mostly discussing players who are unlikely to be selected in the first round — was a bit of informational overload. In order to increase readability, I will break up t

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Meltzer’s Musings: Flyers Interested in Austrian Duo?

According to a report in Swedish newspaper agency Dalarnas Tidningar (DT), Leksands IF winger Michael Raffl is in negotiation with the Philadelphia Flyers and Nashville Predators and is “near a changeover” from LIF to one of the two NHL organizations.

The 24-year-old Raffl is coming off an encouraging World Championship tournament performance for Austria, where he played on the top line with Bu

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Meltzer’s Musings: Should Flyers Trade Up, Stand Pat or Trade Down?

The crop of talent available in the 2013 NHL Draft crop is not quite expected to measure up to the very best Drafts in League history (1979, 1984, 1988, 1990, 1991, 2003). However, the pre-Draft belief of many scouts is that could go down as an above-average crop in terms of the volume of players who go on to have notable NHL careers.

With the 11th overall pick in the Draft, the Flyers should b

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Meltzer’s Musings: Top 20 All-Time Flyers Homegrown Defensemen

The 2013 NHL Draft is still over a month away. However, with the Flyers season having ended one month ago tomorrow, the debate has already started about what direction the Flyers should go with the 11th overall pick of the Draft.

The Flyers have always had a “best player available regardless of position” philosophy when it comes to the first round of the Draft. That is not going to change. Anth

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2013 Draft: Beyond the Consensus Top Picks — Defensemen

In every NHL Draft, there are inevitably a handful of non first-round picks (and sometimes even an undrafted player or two) who go on to outshine players who entered the draft with much more hype. Draft day is a start, not an end point.

Remember: These are teenaged players, whose development is still a work in progress. There is a lot of guesswork involved in projecting the floor and ceiling o

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Meltzer’s Musings: Flyers First-Round Draft Poll

I am in the process of compiling a four-part series on potential “sleeper prospects” who may be available beyond the first round of the upcoming NHL Draft.

Part One, which is almost finished and will be posted either tonight or tomorrow morning, deals with defensemen and will profile 30 draft prospects. Part Two, which will be posted in the latter part of next week, will go over centers. Part

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