By now you’ve heard that the Flyers have dealt team captain Peter Forsberg to the Nashville Predators, who are now clearly a Cup favorite. The news is of course shocking to no one, as the Flyers are at the bottom of the standings with no hope of climbing out this year, and the Predators needed one more piece to get an edge in a tough Western Conference. I don’t know much about the players we received in return: LW Scottie Upshall and D Ryan Parent, but I do know that it took ESPN.com 21 paragraphs to even mention their names in their coverage of the trade. The Flyers also got 1st and 3rd rounders in the 2007 draft (paragraph 22).
And thus marks the second Wachovia Center team to trade away one of the greatest players in the history of his respective league this season. Thank god Villanova can’t trade players, since they seem to be the only team that can regularly sell the place out this year.
Forsberg spent his prime years in another uniform, and he was only in Philly for a few seasons, so there’s clearly not as much fanfare surrounding this trade as there was for Iverson’s. The other interesting difference to me is that Forsberg actually did not really want to be traded (though he did waive his no-trade clause), and seemed somewhat sad to hear the news, despite the fact that he’ll be playing for perhaps the best team in hockey for the rest of this season. This only adds to the speculation that when he becomes a free agent this summer, he may be returning to the Orange and Black (if he doesn’t retire).
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If the team can get back to form next season (and remember, it only took them one off-season to go from first to worst), then adding a semi-healthy two-time Stanley Cup and Olympic Gold Medal winner would really help bring along their young nucleus.
I’m just glad they didn’t trade him for Lindros again.