NHL DRAFT: Flyers Shore Up Defense For Both Present and Future

Gary Bettman was very busy last night. There were more trades in the first round of last night's draft than in the previous four years combined.

Two of those trades involved the Philadelphia Flyers. The first sent RJ Umberger and a 4th round pick to the Blue Jackets for the 19th overall selection and a 3rd round pick, and the second sent the 27th overall selection to the Capitals for Steve Eminger and a 3rd round pick. With these moves, the Flyers commenced their goal of shoring up the defense, both for the present and the future.

RJ Umberger was essentially a cap casualty.

From the Flyers' website: “It’s the situation that we are in right now with the Salary Cap,” said Holmgren in making the announcement. “R.J. is certainly a player that we didn’t want to trade, but we were forced to do something because where we are at with the Salary Cap. We tried a lot of different things, a lot of different ways to work around it, nothing seemed to make sense and we had to do something. R.J. is considered a good player in the league. He was a tremendous young man in our organization and a great player for us. It certainly hurts to make this move tonight and just get draft picks in return. We wish him well.”

Paul Holmgren never really wanted to move Umberger. Since the day he took over control of the team from Bobby Clarke, Holmgren very vocally committed to building from the inside and keeping Jeff Carter, Mike Richards, and RJ Umberger together. However, with very little cap room at the moment and July 1st 10 days away, Holmgren knew he had to do something. Obviously, his main priority is to keep Jeff Carter. However, with Jeff expected to receive somewhere in the ballpark of $5 million and the Flyers' current cap space likely under $10 million, depending on where the cap has been raised to (this should be announced sometime next week), there really was no possible way the Flyers could keep Carter, Umberger, and Jones, and still make some kind of splash in free agency.

So with that said, RJ Umberger moves on to Columbus: the home of his college, Ohio State University, and the home of his former coach, Ken Hitchcock.

In return, the Flyers received the 19th overall selection. With it, Paul Holmgren chose Luca Sbisa.

Who?

Here's the rundown. The 6'0" 190 lb Swiss defenseman plays for the Lethbridge Hurricanes of the Western Hockey League. TSN had him rated 17th overall in the draft. NHL Central Scouting called him the 12th best skater in North America and the 6th best defenseman. ISS called him the 10th best, and the 5th best defenseman.

For those of you who can't count, that's the 5th best - right behind the 'Big 4' of Drew Doughty, Zach Bogosian, Alex Pietrangelo, and Luke Schenn, who were taken 2 through 5 in that order.

His 07-08 stats are very respectable. In 62 games played, he put up 6 goals and 27 assists for a total of 33 points and 63 penalty minutes. Here's the kicker, though: in the 07-08 playoffs, Luca played in 19 games, putting up 3 goals and 12 assists for 15 points and 17 penalty minutes. One game in particular where he really stood out was Game 6 of the first round vs. Brandon (the video is about halfway down the page

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