Philadelphia Flyers: Can the Flyers Rebound After Trades?

On Thursday, the Philadelphia Flyers made two huge trades. One involving star right winger Jeff Carter moving to Columbus and the other involving team captain Mike Richards moving to LA.

It was expected that the Flyers would try to make room in their payroll. Philly traded for the negotiating rights of Coyotes goalie Ilya Bryzgalov. The goalie will look for a lot of money which forced the Flyers to make some tough decisions.

No one expected two Flyer favorites to be traded in the same day though.  So whats next for the Flyers?

It all depends on what happens this summer. Ilya Bryzgalov will most likely sign with the team in the off season. The Flyers also did get a few players in the trades and also acquired the eight overall pick from the Blue Jackets in this years draft.

The biggest question is how good will the Flyers be next year? Will they be better? Worse? We can't answer those questions now because the off season is still young. But one thing is for sure. The Flyers need to get something done in order to make sure they can play at a high level like they have been for the past few seasons.

The Flyers will lose a combined 59 goals between Carter and Richards. Two guys that need to step up next year I think are Claude Giroux and James van Riemsdyk. These two had 46 combined goals last year. It may sound easy to repeat these numbers, but think about this. For Giroux and van Riemsdyk to match the goal scoring numbers of Carter and Richards, they will both need around 30 goals. Not easy at all.

So how do the Flyers rebound from the trades? Will they make more trades? Try to make a steal in the draft or find a diamond in the rough? Sign lower end players in the off season?

There are so many questions that we can ask, but little we can know or do. The only thing we can do is sit back and wait and see what happens. We will know what to expect from this team in the beginning of the 2011-12 season.