Flyers Trade for Chris Pronger, Send Lupul, Sbisa, and High Picks to Ducks

As the 2009 NHL draft got underway, the Flyers already had a deal in place to remedy one of their biggest needs. Paul Holmgren has sent a sizable package to the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for 34-year-old defenseman Chris Pronger and forward Ryan Dingle. Headed to the Ducks are Joffrey Lupul, Luca Sbisa, this year's first round pick (21), next year's first rounder, and a conditional third round pick in 2010 or 2011. 

Pronger gives the Flyers a huge presence at the blue line. He stands 6'6 and weighs in at about 220 lbs and is a great hitter. Although he's 34, there's still plenty left in the tank, although it's been nearly 10 years since he won the Hart Trophy as the league MVP as a member of the St. Louis Blues. Still, the fact that he has an MVP as a defenseman speaks to the caliber of his ability. Also, just two years ago, in 2007, he was an integral leader on the Ducks' Stanley Cup championship team. 

Anthony SanFilippo reported on the possibility of this deal earlier today, stating that the Flyers' top target was still Jay Bouwmeester of Florida. However, as opposed to J-Bo, who becomes a free agent on July 1, Pronger is under contract for next season and is now officially a Philadelphia Flyer. The price (in terms of players) for simply acquiring the rights to J-Bo before free agency opens so as to try for a deal beforehand was said to be high, and the contract he will command will be huge. 
So what about the package that brought Pronger here, and the contract that comes with him? 

The rostered players headed to Anaheim both logged meaningful minutes for the Flyers this past season. Make no mistake about it, the Ducks did very well on this trade. Lupul can score and play wing anywhere from a top scoring line to a third line, but ideally in between. Sbisa was a surprising name on the roster last season, as he was just 18 years old. But training camp injuries forced Luca into service, and he handled the role pretty well. His poise and composure while just a kid—even by NHL standards—indicate that he could be a solid player for years to come. 
As we pointed out earlier tonight, the Flyers are quite successful at drafting late in the first round. The two picks they dealt along with Sbisa and Lupul will be just that, and who knows what players the team might have selected; their current captain and an alternate captain each went in the 20s, and in a few years, we could be looking at Richie- and Claude Giroux-types on the Ducks and saying WTF (if you're not already, and many of you are). That said, draft picks come and go often as trade chips in the NHL, and the Flyers are in win-now mode. Last season they had trouble making room for talented rookie Giroux on the roster, and James VanRiemsdyk and others will be pushing the bubble soon. The farm team isn't bursting at the seams, but the organization is loaded with young, talented scorers, and if there were ever a time to part with high picks and two solid-but-not-stellar players, this is it. 
Lupul has been a target of mild criticism from both John Stevens during the season and Paul Holmgren earlier this week (odd timing given the fact that he was clearly on the trading block). But more than that, Lupul was replaceable and arguably overpriced. For a team up against the salary cap, that was a ticket out of town. You might say, how replaceable is a 25-goal scorer? Fair point. But the Flyers' scoring depth was the best in the NHL last season, with six players scoring 25 or more goals. That number doesn't include Danny Briere, who spent much of the season injured, or Giroux, who played only 42 games after being called up in December. Lupul was indeed expendable, and really, the Flyers needed to trade him, even if they had gotten little in return (which they didn't in this case). His contract will go to more than $4 million per season in 2009-2010, and his extension keeps him at that rate through 2012-2013. This may sound like an indictment of Lupul, but I don't intend it to. I enjoyed him as a player overall, and he's a close friend of the other young players on this team. Maybe a little shakeup is what they need, but there's always a possibility of a negative effect on chemistry. Really though, this move probably had more to do with Lupul's salary and the Flyers' scoring depth. Interestingly, Lupul was already part of a trade for Pronger once, in 2006.
With dedication and overall leadership a hot topic with the young Flyers team heading into the 2009-2010 season, the brass will be hoping that Pronger can provide both. He's been in the NHL since 1993 (which you'll hear as a knock too), and he's got one hell of an accomplished resumé. Pronger is tough as hell, sometimes a little too rough, but not usually over the top. We're not talking about an angel here, and his addition will make the Flyers even more hated around the league, at least in terms of opposing fans. He also makes a lot of money at $6.25 million this season in the last year of his contract. After that, the Flyers can either keep him (he won't be cheap), or free up a lot of money that would have been tied to Lupul's contract for years to come. 
Very importantly, Pronger contributes offensively. His 11 goals and 48 points last season are more than Kimmo Timonen's totals, which led Flyers' defensemen. 
The lesser known portion of the Flyers end of the deal is Denver University product Ryan Dingle, who, like Lupul, is a 25-year-old forward. However, while Lupul was lighting the lamp in the NHL last year, Dingle wasn't with the Ducks big club. We don't have much intel on him beyond that, but we'll try to get that for you soon. 

Bottom LineThe popular opinion on this deal will probably be that the Flyers overpaid for a talented player who will show some signs of decline as he ages. While he's 34 now, Pronger will be 35 in October. Let's face it—they paid a lot, and Pronger, while still very talented and a great fit for the Flyers in my opinion, is in the twilight of his career. But the real question isn't whether or not Homer "overpaid." It's whether he could afford to. I'd say that both Lupul and Sbisa were relatively expendable. As far as the picks go... well, it's never easy to part with two first rounders. But this may also be a deal in which the Flyers aren't done maneuvering. They may trade a player soon or at the in-season deadline to move back into the first round next season, depending on a variety of factors down the road. 
But really, this is Holmgren's attempt to win in the short-term—this coming season. More often than not, some chunk of the future will need to be sold off to do that, and as we saw last season, the current team simply wasn't good enough. This trade does not mortgage the entire future in a known major prospect with high expectations (like Giroux), nor does it lose the Flyers one of their best players, such as the proposed Jeff Carter for Tomas Kaberle deal would have last off-season. The overall core of the team is still intact, and the question we have to ask ourselves is, are they now more likely to win in 2009-2010 (and 2010-2011, perhaps longer, if they retain Pronger) than they were yesterday? After that, the picks begin to come into play and the scales tip more toward overpayment, depending more than anything on the eye of the beholder. 
As details continue to emerge, we'll have more on how this plays into the ongoing battle of the Flyers vs. the Salary Cap. Some believe they'll still look to move another player to maintain fluid space, but they should already be under the cap at the moment. 
Regardless of your thoughts on what the Flyers gave up, it's hard to argue that their defense isn't significantly improved, both in terms of size and skill. They also added years to their cumulative playoff experience. When considering any potential points loss in trading away Lupul's 25 and 25, remember that Giroux will get more ice time with better players, and Pronger adds a ton of points to a blue line that often lacked offensive punch. Overall, we're ready to give Homer the benefit of the doubt on the deal, and we're excited to see Pronger in a Flyers uniform. Defensive players of his caliber are very hard to come by, and before judging heavily, remember that there are probably still moves to come.