The Philadelphia Flyers Buy Out Oskar Lindblom, Clearly Loading Up For A Massive Johnny Gaudreau Contract
This is the time of the year when you really remember that the NHL is a business. By all accounts, Oskar Lindblom is an incredible human. The perseverance, determination, and overall amazing attitude he displayed while fighting back from a Ewing's Sarcoma diagnosis can serve as the ultimate motivation to anyone out there who is unfortunately dealing with a similar health situation. You could travel the world 5 times over and you wouldn't be able to find a single soul to say a bad thing about Oskar Lindblom as a person.
The issue is that being a tremendous human doesn't always equate to winning hockey games. And unfortunately, the NHL is in the business of winning hockey games and not just being an awesome person. So with that being the case, the Chuck Fletcher and the Philadelphia Flyers had to make the tough decision on this one. They just couldn't afford to pay Oskar Lindblom $3M again for a season with less than 15 goals on the board. Especially not when they need to free up somewhere around at least $9M to sign a guy named Johnathan "Ham & Cheese" Gaudreau tomorrow afternoon.
You can love Oskar Lindblom all you want, but this is one thousand percent the correct hockey decision. This move gives the Flyers $3.33M to work with so they can sign all their RFA's. Then you figure out a way to trade JVR and his $7M cap hit to open up that cap space for Johnny Hockey. It won't be easy to trade Van Riemsdyk and that contract. More than likely the Flyers will have to attach that 1st round pick they received from the Panthers in the Giroux deal to get someone to bite on a JVR trade. But buying out the remainder of Lindblom's contract was the first piece of the puzzle to make it happen. And to show how much Oskar has meant to the organization, they're donating $100,000 in his name to a local charity. Pretty classy move from an organization that has seemed to be pretty soulless lately.
P.S. -- I'm starting to see a lot of Flyers "fans" being against the idea of bringing Johnny Gaudreau home. These idiots are bitching and moaning about asset management and other nerd shit that every idiot in this town who was brainwashed by The Process cares about. Uhhhhh if Johnny Hockey wants to come home and play for the Flyers in quite literally the only possible time they can make that happen in his career, you do whatever it takes to get him here. Especially when he's coming off a 100+ point season. I know the Flyers need more than just Johnny Gaudreau to turn this team around. And it's not like they'll have a ton of cap flexibility to make that happen when he's making 9 sheets. But it doesn't fucking matter. If Johnny Gaudreau wants to play in Philly, you make it happen. So everybody can pipe down and kick rocks. Gaudreau, a healthy Hayes, Atkinson playing for Torts again, a healthy Couturier, maybe Provorov can give his balls a tug, Carter Hart is still just 23. At the very least the Flyers can be in the mix again. After the hell we've had to endure the past couple of years, I'll take that.