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| Monday, June 16 LeClair latest trade target? By Rob Parent Special to ESPN.com |
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Two tumultuous transactions, downplayed as they were in recent weeks, are indicative of the extent the Philadelphia Flyers will go to this summer to bring about a sense of change in the wake of another playoff failure.
Yet it's a major move that has yet to happen which could really alter the face of the Flyers as they prepare, along with everyone else, for a looming NHL labor war. Could there be a more drastic way to change the identity of the Flyers than to trade John LeClair? "I'm not gonna talk about it," LeClair said in a recent interview regarding rumors that he is not only being shopped, but was trying to expedite the process by waiving the no-trade clause in his contract. "Things will be worked out in the next couple of weeks. We'll see what happens then." It's been about a week since he said that, and so far nothing has happened. As recently as Friday, Flyers president/general manager Bob Clarke acknowledged that while "a few teams" had inquired about the winger's availability, the team wasn't close to trading its long-time icon. Then again, as a couple of other fast flip-flop moves would indicate, you never quite know what Clarke is going to do next. Shortly after falling way short in the playoffs again, Clarke traded goaltender Roman Cechmanek to Los Angeles for a draft pick. To Clarke, the Czech goalie, who always is among the statistical leaders in the league during the regular season, had proven in a second-round loss to Ottawa that he is not a player who holds up well under playoff pressure. In typical fashion, Clarke made this decision on his own, and then boldly announced it during his annual season-wrap press conference -- before the trade was made, before organizational chairman Ed Snider could offer an opinion on it and before he told coach Ken Hitchcock. What wasn't so typical, and also wasn't so popular, was when Clarke pried only a second-round draft choice out of the Kings in the trade two weeks later. So while Clarke was defending testily his compensation as more than fair for a goalie with a questionable playoff track record in today's shaky economic environment, a groundswell of movement continued within the Philadelphia organizational ranks that would lead to a second move -- Clarke losing part of his title. In a rather sudden if suppressed announcement Friday, Clarke said he was remaining as general manager of the Flyers while transferring the title of president to former chief operating officer Ron Ryan, once the director of the old World Hockey Association and a former cable television executive whose tenure with the club dates back to May 1988. With Ryan's background as a coach, general manager and business executive, perhaps it's only appropriate that Clarke said of this switch, "It's the job (Ryan) should be doing, anyway." But apparently it won't make Clarke any less of the top-gun Flyer that he's always been. "My role," Clarke said, "hasn't changed one bit. I spend my whole life over here at the practice rink with the club. So Ron should be president. I never did anything in that area. It's taking nothing away from me and adding the proper title to Ron Ryan." But in typical Philly fan fashion, it's also created a presumptuous perception that the rather dictatorial powers Clarke possessed have been relegated to shared management, if not subject to presidential veto power by another voice. Not so, said the real boss. "Ron will oversee the budget and other [business responsibilities] that Bob hasn't done in a few years, anyway," Snider said.
"I think that was a good move," Snider said. "I think it was good because of the unfortunate way the playoffs ended would have doomed him with the fans. Even if he had a good regular season, they'd have said, 'ho hum.' " While this organizational shuffling might not usurp Clarke of his powers, it does at least saddle him with a second voice with which to bounce any rash decisions off:
Will this next seismic shift everyone is anticipating be handled any differently? According to the milling rumors in recent weeks, LeClair could wind up as the next aging mega-millionaire in a Rangers uniform. Or maybe he'll do Dallas or even dance into Detroit. And don't discount the allegedly broke Kings, who might be working with the Flyers under an unspoken and unofficial "future considerations" type of arrangement after that Cechmanek deal. Speaking of the unspoken, that's how all parties to the LeClair rumors have handled the situation. His agent, Lewis Gross, hasn't returned phone calls. Snider, the man that signs his checks, freely talked the other day of all hot-button issues except for one very big one. "I really don't want to comment on it," Snider said of the LeClair talk. "I don't know what's going to happen ... but we're in a [economic] situation with the league where a lot of teams are going to have to make some hard decisions." Everyone's All-American, LeClair turns 34 on the Fifth of July. Devastating back woes and a shoulder injury relegated him to scoring just 50 of his 359 career goals over the past three seasons. Little wonder why Hitchcock has pinpointed him for a checking line role next season, one that the hard-working and ever-loyal LeClair seems a tad uncomfortable with. So that's why he isn't denying that he has agreed to waive his no-trade clause, and has composed a list of preferred teams that includes the four aforementioned NHL destinations. What LeClair won't say is that the primary motivation behind these moving rumors could be that the Flyers would prefer to keep him, so long as they can drastically rework his current contract, which has three more years remaining at $9 million each. "I don't make the financial decisions," LeClair said. "That's out of my hands." The Flyers have their reasons: Even by eliminating Cechmanek's contract (two more years at a total of $6.5 million) and with $4 million defenseman Eric Desjardins close to opting for unrestricted free agency, these Flyers -- who seem short on scoring, old on defense and only with last season's backup Robert Esche qualifying as an NHL goalie -- still have a payroll crowding $60 million. So don't expect them to jump into any Derian Hatcher sweepstakes or try to acquire Nikolai Khabibulin's contract anytime soon. Of course, when it comes to taking on big-money players in the East (Alex Kovalev and Tony Amonte for a couple of quick springtime references), the Rangers and the Flyers always seem to be the first two teams on the tip of everyone's tongues. Like every other team, however, they are operating under the influence of September 2004. It's difficult to find one management mind, agent opinion or player voice that would offer that commissioner Gary Bettman's efforts to install some sort of salary cap won't result in some sort of labor action, if not a protracted war that wipes out an entire season or two. So the Flyers are now firmly caught up in their own changing efforts. They might prefer to play out this game with LeClair by restructuring his contract rather than reshuffling their roster. But it might give them pause if another club says it'll take LeClair off their hands if they agree to pay for part of his salary or take on another unwanted player's pricey contract. Even the players themselves don't have to read that in black and white. "You never know what to expect," said LeClair, a man who has experienced so much Philadelphia change since he arrived there in 1995. "In an offseason like this ... there could be changes everywhere." Rob Parent of the Delaware County (Pa.) Times is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. |
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