Flyers Remain Tough & Expensive

The Flyers have decidedly gotten a lot bigger and badder over this off-season, bringing back the nostalgia of the Broad Street Bullies. Signing Ian Laperriere and Ray Emery and dealing for Chris Pronger, the Flyers will be exceptionally difficult to play against, let alone staying healthy against. I think in a lot of cases, the Flyers may be an interesting team to watch on TV (or at the games, if you can), because you're going to wonder if any one of these players are going to snap.

The Flyers have also added goaltender Brian Boucher to the mix, but he should be starting out as Emery's back-up, but he's on top of the list, because he had more pool points in the NHL than Emery did.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Jeff Carter	Chris Pronger	Brian Boucher
Mike Richards	Kimmo Timonen	Ray Emery
Simon Gagne	Braydon Coburn
Scott Hartnell	Matt Carle
Claude Giroux	Randy Jones
Daniel Briere	Ryan Parent
Aaron Asham
Ian Laperriere
Daniel Carcillo
Darroll Powe
Riley Cote

All of this bulk and toughness is coming at a pretty big cost to the Flyers. The team above has 19 players signed at a cap hit of $54.7 million, leaving them with very little room to maneuver. That being said, they will still be in need of at least another defenseman and probably another forward, if not two, to be ready for the year. Some of their best talent waiting in the wings is going to be expensive, due to high draft pick bonuses and such, so there could be some serious handcuffing going on here.

The team doesn't have much left to do on the RFA market, as both Josh Gratton and Jared Ross are the only two players left that had played 10 or more games last season.