Flyers making Sather look good

With the recent signing/extension of Nicklas Grossman the Philadelphia Flyers achieved three things. First of all they overpaid for a good but not elite defensive defenseman, secondly they gave themselves potential cap headaches this summer with the likes of Matt Carle, Jaromir Jagr and Jakub Voracek to re-sign (headaches could disappear depending on the Pronger situation) and finally they made Glen Sather once again look like an astute general manager.

Dan Girardi has played an All Star calibre season, has been an absolute rock on the blue line and is once again close to a 30 point season proving he is effective at both ends of the ice. With that all considered, comparing his deal to Grossman’s new deal of $3.5m, Sather managed to produce a bargain with the Girardi deal.

Girardi’s deal comes in at $3.25m for another couple of seasons and his deal in addition to Marc Staal’s (a very reasonable cap hit of $3.9m when health and form allow) are blue line reasons why Sather won’t struggle to reward the likes of Mike Del Zotto and Brandon Prust this summer.

Cap Geek list Dan Girardi as a comparable to Nicklas Grossman but really comparing Girardi to the Swede in anything other than price tag is doing Girardi a disservice. Girardi is a much more rounded player than Grossman. He out hits, out blocks and out scores Grossman and very few players in the entire league play the same minutes as Girardi. Who’s worth more? Girardi without question.

Next season including Pronger, the Flyers have over 20 million committed to their blue line – quite a chunk. The Rangers, without factoring in a raise for Del Zotto and adding another defenseman ‘only’ have approximately 10 million committed to their blue line. I know which blue line I would rather have right now. Keep up the good work this summer Mr Sather.