For most of us seeing Simmonds in another sweater other then orange and black would cause some serious chest pain and a whole lot of disbelief. Simmonds embodies everything we ever imagine as a Flyer, he takes to the body, is a force in the forecheck, and does his best work in front of the net especially on the power play. Not only does he bring that to the table but he brings the veteran presents that sticks up for all the guys on the team he is a leader and we can only hope he doesn’t get sent else where.

As far as what we could get for Simmonds I think that we could net a first round pick for him as well as a second tier wing prospect. Reports show that Tampa, Nashville, Toronto and, Boston. I would prefer if he is traded to be at least out of our conference to Nashville to team back up with a very familiar face in Peter Laviolette. Best case scenario as a fan is if we do trade him he decides to come back in the offseason taking a discount on his contract for say 3.5 mil for 3-4 seasons which is a very cap friendly deal as well as giving Simmonds what he wants in a long term deal with the team he loves in the city he loves. If no trade happens I would imagine that contract negotiations will happen immediately and the deal would be done before the playoffs. Worse case scenario is he doesn’t get traded and then walks into free agency, the odds of that happening are slim to none.

Onto raffl and Elliot, I personally won’t be to upset to see either go. Recent reports state that Chuck Fletcher is receiving phone calls for both raffl and Elliot but no team names have been released to who has called. I’m not shocked by any means due to the fact that both contracts expire at the end of the year. Raffl has had ups and downs throughout his 4ish years here but overall only real true upside has been on the penalty kill and the defensive body only putting up 13 points this season with 5 G and 8A with a +/- 4. Elliot has been nothing but injury central in my opinion. He’s missed over half of this season as well as last, he’s got playoff experience which can bring in a decent return as a goaltender especially for a team like Calgary who needs a solid back up or even possibly Phoenix Alain needing a backup both sitting in a playoff spot. I believe we could get a decent return for both possibly bringing in at least a 3rd for either one of them and possibly even a second for Elliot.

With only 3 1/2 hours left till the deadline with a few minutes worth of grace period we shall see what happens and only hope for the best

With the flyers sitting 7points out of the last playoff spot with 20 games left I think if the flyers find a way to 16 out of the last 20 we make it but the odds of it happening are beyond small but if there’s a team in the league that can it’s most definitely the flyers especially with the continued hot play as of late since the all star break.