Bad Gambles Define Flyers Management

Another example was the Ristolainen trade. Rather than ship out Ghost for less than nothing, literally we gave up two picks to part with him, and trade a king’s ransom for Risto as the brain trust did. The Flyers could have waited a year for Ristolainen to be a UFA and for Ghost to improve his trade value.   What did the team have to lose by waiting a year for Risto to become a UFA?  Was another year of Ghost (who led Coyote blueliners in points) on the back end really going to make the difference?  The Flyers would have only gotten 58 points instead of 61.

Did the Flyers front office think that the Sabres, and Ristolainen for that matter, were finally going to put it together for a cup run that would make signing Risto impossible? The reasoning here is hard to figure.

I wish I could give a detailed answer to what the Flyers are doing, but I have not gotten an explanation.  All I have is pure conjecture based on what we have seen. The Flyers went all in, with a bad hand, and lost. Now, with their time running out, the Flyers brain trust will not retrench, but gamble away today, and every asset they have for the next three seasons, hoping they find the magic mix.

This is not the moves of someone carefully constructing a vision, but of the degenerate gambler who has lost all but the last $100 of his mortgage payment at the casino, and has no choice but to keep playing and hope his number comes up on the roulette wheel.