by Aj Brady

Created on: May 07, 2008

After finishing the 2006-07 with the worst win-loss record in the entire National Hockey League (NHL), the generally-successful Philadelphia Flyers franchise were intent on making amends in season 2007-08.

Preparations for this season began even before last season finished, with the Flyers making a spate of late-season trades, mostly for future high draft picks.

In mid-June, sometime after their disastrous 2006-07 campaign had come to a close, the Flyers made a trade which sent the first-round draft pick they had acquired in a previous trade from Nashville, for the rights to negotiate with impending unrestricted free agents Kimmo Timonen and Scott Hartnell.

Both were subsequently signed to six-year contracts.

After being drawn in the 2007 NHL Draft Lottery to gain the second pick overall, the Flyers seriously considered offers to trade this draft pick, however they eventually chose to hold onto it.

The Flyers ended up having seven picks at the draft, their most notable being that number two pick, which they used to acquire American left-wing James vanRiemsdyk.

The Flyers then went about wasting no time in addressing their free agent needs. On July 1st, the Flyers signed Buffalo co-captain Daniel Briere to an eight-year, $52 million contract.

Revamping their defensive core, Joni Pitkanen and Geoff Sanderson were traded to Edmonton for Oilers captain Jason Smith and Joffrey Lupul. On October 1st, Smith was named captain, whilst team stars Simon Gagne and Mike Richards both received the alternate captain designations.

With a virtually entirely new starting line-up, the Flyers began the 2007-08 season very strongly.

The Flyers went on a five-game winning streak in early October, starting with an 8-2 away smashing against Vancouver.

The Flyers finished the first month of the season with an impressive 7-3-0 win-loss record, and 14 points in all. Among this was a perfect 4-0-0 record at home.

November was a different month for Philadelphia, as they struggled to get any rhythm going.

The team were unable to string together more than two victories in a row, and this time it was their road form which was a feature, as the Flyers went 5-3-0 on the road, amongst a 7-5-2 record for the month, which left them at 14-8-2 and 30 points come the end of November.

December was even worse for the suddenly-struggling Flyers, as they lost seven of their first nine games for the month (one being a shootout loss), before recovering slightly to win their final three games of 2007, and regain some

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>