Flyers, Forsberg maintain status quo

The much-anticipated meeting between Peter Forsberg and Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren has come and gone, and not one thing has changed.

Forsberg is still not comfortable with the condition of his right foot, does not feel as if he is playing well, and will not talk to the Flyers about signing a new contract or accepting a trade until he is.

And when might that be?

No one knows.

"Well, we only got to one point actually," Forsberg said yesterday after the meeting. "What we said was we have to figure out the foot situation and there's no need to talk about anything else. We have to try to fix the foot . . . That has to remain our main focus right now."

And so, with the NHL trade deadline 4 weeks from today, neither the Flyers nor Forsberg has any better an idea of where the star center will be at the end of the season.

Which means rumors and speculation about Forsberg's future as a Flyer and a player will depend on whether he can find an answer to why his surgically repaired right foot cannot be sufficiently anchored in any skate of any kind and why the problem will not go away.

"It all depends on the foot. We didn't talk about trading or signing a new deal or whatever. That's all we talked about and how long it's going to take,'' Forsberg said.

"I think [the meeting] went good. We didn't really get a whole lot of things done. But we said we have to figure out the foot before we talk about anything else, and that is what the focus is on."

Holmgren called the meeting last week after reports and speculation escalated about Forsberg being traded. The Flyers have wanted an answer all along about whether Forsberg was willing to sign an extension to his current contract, which expires at the end of the season.

The Flyers would like to keep Forsberg as a centerpiece to the rebuilding effort they will embark on, possibly starting with trades before the Feb. 27 deadline, but there have been numerous reports that Forsberg wants out of his current situation.

Forsberg has maintained that he wants only to find an answer to his problem foot and that until that happens, there is no point in discussing anything.

For Forsberg, that is the logical answer; for the Flyers, maybe not. If Forsberg is not traded for real value by the deadline, then decides to retire or move when he becomes an unrestricted free agent, the Flyers lose an opportunity to get anything back for their 2-year investment in him other than more room under the salary cap.

For the Flyers, not trading Forsberg without a commitment for the future is a gamble, but one they are apparently willing to take.

"I guess, more than anything, the result of this meeting is he's on our team right now, he's on our reserve list, he's a Philadelphia Flyer," Holmgren said.

That could change in the coming weeks. Holmgren said that he did not set a deadline but that he would approach Forsberg again as the trade deadline nears. Even then, he apparently is willing to wait out a recovery for Forsberg's foot rather than be in a hurry to move him.

Holmgren said that teams have called and continue to call, and that should the need to make a deal for Forsberg come up, "it won't take long."

Right now, however, Holmgren said he has gotten no further than cursory conversation with interested teams. He said asking Forsberg whether he wanted to be moved is a "moot point," based on the way Forsberg feels as a player.

"He's not willing right now, and I'm not, either, to talk about moving him somewhere else in this situation," Holmgren said. "It doesn't make any sense to go there until he feels like he is the player he wants to be or can be. He doesn't feel good about his game right now.

"Until Peter comes in and raises his arms up and says, 'I've had enough,' we're just going to continue to do what is right by him in that regard. It makes no sense for us not to do that, because when he plays for us, he makes us a better team, and that's what we want.

"I feel [he wants to stay]," Holmgren said. "He came here with the idea that he was going to help the Flyers win, and he wants to continue trying to do that.

"Even though we are where we are right now, he still wants to battle through these issues, he wants to keep playing, he want to help us win hockey games, so I get a sense that he wants to stay here.

"Every time you talk to Peter at length, you find out what a proud man he is. He's frustrated by this. He tells you he's the reason the Flyers are where they're at.

"Nobody is more frustrated through this whole ordeal than him, and he's still willing to go through the process and rectify that. I give him high marks." *