Flyers make trade; another move possible

OTTAWA - There were a number of teams that would have jumped on the opportunity to trade for Toronto defenseman Tomas Kaberle and the Flyers were certainly one of them.

But the Czech defenseman was in no mood to be traded today, refusing to waive his no-trade clause and sending the Flyers looking elsewhere, where they actually did land a Czech defenseman by trading an undisclosed draft pick for the Los Angeles Kings' Jaroslav Modry.

"We think he can help us," said Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren, who is in Naples, Fla., attending the league's GM meetings. "He'll give us more of a veteran presence and he's still a puck-moving, mobile defenseman."

Holmgren said the Flyers hope to have him in the lineup Thursday night against San Jose.

Modry, 36, has just one goal and five assists in 61 games this season with the Los Angeles Kings. He will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season and currently makes $1.2 million.

"Is he going to be the difference for us? It might allow us to do something different somewhere else," Holmgren said, indicating he might be able to look for a scoring forward.

While Modry is not the level of defenseman the Flyers were hoping to get in Kaberle, the search for that kind of player is not completely over.

It is dwindling, however. The Flyers are closely watching negotiations between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Dan Boyle.

Boyle will be a free agent at the end of the season and the Lightning is trying to resign him. If that does not happen, the Flyers would be in the mix of teams willing to take a shot at a deal.

A Boyle deal would not come cheap and it also would require the Flyers knowing they could sign him. "We'd talk about a player like that," Holmgren said. "He'd help a lot of teams and we would certainly inquire as to what it would take to get him.

"But if it got too crazy we wouldn't want to mortgage too much of our future for him."

Holmgren would not say what kind of deal he offered the Maple Leafs for Kaberle, just that, "we expressed an interest in him. There was a deal to be made but he's not going anywhere, so it's a moot point. The really high-end guys like Kaberle just won't walk away from their contracts."

Both Kaberle and Mats Sundin have so far refused to waive their no-trade clauses, preventing Toronto from making a deal. "Tomas Kaberle has a contract for the Toronto Maple Leafs and he is not going anywhere," his agent Rick Curran told the Canadian Press. "He signed in Toronto to play in Toronto. He's not leaving. He wants to help this team."