Flyers beef up with addition of Kubina

Newly acquired defenseman Pavel Kubina gives the Flyers some beef - he stands 6-foot-4 and weighs 258 pounds - and brings the team something that has been missing since Chris Pronger was sidelined in November with a concussion: nastiness.

"He's a big dude. He's playing dirty," Flyers winger Jaromir Jagr said during a break in the Flyers Wives Carnival on Sunday at the crowded Wells Fargo Center. "I think that's what we're missing a little bit."

Jagr said he and Kubina are "good friends, and he was killing me in front of the net. I didn't like to play against him at all."

"He's something we don't have - a righthanded shot," general manager Paul Holmgren said. "He's a big body who can help out on our power play and penalty killing. He's an all-situational defenseman, an experienced guy who has won a Stanley Cup" with Tampa Bay.

The Flyers' last righthanded defenseman of consequence was Eric Desjardins. Steve Eminger was a righthander who played just 12 games with the Flyers in 2008.

Kubina, 34, was acquired Saturday in a deal that sent second- and fourth-round picks to Tampa Bay, along with minor-league forward Jon Kalinski.

The addition of Kubina and 6-4, 230-pound Nick Grossman, a 27-year-old defenseman who was acquired Thursday from Dallas, gives the Flyers some imposing size on the back line.

They replace rookies Erik Gustaffson (5-10, 180) and Marc-Andre Bourdon (6-0, 206), who were sent to the Phantoms in the AHL.

Grossman, who had eight hits and was plus-1 in his Flyers debut against Pittsburgh on Saturday, and Kubina can become unrestricted free agents after the season, but Holmgren hopes they turn out to be more than rental players.

"We would certainly talk about extending their contracts, but I can't go to those players until they've been here for a while and know the city and the team and whether they even like it," the general manager said. "That's probably somewhere in the future as a conversation."

By shoring up the defense, Holmgren hopes to cover some of the deficiencies shown by goalies Ilya Bryzgalov and Sergei Bobrovsky. Flyers goalies have a 2.97 goals-against average, which was 25th in the 30-team NHL entering Sunday.

Holmgren said that he has no plans to recall Michael Leighton from the Phantoms, and that he has had no thoughts about adding a veteran goalie in a trade.

"I like our goalies. I believe they are going to play better," he said. "They're not happy with their performances, either. It's not like they're not trying. They're both good guys and work hard in practice and realize they have to play better."

Bryzgalov is playing in a "different atmosphere" and a city where there are "different pressures on goalies," Holmgren said, aware that the 31-year-old goalie was not in a hockey market in Phoenix.

Bryzgalov had played well recently, allowing just eight goals over five games before a dismal performance in a 6-4 loss Saturday to Pittsburgh. He surrendered three goals on 13 shots and was replaced by Bobrovsky, who was just as ineffective (three goals on 17 shots).

Breakaways. A source said Sunday that "nothing was going on" in the Flyers' pursuit of Columbus winger Rick Nash. . . . Kubina will join the team at practice Monday in Voorhees. The Flyers start a four-game trip Tuesday in Winnipeg. . . . The Flyers are 26th in the league in face-offs, winning 48.4 percent of their draws. . . . At the Flyers Wives Carnival, Jagr was the first player to sell out at the photo booth. . . . Winger Tom Sestito, who will have groin surgery on Tuesday, was placed on the long-term injured-reserve list.