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Flyers stand pat at trade deadline

SAN JOSE - As Paul Holmgren carved out his final trade-deadline preparations on Sunday afternoon from his bunker at the Skate Zone in Voorhees, N.J., he spoke to coach Peter Laviolette on the other side of the country to get his take on the Flyers.

Rick Nash remains in Columbus after the Flyers didn’t make a move at the trade deadline. (Gene J. Puskar/AP)
Rick Nash remains in Columbus after the Flyers didn’t make a move at the trade deadline. (Gene J. Puskar/AP)Read more

SAN JOSE - As Paul Holmgren carved out his final trade-deadline preparations on Sunday afternoon from his bunker at the Skate Zone in Voorhees, N.J., he spoke to coach Peter Laviolette on the other side of the country to get his take on the Flyers.

The two talk almost every day, regardless of whether Holmgren is on the trip.

"I told him that I really liked our team, our makeup, and I like our chemistry," Laviolette said after his team wrapped up a 65-minute skate at Sharks Ice. "We're hard to play against.

"We added pieces. We just did it before the 3 o'clock deadline."

Yesterday, the Flyers were one of 12 teams to not make a move before the unusually sleepy 3 o'clock trade deadline. No move shook the Richter scale, and Rick Nash awkwardly remained in Columbus.

Overall, it was the smallest number of players (32) traded on deadline day since March 9, 2004, leaving Canadian broadcasters hours to fill with dissection of minor trades.

Holmgren said he was not disappointed with the Flyers' lack of trades, as they nabbed the two defensemen they coveted - Nicklas Grossman and Pavel Kubina - on Feb. 16 and 18, respectively.

"We didn't go into this trade deadline with anything we really felt we needed to do," Holmgren said in a conference call. "We like our team, and we were quite comfortable coming out of it like we did, without doing anything more today.

"A couple of weeks ago, we felt we lacked some things on our back end just because of the absence of Chris [Pronger], and we addressed those issues without giving up anyone off our team. I like our team."

Holmgren said the Flyers did field calls about players on their active roster, hinting at reports about James van Riemsdyk and impending free agent Matt Carle, but thought the team was better as currently assembled.

They also reportedly kicked the tires on Buffalo's Paul Gaustad, who was shipped to Nashville - one of the day's big winners - in exchange for a first-round pick. Holmgren said that price was "pretty steep."

"Nothing really made sense for us in the short term or in the long term," Holmgren said. "There wasn't anything that was pitched to us that, when you put it on the big board, would have made us as good a team as what's on the board right now."

Both Holmgren and Laviolette reiterated that they aren't thrilled with the Flyers' penchant for giving up goals. They have allowed 98 goals over their last 31 games, an average of 3.16 per game. Heading into last night's action, they've still scored more than any other team in the league (203).

"It's nice that we're capable of scoring four or five goals a game," Laviolette said. "But you can't do that on a consistent basis, and you certainly can't do that in the playoffs. Defensively, in our end, we've got to cut down on our goals against."

Holmgren said it was obvious "our goaltending needs to play better," but also noted it was a function of how the team was playing. He described the style as "loosey-goosey."

Some reports even suggested the Flyers would try to add a third goaltender as an insurance policy for Ilya Bryzgalov and Sergei Bobrovsky. That never materialized.

Rather than add a goaltender, they bulked up with Grossman and Kubina to limit a goalie's chances. And pretty soon, Laviolette said, opponents will notice those upgrades.

"I think you do see it already," Laviolette said. "It's not like [Grossman is] an offensive guy who's going to score 50 points a year. He's a defensive defenseman. They'll start limiting shots, limiting chances, taking care of our end, that's the effect that they'll have on the game."

Now, any player added after yesterday is ineligible for the playoffs. And that's fine by those in the locker room. The last time they didn't make a deadline deal, in 2010, they played into June with Michael Leighton in net.

"I think we've got as good a chance as anybody," Danny Briere said. "We proved it in the first half."

"I think we're confident in ourselves," van Riemsdyk said. "I think we've obviously had a little bit of a slide since things aren't going as good as they were for us. That's all part of a long season. I think we've got a lot of character in here. We haven't lost faith in ourselves or our teammates."

Slap shots

The Sharks did not arrive back in San Jose until late yesterday afternoon. After nine road games in 15 days (2-6-1), they were stuck in Minneapolis an extra night with mechanical difficulties on their plane . . . Ilya Bryzgalov could start his sixth straight game tonight . . . The Flyers are 0-2-2 in their previous four trips to HP Pavilion, where the free-falling Sharks are 18-9-2 this season. San Jose added Daniel Winnik and T.J. Galiardi yesterday from Colorado for Jamie McGinn and two prospects. Both players could make their debuts tonight.