It was always easy to understand why the Philadelphia Flyers would be interested in trading Scott Hartnell. After all, Hartnell is 32 years old and signed to a contract that combines both a long term with a pretty hefty cap hit. He’d rebounded in 2013-14 from a disappointing 2012-13 season, but the team was looking down the barrel of a long commitment to a player on the back nine of his career.
The baffling thing was that Philadelphia decided to solve those problems by trading Hartnell for R.J. Umberger.
Umberger carries many of the same negatives that Hartnell does. Like Hartnell, Umberger is 32 years old (he’s all of two weeks younger) and on the back nine of his career. Like Hartnell, Umberger has a deal that carries a hefty cap hit and stretches for multiple seasons after this one. And just like Hartnell, Umberger had a disappointing 2012-13 campaign; the difference was that he didn’t rebound from it to nearly the same extent.
That isn’t to say that the Flyers didn’t make any headway in the trade. After all, there are some marginal advantages to their deal with Columbus:
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Article written by Jonathan Willis
Umberger-Hartnell Trade Still Looks Like a Terrible Deal for Philadelphia Flyers
October 29th, 2014 by Jonathan Willis Leave a reply »
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