HIDDEN GEM TO ALL-STAR
Flyers’ winger among elite
Wayne Simmonds was basically a footnote on the whirlwind summer day that transformed the Philadelphia Flyers.
It was June 23, 2011, when then-general manager Paul Holmgren pulled the trigger on three enormous transactions after a 106-point campaign that saw the Flyers ultimately bounced in the second round of the playoffs by the Boston Bruins.
Arguably the biggest move at that point was the trade that sent captain Mike Richards, then at his peak, to Los Angeles. Bigger in retrospect was the other whopper, which saw Jeff Carter, who had averaged 28 goals and 69 points over the three previous seasons, dealt to Columbus.
Then there was the apparent end to Philadelphia’s goaltending woes with Russian netminder Ilya Bryzgalov signing for nine years and US$51 million.
Bryzgalov was eventually bought out, but the Flyers did well otherwise that day. While Carter remained a star and eventually won two Stanley Cups with the Kings, the players the Flyers acquired in the trade proved potent: Jakub Voracek gradually rose into one of the NHL’s top scorers — outscoring Carter from the time of the trade (337 points to 284) — and Sean Couturier quickly became a valued contributor down the middle.
Richards, meanwhile, sunk after his exit from Philadelphia, the Kings ultimately cutting ties in 2015. The Flyers not only netted Brayden Schenn, who had 26 goals and 59 points last season, in that deal, but also Simmonds, who has scored 69 power-play goals since joining Philadelphia. That is a total bettered only by Washington’s Alex Ovechkin.
The 28-year-old from east-end Toronto was named the all-star game MVP on Sunday in Los Angeles.
“They asked me how does being an all-star sound, and I said, ‘Weird,’ ” Simmonds said. “It’s definitely an honour. There’s so many great players in our game today. To be recognized as an allstar is pretty special to me.”
NHL 100
Evgeni Malkin’s absence from the NHL’s 100 greatest players list drew the most scrutiny, but the bigger snub was probably Joe Thornton. Nobody has more points, assists, or power-play points than Thornton since the product of St. Thomas, Ont., entered the NHL in 1997.
The 37-year-old also ranks 15th in goals in that span. He’s tied for 11th in points per game (with a minimum 500 games) with Mats Sundin and just ahead of Pavel Datsyuk, both of whom cracked the list. Thornton is tied for fifth in assists per game with Joe Sakic, another player who cracked the top 100.
“He’s come through both generations, you could say,” San Jose Sharks teammate Joe Pavelski said of Thornton, who’s played for parts of the last three decades. “He’s played that hard, tough hockey and he’s put up the points consistently.
“It’s a position we thought he would’ve probably been in and he wasn’t. And as a teammate, you kind of believed he should have been there.”