Every now and then, Pro Hockey Talk will ask for insight from some of the best team bloggers out there. For this feature, we asked a simple question: “Who is your team’s most frustrating player?” Just for fun, Brandon and I also provided our “guesses” as to who that player might be. First, here are our guesses for Philadelphia.
Brandon - Chris Pronger
I can’t imagine what it must be like to have an aging defenseman under contract until he’s 54.
James - Danny Briere
On some level I wanted to pick Scott Hartnell for his annoying yet funny hair, but Briere has one of the league’s worst deals. Imagine how fearsome Philly would be if they could actually afford to pay for a real goalie.
For the City of Brotherly Love, I asked my pals at Flyers Goal Scored By to provide their analysis. They’re good fellas and I’m fairly certain they break the battery-chucking stereotype.
Fran’s source of frustration: Daniel Briere
I remember the summer of 2007 very well. Myself, Scott, and Chris were spending the summer in The Hamptons. Actually, in a house we were told used to be the MTV Beach House, once upon a time. The weather that June was marvelous. We would spend our days reading Camus and playing carnival games on the boardwalk. Our nights were consumed around the fire drinking Shiraz by the gallon and sharing stories about how we had just peaked all over the NHL, and no one even knew. The phone rang incessantly - we never picked it up.”
In a city where we are constantly disappointed with everything and everyone, it’s quite the declaration to award a single player the distinction of being our greatest source of frustration. Like any fan base our disappointment is defined by what we feel we’ve been promised, with a focus on how that makes us feel relative to that player’s contract. And even though we have players like Scott Hartnell and Matt Carle, who are obviously not playing up to their potential, it’s Danny Briere who earns the ire of most Flyers fans.
More Briere related frustration after the jump
The hockey fans of Philadelphia suffered through the worst season in franchise history in 2006-07 only to continue their losing ways in the draft lottery - ending up with a player that has 33 career points compared to Patrick Kane’s 223. Dark times were upon us. And then July 1st came, and Paul Holmgren made a blockbuster signing. Not only were we getting the NHL’s tenth highest scorer but we all knew him - he had torn us to pieces as a Sabre the previous three seasons and now he would tear everyone else apart while wearing our jersey.
In.your.face.rest of the NHL. Flash forward to today.We are the proud owners of a $6.5M cap hit that can’t win even our second line center spot. The frustrating part is that it’s not like he doesn’t show flashes of the skill that earned him that money, he just doesn’t perform consistently. Maybe if he were just pulling a Drury we could turn our backs on him. But we still find ourselves depending on him because he’s good for 2 points every 3 games. The part that torments us is that we were told this thing got 5 points every 4 games, and that’s what we paid for.
He has one more shot at resuming his old form next season. If he finishes with 50-60 points again the frustration will turn to hatred - a process that in Philadelphia happens with such quickness and finality that he’ll be begging to buy out his own contract.
