The season started off with plenty of hope.  Big moves were made to bring back team caption and living legend Claude Giroux and Ian Cole in Ufa.  Gm Mangone followed up a decent UFA and landed goalie Petr Mrazek, who never played a game and was flipped for a much needed  legit # 1 started Darcy Kuemper.  With this move along with the talent from top to bottom, Gm Mangone foolishly thought this team was ready to compete for a Cup.  However all season long there were rumblings of some major issues within the room.  Rumors were flying that Kuemper was not happy being traded.  In a attempt to make a change, Mangone  pulled the trigger on 3 trades on January 10 in a attempt to shake things up.  He first  traded backup Malcom Subban and Tyler Johnson for some much needed grit in Milan Lucic, followed up with a surprising move and traded Eric Staal for Craig Smith, and finished of the day by bringing in veteran Jakub Voracek.  Eric Staal had rumored to of asked for a trade.  Gm Mangone hoped that shaking up the team, and moving out some players who were causing issues within the room, would light a firecracker up under his players, and improve morel moving forward.

 

Team owner Berney Fkaj has always strived to provide a very good and positive environment for his players and staff to thrive in.    Gm Mangone has always been a guy who is fair, but tough at the same time.  So when Darcy Kuemper and a few others continued to cause problems within the room, he had a team meeting, followed up with individual talks with every player.  He hoped things with some very constructive communication would  help, and he would not need to make any further moves going into the trade deadline.  Buy only after a few days, things continued to heat with the room, and Kuemper went to GM Mangone and asked for a trade.  Mangone granted his wish, and made a big trade and moved Kuemper, Ekholm, and Koivu for David Rittich, and Nicolas Roy and a future 1st round pick.

 

The moved proved to be a great one moving forward.  The team absolute loves Rittich and his extremely positive attitude.   Since the deadline Philly has had 3 wins and 2 loses, but has played much better.   Lets hope this team enjoys the bye week, comes back refreshed and ready to prove some people wrong for the last 2o games…GO Philly GO.