Blogs > In The Room with Anthony SanFilippo

Daily Times beat writer Anthony J. SanFilippo takes you inside the locker rooms of the Philadelphia Flyers and the rest of the NHL.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

FLYERS ADD VETERAN O'DONNELL, TOUGH GUY SHELLEY

The Flyers inked a durable veteran defenseman when they added Sean O'Donnell to their defensive stable Thursday afternoon.

O'Donnell, 38, has played in 15 NHL seasons, eight with the Los Angeles Kings, and was a teammate with Chris Pronger on the 2006-07 Anaheim Ducks who won the Stanley Cup.

O'Donnell signed a one-year pact with the Flyers, worth $1 million.

O'Donnell is not an offensive defenseman by any means, scoring just 30 goals in 1,092 career games, but he is big (6-2, 237), strong and solid on the blue line, giving the Flyers some much needed veteran depth.

He was a plus-14 last season with the Kings and is so consistent that he hasn't been a minus since 1996-97, his third year in the league.

The Ottawa native is especially durable, even in his advanced age. He has missed only 33 games in the last 13 seasons.

Continuing with their remaking of the roster, the Flyers later signed free agent forward/fighter Jody Shelly to a 3-year, $3.3 million deal.

Shelley, 34, has played nine seasons in the NHL with Columbus, San Jose and the New York Rangers. If you want to know what he brings to the table, compare these numbers: 538 career games, 16 goals, 33 assists, 49 points, minus-29.

Oh, and 1,347 penalty minutes.

His signing almost certainly spells the end of the Riley Cote era in Philadelphia.

The Flyers now have just $578,000 in cap space left, and still have to sign Darroll Powe, Dan Carcillo and maybe add another goalie and forward.

Why do I think they're nowhere close to being done?

1 Comments:

Anonymous Host Pay Per Head said...

Well I think that it is better to bring more freshman but I have to admit that experience can add a lot to the team.

June 14, 2013 at 3:36 AM 

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