Ron Hextall Does It Again, Dumps Off Luke Schenn AND Vinny Lecavalier To The Kings
Bless you, Ron Hextall. You beautiful bastard you. Not only was he able to dump off Chris Pronger’s contract to the Coyotes over the summer, but now he’s able to ship out Vinny Lecavalier to the Los Angeles Kings and somewhat clean up the clusterfuck of a mess that Holmgren left for him. Now it appears that the Flyers will be retaining half the salaries of both L. Schenn and Lecavalier which will be $1.8 million and $2.25 million respectively. But with that move, the Flyers now open up about $4 million more in cap room and I can’t ever recall a time when the Flyers organization had that much money to play with.
A couple quick things here. 1) The Kings wanting to bring in Luke Schenn comes as no surprise.
Matt Greene is hurt and they obviously needed to replace him for this season. Greene is a 6’3″ 232 lb right handed shot, Schenn is a 6’2″ 229 lb right handed shot. The biggest advantage that both of them have is their size and out of all the defensemen that could possibly be on the trade market, Luke Schenn best suits the Kings’ need to replace Greene. The fact that he hits free agency in the summer and is coming at half the price only makes the deal sweet for the Kings.
Now as for Lecavalier, it really sucks that his time in Philadelphia didn’t work out. He came here to play for Laviolette and just 3 games into his time here in Philadelphia, Laviolette got canned. So then he got stuck playing for Berube and the shit just didn’t click. Vinny just didn’t have a spot in this lineup and it was getting sad to see such a great player just have to end his career by watching hockey. But now he’ll be able to end his career with the Kings. He’s already informed the team that he plans on retiring at the end of the season so the Kings are bringing in both Vinny and Schenn right now, but could very easily be without both of them come next season. It’s a very very good move for the Kings as they get to add presence on the blueline and veteran leadership in the locker room. It’s a very very good move for the Flyers as they open up a ton of cap space and finally get the majority of that Lecavalier contract off their hands.
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In return for Schenn and Vinny comes the Kings’ 3rd round draft pick in 2016 and prospect Jordan Weal, who was the Kings’ 3rd round pick in 2010. Honestly, I don’t know anything about the Weal kid but that’s fine because this deal isn’t about him. All that matters is that Ron Hextall is a fucking genius and Sam Hinkie better watch his ass because Sexy Hexy might just run the whole city with the rate he’s going.
P.S. – I’d put good money on the Kings winning the Cup now. Not because Luke Schenn and Vincent Lecavalier are that big of game changers, but because that’s just the way it works. Guys leave Philly and immediately have success.