There was a time in this town, not that long ago, when a coming free-agent signing period garnered far more buzz about the Flyers than a coming draft did.
Danny Briere. Mike Knuble. Jeremy Roenick.
Ilya Bryzgalov.
Oww.
Oww, for a few reasons, not the least of which is that his signing – popular at the time – impeded the development of promising rookie Sergei Bobrovsky and expedited his exit from Philadelphia. As then-owner Ed Snider said one year and one Vezina Trophy later, “He wasn’t going to re-sign with us. He was going to go back to Russia (or) he was going to go with another team, but he wasn’t going to be a second-string goalie for the rest of his life.