After a great deal of change over the last 11 months the only thing that anyone can really be sure about in Philadelphia is that this is a new era of Flyers hockey. Just how much success that era happens to lead to remains to be seen.

This season is surrounded by questions for the Flyers. With a whole new group of veteran leadership in the dressing room, the state of the captaincy is one of the more popular ones. With Daniel Briere, Kimmo Timonen and Jason Smith--all former captains--aboard in addition to a handful of key returning veterans, who will be wearing the "C" come October 4th is anybody's guess. Head Coach John Stevens and company have kept rather hushed on the matter, simply giving the same generic answers any time a member of the media asks them about the club's future captain.

It makes perfect sense that fans, media, etc. would be asking about the captaincy as long as the position is vacant, but to me there only seems to be one correct answer. The Flyers would be fools not to pile this team on the back of Simon Gagne.

It isn't just because he deserves it, or because he's the team's best player, but the way things have been going lately, it seems like Gagne actually wants to be captain. He has stated publicly that if the responsibility were offered to him this year he would accept it. Players don't generally come out and say they'll accept the weight of the team on their shoulders on a whim. When Gagne tells reporters that he would accept the captaincy if it were offered to him, that's hockey speak for "I want to be captain."

And really there is no better candidate on the team. Sure, Briere, Timonen and Smith have the know-how and the experience, but the fact is that this is Gagne's team. He was drafted by the Flyers and has played every single NHL game of his career as a Flyer. He has grown up and matured as a Flyer. He's been a part of this team through the good and the bad and has earned the affection of some of the hardest fans to please in hockey and sports in general.

He was a part of the team when Eric Lindros turned his back on Philadelphia. He was there when this team fell just short of a trip to the finals in 2000 and 2004. And Gagne was there when Keith Primeau lifted the club on his back and carried a beaten and battered team as far as it could go before succumbing to post-concussion syndrome just months later. Simon Gagne knows the aches and pains of Philadelphia, as well as what it truly means to be a Flyer.

As good as some of the other veterans are, they just don't qualify as well for the position as Gagne does. Jason Smith is a gritty, nasty defenseman that was a great leader for the Oilers, but he can't tell you how the Flyers felt when they blew a 3-1 advantage in the Eastern Conference Finals in 2000. Kimmo Timonen is an outstanding offensive defenseman, but he doesn't know how it felt for the Flyers when Primeau soared the game winner over Ron Tugnutt's shoulder that same year in the Eastern Conference Semis. And Daniel Briere was only helping the Sabres pile on over the Flyers just less than a year ago in a 9-1 blowout that lead to the firing of then-coach Ken Hitchcock and resignation of former GM Bob Clarke.

And though returning veterans like Sami Kapanen and Mike Knuble have proved themselves to be valuable heart and soul type players, it just means something more when the go-to-guy on the ice not only steps up his own game, but leads the team as well. Gagne is already the face of the franchise, he might as well be its heart too.

It has all been building up to this for Gagne. From being a young player on some good teams to the collapse and retooling of the club over the last year while he was one of the few players still having success on the ice, he has been through it all. He has earned the opportunity. Now it's up to the Flyers to give it to him. 

Just when the wounds of the 2006-07 season were getting ready to heal for the Philadelphia Flyers, they got one last jab.

The Flyers dropped down to the second overall pick in the upcoming NHL draft behind the Chicago Blackhawks, a team that finished with 9 more wins and 15 more points, thanks to the recently instated lottery system.

This just furthers my personal theory that the lottery system is nothing but bunk.  Now sure, I know that the purpose of the lottery system is to keep teams honest when they know they won't be making the playoffs early on in a season.  Instead of playing half-heartedly for the remainder of the season and picking up a high draft pick, teams are forced to try to remain competitive regardless of their record.

But the thing about the Flyers is that they didn't fold when they knew the season was over.  They actually improved.  So all this lottery system has done is hurt them.  Here we have a team that has tried to rebuild itself this season into a younger, faster team, exactly what the "New NHL" demands and the league office loves to see in the new age of parity, and all they get is ####.

Now in all fairness, the word on this year's draft class is that it isn't the most stellar one to come out in a while.  The Flyers will still get a very talented player with the number two overall pick, perhaps just about as good as if they had picked first.  But the point is that the principle behind it is all wrong.  A team that finishes dead last in the league but has shown signs of trying to make themselves better should not get punished by this system.

It's a idea that adds nothing to the game and was basically copied from the NBA anyway.  Gary Bettman may have started out in that league, but the NBA and NHL have very little in common other than that.  Basketball's lottery system doesn't belong in hockey.  The only time it should ever have been used was immediately following the lockout.  Now it does nothing but hurt teams with the most to lose.

In other Flyers news, GM Paul Holmgren made comments about Peter Forsberg yesterday during an appearance on local television.

While on Daily News Live yesterday evening, Holmgren was asked by Flyers beat writer Ed Moran how likely it was that the Flyers would attempt to resign Forsberg.

Holmgren was very hesitant to say anything at first, but after some prodding Moran got him to say that if a player like Forsberg were available, the Flyers would have to be interested.

Moran went on to say that if he were Holmgren he would not attempt to resign Forsberg.  Holmgren responded to this comment by basically saying that Moran was not him.  Although clearly meant in a joking manner, Holmgren still seemed to be defiant of Moran's suggestion.

If this does imply that Homgren has interest in reacquiring Forsberg, it would probably come as a surprise to many that follow the team.  It seems to be the popular belief that while the Flyers clearly need a top line center, a player of Forsberg's health status and age would not be a wise choice.  At this point many that follow the Flyers seem to prefer adding Chris Drury or Daniel Briere instead.

This may make for an interesting buzz around the topic until July 1.

I'm dissapointed in the national sports media.

They really blew it this time.  There was an earth-shattering story in the NHL today and all they could talk about was that ridiculous contract that the Islanders gave Rick DiPietro.

The much more significant story of the day is a little less obvious, but may have drastic results in the league's future, way more than mediocre Rick's is going to have.

Had this been the NFL, NBA or MLB the national media outlets, such as ESPN or Fox Sports, probably would have gotten it right away, but in the case of the NHL you have to leave it to us diehards to let the rest of the world know what is going on.  Every single major sports outlet would have had it on their homepage in huge letters had it been one of those other leagues.  But since it's the NHL, they're daft enough to think that DiPietro is the big news of the day.  The real news doesn't even have a link on any major sports news outlet's front page.

And what is that real news?

The Philadelphia Flyers have signed Vancouver Canucks restricted free agent Ryan Kesler to an offer sheet worth $1.9 million.

Now that sounds pretty mundane and unimportant when you hear it, but it's a whole lot more significant than first appearances would dictate. 

The importance here lies in the word "restricted."  Let me explain.

It is legal under the NHL's Collective Bargaining Agreement for one team to make an offer to another team's restricted free agents.  The other team, however, can match with an equal or greater contract offer, or in the case that they do not match, are due significant compensation in the form of draft picks from the first team.

Sure, it's been attempted a couple times in the past.  Big stars like Joe Sakic and Sergei Federov have been made offers while restricted, but at the time those players were too valuable for their teams not to match offers AND there was no salary cap.

What happened today is important because Kesler in not a big star and there is a salary cap. 

What Flyers General Manager Bob Clarke has done is set the market value for a 22 year old player that had only 23 points last season at $1.9 million.

So what does all this mean?

Not only does this inflate salary expectations (even in the post lockout, salary cap era), but even more importantly, it means the gloves are off.

Restricted free agents are still technically the property of their team.  Signing restricted players to offer sheets is essentially trying to take another team's rightful asset without their consent.

Even if this doesn't set a precedent, which it probably already has, expect a few GMs to go out looking for some revenge on the Flyers and eventually anyone else that tries to take their assets.  Once one team's player goes restricted, look for teams to make offers to him that had their players made offers to by the first team in the past.

This is going to make the business side of the sport a whole lot tougher.  It could potentially be a very significant moment in the league.

Too bad the national media didn't catch on.

     When Comcast won the bidding war for the cable television rights to the NHL over ESPN, there was a pretty consistent reaction.  There was no longer any reason to take the NHL seriously.

     And throughout the regular season, it looked like that might be the way it was going to be.  On opening night OLN presented their first ever hockey broadcast.  The New York Rangers battled the Philadelphia Flyers.  The ratings were some of the highest that OLN had ever had, but the quality was seriously lacking.  The camera was far too close to the action, the audio was a bit fuzzy, and the set for the intermission reports looked like one made for a college television station.

     OLN's broadcasts slowly improved, but the ratings didn't.  Their national broadcasts that aired several nights a week went largely unnoticed by everyone except hockey diehards.  The national appeal of ESPN's National Hockey Night still seemed to be a thing of the past.

     But for this year's playoffs OLN has brought something to the table that has never been there before.  They show hockey every single night, often more than one game.  You can turn on your television any night of the week and watch playoff hockey.  Not only does OLN present a game every night that there is one being played, but they also show games that are being presented by CBC.  Imagine ESPN caring so much about their coverage of a sport that they would actually show another network's broadcast.  It would never happen. 

     OLN shows hockey on nights that there isn't any hockey to be seen.  They show classic games and any of a number of hockey related programs when there are no games being played or a local game is blacked out.  Again, that isn't in ESPN's forte. 

     Sure, for the casual fan or just the occasional observer, OLN is still not the ideal place to expose the sport, but for those of us that are truly passionate hockey fans, these are the best playoffs we have ever gotten a chance to see in the U.S.  It's all hockey, all the time.  American hockey fans have never been able to watch so many playoff games in one year. 

     In the past, ESPN's idea of playoff hockey coverage was to show a few games a week, then take over every game when it started to get down to the nitty-gritty.  During those other nights that they didn't present hockey they'd show other programming.  Understandable, since they are the leading sports network in North America if not the world, but it gets a little ridiculous when you consider the content of the programming. 

     ESPN was skipping out on playoff hockey so that they could show programming like meaningless, early-season baseball games.

     That's right.  People were missing grueling, intense, heart-pounding playoff hockey so that ESPN could show two baseball teams with 150 games remaining square off in a game that meant absolutely nothing.  Interestingly enough, early season National Hockey Night never seemed to get too much in the way of ESPN's baseball playoff coverage in October.  But then, that's just the way it is when you are a fan of the fourth ranking sport.   

    So as hockey fans, let's all be grateful for OLN.  Sure, it isn't the major network exposing the sport that we would all like it to be, but at least it cares.  For the first time, an accessible network is making hockey its top priority.  That has never happened before.  Ever.  Even if it is only because hockey is the only major sport they have to show, they are still making a bold statement.  Playoff hockey is great, and OLN believes in it.