In any event, after being bought out by the Tampa Bay Lightning, it now appears the Philadelphia Flyers were not the right team for him, as the playmaking center with the soft hands has gotten slower and could never be paired with the right snipers, because they were set up with Claude Giroux or Brayden Schenn.
Some Flyers writers have explained the situation as nothing more than his needing to be utilized better, which I agree with in general. But in the few instances where he was given a legitimate shot at better minutes, he did prove to be inconsistent, whether it can be attributed to rust or age, no one knows for sure.
And for all the flak he gets from Flyers fans, they forget that he still scored 20 goals in his first season with the team in 2013-14, the 13th time in 14 seasons that he had reached that mark - and the one where he hadn't was the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season, where he scored 10 goals in 39 games, a pace of... 20 on a full year. Sure, gone are the 100-point and 50-goal days of 2006-07, but we're talking about a former NHL captain, a member of a gold-winning Team Canada and a Stanley Cup champion wth hardware (a Rocket Richard Trophy and a King Clancy), the type of leader you'd pay just so your young players could learn around him, let alone produce at a half a point per game clip as he had prior to this year (he has just one assist in 7 games).
I hope he finds a new home soon. I could see him on the Nashville Predators, Edmonton Oilers or Calgary Flames. Here he is sporting the Bolts' black (home) Reebok Edge pajama-style rags from 2007-11, from Upper Deck's 2011-12 Series 1 set (card #GJ-VL of the UD Game Jersey sub-set):
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