Ed Moran: Pronger should provide just what Flyers need

IT'S HARD NOT TO look at what the Flyers gave up to get Chris Pronger from Anaheim and think of it as a very high price for an older defenseman.

Luca Sbisa is going to be a very good defenseman. Joffrey Lupul is a decent forward now with upside in the right situation. And who knows what two first-round draft picks would have brought to the team eventually?

Eventually.

That's the key word in all of this.

Sbisa was forced into a situation last season he didn't need to be in and probably would not have been except for the preseason injuries to Randy Jones and Ryan Parent. Draft picks after the top three are really just prospects, and Lupul probably would have been traded for cap space anyway.

What Paul Holmgren has done with this trade was exactly what the Flyers needed.

They went from soft out front to scary for probably more than 22 minutes a game. Pronger will be 35 when the season starts, but he still logs big minutes, is 6-6 and plays mean. He'll get more penalty minutes with the Flyers, but at least they won't be dumb penalties.

And the Flyers will have two sets of defensemen who can defend against the best forwards in the league.

Kimmo Timonen has a knack for shutting down guys like Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby, but Pittsburgh made life tough on him in the playoffs by sending Chris Kunitz after him from the first shift.

But there is another very big component to this trade. Pronger is an established leader and knows how to win. Something was missing from the Flyers' locker room last year; they played flat and seemingly uncommitted in some of the most critical games of the season.

One risky aspect of the move is the fact that Pronger is in the final year of his contract and will be unrestricted at the end of next season. Holmgren already has said he will get to work on signing Pronger for the long term, but doing that and staying under the $56.8 million salary cap will be difficult. It might be something that does not get done until later in the season.

So the Flyers have added a fiery guy on defense and a fiery guy in Ray Emery in goal, and you can bet that will make the crease in Philadelphia a tough place to be.