"He's something we don't have - a righthanded shot," general manager Paul Holmgren said. "He's a big body who can help out on our power play and penalty killing. He's an all-situational defenseman, an experienced guy who has won a Stanley Cup" with Tampa Bay.
The Flyers' last righthanded defenseman of consequence was Eric Desjardins. Steve Eminger was a righthander who played just 12 games with the Flyers in 2008.
Kubina, 34, was acquired Saturday in a deal that sent second- and fourth-round picks to Tampa Bay, along with minor-league forward Jon Kalinski.
The addition of Kubina and 6-4, 230-pound Nick Grossman, a 27-year-old defenseman who was acquired Thursday from Dallas, gives the Flyers some imposing size on the back line.
They replace rookies Erik Gustaffson (5-10, 180) and Marc-Andre Bourdon (6-0, 206), who were sent to the Phantoms in the AHL.
Grossman, who had eight hits and was plus-1 in his Flyers debut against Pittsburgh on Saturday, and Kubina can become unrestricted free agents after the season, but Holmgren hopes they turn out to be more than rental players.
"We would certainly talk about extending their contracts, but I can't go to those players until they've been here for a while and know the city and the team and whether they even like it," the general manager said. "That's probably somewhere in the future as a conversation."
By shoring up the defense, Holmgren hopes to cover some of the deficiencies shown by goalies Ilya Bryzgalov and Sergei Bobrovsky. Flyers goalies have a 2.97 goals-against average, which was 25th in the 30-team NHL entering Sunday.
Holmgren said that he has no plans to recall Michael Leighton from the Phantoms, and that he has had no thoughts about adding a veteran goalie in a trade.
