Philadelphia Flyers Friday Flubs, Part 2: R.J. Umberger

In the second installment of this weekly (for now) series where I examine past atrocities committed by the Philadelphia Flyers, I shake my head at R.J. Umberger’s second stint in town.

The first time that we saw R.J. Umberger in a Philadelphia Flyers uniform, from 2005 to 2008, there was a lot to like. He showed steady progress for three seasons, and he even took a star turn in the 2008 playoffs, when he scored ten goals and was a big part of the team’s surprising run to the Eastern Conference Finals.

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But it was precisely because of this newfound value that the Flyers were able to entice the Columbus Blue Jackets enough to trade for Umberger (who was a restricted free agent at the time) at the NHL Draft in 2008, with the Flyers also packaging a later pick in exchange for a first- and third-rounder from Columbus. Unfortunately, the two defensemen that the Flyers used those picks on (Luca Sbisa and Marc-Andre Bourdon) combined to play just 84 games for the Flyers while Umberger was a fairly steady contributor for the Jackets, hitting the 20-goal mark four times.

But leave it up to the Flyers to take one loss and double down on it, because they felt the need to re-acquire a 32-year old Umberger in 2014 for a still productive Scott Hartnell. It was a move that wasn’t facilitated strictly because of salaries, with the players making roughly equal money (although Hartnell had two more years left on his deal than Umberger, so the Flyers were getting some flexibility). And it’s at least partly valid to call it a product of newly hired Flyers GM Ron Hextall throwing his weight around and making his first statement move since taking control of the team. As we all know, Hextall’s 4+ years in the position yielded a number of shrewd moves that are still benefiting the Flyers today. But this sure wasn’t one of them.

From the start, it was apparent that Umberger was totally on the backslide, and he posted just one goal and two assists through the first 24 games of 2014-15. The Flyers as a whole went 8-13-3 to begin that season, effectively killing any and all postseason chances by Thanksgiving, with Umberger frequently finding his ice time closer to Zac Rinaldo/Chris VandeVelde territory than to what the team’s top forwards were getting. He’d go on to finish that dismal year with 9 goals and 6 assists in 67 games, got benched at one point, and saw his season end prematurely due to an injury that needed surgery.

And while it’s easy to chiefly blame his health for how bad Umberger was in 2014-15, he proclaimed himself good to go the following year but was just as lousy. He put up 2 goals and 9 assists in 39 games, becoming a regular healthy scratch down the stretch and not even getting into any of the team’s six playoff games. Umberger knew a buyout was coming, and it did. The whole thing was a cautionary tale in “gutting out an injury” and how it can hurt the player and the team in the end, although Umberger’s wallet did fine.

As bad as Umberger was, though, the worst part of all this was the fact that Scott Hartnell went on to put up seasons of 60 and 49 points over the next two years in Columbus, although he too would become a buyout victim after hitting the wall in his third season. He’d spend the final year of his career back in Nashville where it started. Still, Hartnell had 146 points in 234 games with the Blue Jackets, compared to Umberger’s 26 in 106 with the Flyers. It’s hard to get any worse than that.

Next. Friday Flubs: Vincent Lecavalier. dark

Trading Scott Hartnell for R.J. Umberger may very well have been the worst move that Ron Hextall ever made as GM of the Flyers. Let’s just hope that Chuck Fletcher doesn’t make any missteps this bad.

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