Life goes on for the Philadelphia Flyers.
General manager Paul Holmgren addressed his team's attempt to land restricted free agent defenceman Shea Weber on Wednesday, one week after signing him to a 14-year, $110 million offer sheet that the Nashville Predators matched.
"In our minds, he is one of the best defencemen in the game today," Holmgren told reporters during a conference call. "My initial reaction was disappointment. But I guess we move on. The chance of them matching was always there, however hopeful we were of them not, it was always there, and they did."
Despite losing out on one of the NHL's elite blueliners, Holmgren maintained that he's content with his lineup for next season.
"Now we move forward and see what we can do," he explained. "We like our team - we think it's a good, up-and-coming young team and we will continue to try and add to it and make it better, which is what we tried to do with the offer sheet. We'll move forward."
The Flyers have already made big adjustments to their defence this summer, acquiring blueliners Luke Schenn and Bruno Gervais and losing unrestricted free agent Matt Carle to the Tampa Bay Lightning. However, captain Chris Pronger's future with the club is still up in the air as he's trying to recover from a severe concussion.
"There are still players out there that require a trade," Holmgren added in the conference call. "There's still plenty of time before we can plan and rule out anything right now. As I said earlier, we really like our team, we certainly don't want to make any drastic changes, but we are going to continue to look at ways to get better. The object is to have the best team going into training camp and that's what we're going to do."
The Flyers will also have business to tend to with their forwards, with restricted free agent Jaukub Voracek left to sign and rumours of acquiring unrestricted free agent Shane Doan.
"I don't want to put words in Shane's mouth, but I think first and foremost he would like things to work out in Phoenix," said Holmgren. "If he is ready to make a move, we have interest."
