Berubes and Falloons?

I like Tim Panaccio. In fact, he's the only Flyers writer I make a point to read. But I can't say I'm a fan of his new weekly rating system. Basically because I just don't understand it.

For as long as I've been reading him Panach has been giving a weekly report on some happenings around the NHL, and at the end of it he rates the Flyers week using a point scale. If something good happened the Flyers would get two points, if they blew a 4 goal lead they might lose two points. He'd keep a running tally all year to let you know where the Flyers were as opposed to where he thought they should be.

This year, however, he has designated the good points "Berubes" and the bad ones "Falloons." I dig the spice but not the flavor. I'm not sure why he used these two guys.

The Chief (#3 after Bobby Taylor and someone else my parents were rambling about) was a badass hockey player. There's no denying that. And I get the fact that he's currently a part of the organization. But Craig Berube played 30% more games with the Caps than with the Flyers. And he may have been in the top tier of fighters, but I would never have considered him among the top ten in any season he played. He played with guys like Basil McRae, Kelly Buchberger, Marty McSorley, The Grim Reaper, Tie Domi, Bob Probert, Brad May, Rob Ray...the list goes on and on. So why, of all the people, Panach would have chosen him to be the positive to his weekly negative I'm not sure.

And Pat Fallon? Yeah, some consider him a pretty big bust. He put up giant numbers in juniors and then only 322 points in 575 games in the NHL - over half a point a game which is a pretty admirable feat. Keep in mind that Scott Hartnell, also a first rounder, has 269 points in 543 games. Different times, rules, yadda yadda - I get it. But Pat Falloon never made $5M a year. And the even bigger problem I have with designating Falloon as the negative to Berube's positive is that even if you think he was a bust, he wasn't a Flyers bust. He was a Sharks bust! They're the ones that picked him with the 2nd overall pick in the infamous 1991 NHL draft. Not the Flyers. We got him for Martin Sphanel (2 NHL games) and a 1st and a 4th (funnily enough that first turned into Danny Briere). We got him for basically a draft pick! And what did he do when he got here? Oh just averaged .57 points per game - that's all. More than a number of the Flyers forwards last year.

There are plenty of other great candidates for the positives (Bernie, Dornie, Poulin, Lindros, Leclair, Tochhet, Propp) and the negatives (Pitkanen, Ryan Sittler, Jason Bowen, Claude Boivin, Darren Rumble), so why choose these randoms?

Maybe I'm just bitter because Pat Falloon was a key component of the Falloon - Larionov - Freisen line that I dominated NHL '94 with. But usually I think you're dead on Timmy. Not this time though.