Blue Jackets in on Jeff Carter?

RUMOUR			2010-2011 NHL Statistics				July 1st Status
To Columbus	Position	Age	GP	G	A	P	Years	Cap Hit
Jeff Carter	F	26	80	36	30	66	11	$5.3 million
--------------------------
To Philadelphia	Position	Age	GP	G	A	P	Years	Cap Hit
Jakub Voracek	F	21	8	14	32	46	0	RFA
2012 1st Round Draft Pick

Now, this is what I call an excellent trade rumour!

Not long after the Philadelphia Flyers acquired Ilya Bryzgalov from the Phoenix Coyotes, the flags started going up, asking the question, how the hell are the Flyers going to sign a goalie that wants top dollar for the long-term to a deal with so much cap trouble as it is?  The easiest and most likely answer is that a player of significant value, possibly two players that add up to significant value, would have to depart in order to get this to go.  Hence this rumour.

As you can see in the trade table above, the Blue Jackets will help the Flyers out by moving some serious assets to Philadelphia to acquire Jeff Carter, a player of reasonable magnitude and good offensive skill.  The Jackets would send Jakub Voracek, an under-whelming prospect with Columbus, who becomes a restricted free agent in July, and the team's 1st round pick at the draft in a couple of weeks.

Let's quickly look at the Flyers, who not only clear some space for the signing of Bryzgalov, they get to name their price with a talented centre in Voracek, who could very well be signed for the short-term for some testing out money, and a decent 1st round pick (8th overall) to help build their youthful depth.

For the Jackets, they have the cap space to take on a top end centre like Carter, who should give some immediate help to a winger like Rick Nash, likely increasing their fantasy value for the 2012 season, which is one thing that the Jackets are desperately seeking.  In order to win now, the Jackets would almost be silly not to make this deal, granted they are probably the team pushing this one in the end.

I like this rumour a lot, I think both teams could certainly benefit from this one in a lot of ways.  Granted, this is a deal that is almost too good to be true, so it will be interesting to see whether or not this one goes down before or at the draft.  The only thing I could see slowing this deal down is that the Flyers would not really want to part with Carter, but their depth down the middle is very impressive and Carter has fallen down the depth charts behind Claude Giroux and Mike Richards.