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Tonight the beloved Philadelphia Flyers take on the hated, New Jersey Devils in a pre-season matchup between these two teams, in Trenton, NJ.

The Bobby Clarke Era is officially over, as Paul Holmgren is putting the team he built from the rubble of Clarke's monstrosity on the ice.

Here's why Paul Holmgren is a great GM:

He was able to unload Peter Forsberg last year. The thing is, he got Scottie Upshall, Ryan Parent, and a draft pick that they flipped back to Nashville for the rights to negotiate with Scott Hartnell and Kimmo Timonen. I don't see him dealing with the Predators again after he ripped them last year.

He also picked up Martin Biron, who is a legitimate #1 goalie. It seems like for the first time since Bernie Parent, we have a good goalie in net every night. Biron is a good veteran goalie, who had the challege of succeeding Dominik Hasek in Buffalo, and did it with success. Now, he has the chance to go all the way with the Flyers, and their rebuilt lineup. He's going to have to win a few games himself, but it's not going to be every night. Don't get me wrong, Ron Hextall was pretty good, Beezer was pretty good, Sean Burke wasn't bad either time, but none of those guys could push us over the top, and that's what we got with Biron. Speaking of Beezer, I will never forget how badly I cringed when the Flyers signed him instead of Curtis Joseph before the 99-00 season. Clarke just seemed to like to revolving carousel of goaltenders, Hextall, Snow, Burke (twice), Beezer, Cechmanek, Esche, Boucher plus more in less than 10 years...need I go further?

Holmgren also eliminated Joni Pitkanen from our roster. In the same deal he sent Geoff Sanderson to Edmonton for Joffrey Lupul and Jason Smith. Let's face it, Sanderson was past his prime, and Pitkanen never really played up to the promise he showed. It might have just been a really bad season or he's just a really bad defender. He was pretty horrible in his own end though.

Jason Smith is a big guy, 6'3" and 215 lbs. He's going to score around 3 Goals and 12 Assists and put up a decent +/- number. He's just going to solidify a pourous defense. Nothing spectacular, he's just going to take care of his own end and maybe make it down the ice to play offense a few times per game. He's just what we needed when we signed Hatcher.

Joffrey Lupul is an enigma. He showed 30 goal, 60 point promise in 05-06, but last year slipped back to 16 goals and 12 assists, setting a career low in assists and points. Which Lupul do we get? I'll tell you which one we get. It looks like he just didn't have a chance to score as much in Edmonton last year. Seriously, in 04-05 he took 137 shots, and ended up with 13 goals, about 9.5%. In 05-06, he took 296 shots and scored 28, also around a 9.5%. Last year, he scored 16 goals on 172 shots, about a 9.3%. His shooting percentage hasn't really gone down, but his number of shots has fluctuated between his breakout year and his rookie season in 04-05 and last year, 06-07. I'm really thinking he's going to be a 3rd liner...and that would kill his number of shots. I don't see him being on the first line, but he might get a shot on the second unit, and he's going to need some time on the Power Play to make the most of his skill. Sorry, fellow Flyers fans, I think we got the 15-20 goal Lupul, at least for this year.

Kimmo Timmonen is a pretty good Defenseman who has scored 40 or more points in his last 5 years. Last year he was a +20, but for his career he is a -6. I think (and hope) part of that is the fact he played for Nashville. He's a good quarterback for the Power Play and will put up a few assists. Let's just hope that +20 from last year wasn't a fluke. He's set to be part of our top defensive pair, and he has to play like it for us to be good.

Scottie Upshall is going to be a tough one to figure out. He's played for 5 years, but only has 95 games of experience, a little more than a whole season. Statistically, his best season was 05-06, where he scored 8 goals with 16 assist in 48 games. He was a +14 with 34 PIMs. He must have enjoyed the trade though, because last year he only played 18 games for the Flyers, but scored 6 goals and 7 assists. A few of those were game winning goals as well. I think he's going to fit in well with this group, because Mike Richards, Jeff Carter and R.J. Umberger are also young guys, and they should mesh into a good cohesive unit by the end of the year. This is the player to judge the Forsberg trade by, so far it looks like we got the best of them.

Scott Hartnell is the other former Predator we have, thanks to the Forsberg trade (Ryan Parent isn't with the big club yet, but we got him, too.). He gives us a little bit of toughness and depth. He had a broken foot last year and missed 18 games, but still got 22 goals and 29 points. He's good for 100 PIM and 50-60 points. He also had a pretty good +/- rating (+19) last year, so I am really guessing the team improved their defensive play as a whole.

Our big Free-Agent signing was Daniel Briere. He really gives us a good #1 Center to play with Simon Gagne and Mike Knuble on the top forward line. He finally had a breakout year last year, 95 points, after 4 years of close to 60 a season. Was it because he did break out or because he was playing for a contract? I hope it was a breakout, but who knows. Only time will tell if his money was wasted or well-spent. Does anyone else think he looks pretty ugly in his pic?

We'll see how they do tonight. It might just be a preseason game, but it's going to help determine how good this team is gonna be. John Stevens has a good team to work with, let's hope he can get better results than Ken Hitchcock. Stevens looks a little less husky and seems like less of a prick as well...Yeah, I didn't like Hitchcock. I don't know if it was the beady eyes, the Mario-Moustache or the hair, I just didn't like him. I didn't even like him when he coached Dallas a few years ago. I've never liked him.