As a Philadelphia sports fan in the 21st century, you hold onto three universal truths. No amount of logic and reasoning can convince you otherwise.  The first being Brian Dawkins is the greatest safety in NFL history. The second being Ruben Amaro Jr. destroyed the Phillies.

And third, but not least, is that Paul Holmgren was a Russian spy paid by the Pittsburgh Penguins to ensure the complete demise of the Philadelphia Flyers. Think about it, at one point the guy had Mike Richards, Claude Giroux, Jeff Carter, James Van Riemsdyk, Simon Gagne, Danny Briere, Kimmo Timonen and Chris Pronger, yet failed to win a Cup. Here are the 10 moves that hurt the Flyers the most under Holmgren.

10. Trading Away Mike Richards and Jeff Carter

This trade may be the most controversial one in the history of the Flyers. It’s not because the Flyers for sure lost the deal, but because about five years later we still don't really know who won. The Kings were able to win two cups with Richards and Carter playing crucial roles. The Flyers are still starting Sean Couturier, Wayne Simmonds, Jakub Voracek and Brayden Schenn. No matter how you look at the deal though, you have to admit it was the beginning of a long, painful decline for the Flyers.

9. Signing Michael Leighton to an Extension

After their shocking Stanley Cup run with an AHL level goalie in net, the Flyers had a good range of affordable goaltenders on the market that they could go after to get that missing piece of the puzzle.

In a bizarre move even for Holmgren, he decided he was going to sign the liability in net to a $3 million extension. Reliable starting goaltenders Antti Niemi, Marty Turco and Evgeni Nabokov all ended up signing for less and all had better seasons. Leighton, on the other hand, was in the AHL by the end of the season and the Flyers goaltending woes cost them again come playoff time.

8. Trading Simon Gagne for Matt Walker and a Fourth-Round Pick

Simon Gagne was the heart and soul of the Flyers for about ten years. In the Stanley Cup run, Gagne scored an incredible nine goals in 19 games. In the three years before the Stanley Cup season, he scored more than 30 goals in each season.

The guy was the definition of class act, and everyone in Philadelphia loved him. How did Holmgren repay the Flyer great? He traded him away in the last year of his contract for basically a bag of pucks. The Flyers offense never truly did recover from the loss of Gagne, as the plethora of star forwards gave the Flyers an advantage over all other NHL teams. As the amount of star forwards began to dwindle, the Flyers fell further and further into the abyss.

7. Letting Jaromir Jagr Go

Jagr was an immediate success for the Flyers in his one season for the club. They wanted a pure sniper to put with their new superstar Claude Giroux, and Jagr fit the bill perfectly. Giroux ended up with 93 points and was a Hart Trophy contender.

Instead of keeping the Giroux, Jagr and Hartnell line together, Holmgren decided that Jagr was not needed, and allowed the Stars to pick him up in free agency. Giroux has yet to have a season as well as the one he had with Jagr and the team has yet to win a playoff series.

6. Trading James Van Riemsdyk for Luke Schenn

James Van Riemsdyk always had flashes of brilliance for the Flyers, but could never put together a full season. He would have five game stretches where he looked like the best player on the team, but then disappear for another ten.  He had eleven playoff goals for the Flyers before his 25th birthday, but hadn’t put together a 30 goal season. Paul Holmgren decided that Riemsdyk’s time in Philadelphia was up and traded him for a third line defender in Luke Schenn. Riemsdyk has had over 55 points in the two full seasons he has played on Toronto.

5. Trading a First-Round Pick for Steve Eminger and a Third-Round Pick

This is the section of the article where we go from bad ideas to pure insanity. The Washington Capitals were desperately trying to get out of a bad deal with a poor defender in Eminger. Imagine their surprise when Paul Holmgren comes calling, saying he will give up a first round pick for a player nobody wants. The Capitals are still reaping the rewards, as the player they drafted was none other than top liner John Carlson. Imagine how helpful Carlson would have been on the blue line for the Flyers over the last five years. It is just cringe worthy to think about.

4. Trading Sergei Bobrovsky Before His Vezina Year

Watching a young Bobrovsky play was one of the more exciting things the Flyers fans had gotten to see in a long time. The guy had the ability to get out of any precarious situation with some of the best desperation saves you will see anywhere. As you already know, Holmgren decides the best course of action was to get rid of the young promising goaltender before he could solve the Flyers goaltending woes. The irony will always be that Bobrovsky won the Vezina Trophy a year after Holmgren gave up on him, and one has to wonder what kind of an impact he could’ve had on a team with enough offense to get the job done.

3. The Andrew McDonald Extension

The trade for Andrew McDonald was actually a good move by the Flyers. He was able to insert himself into a weak top 4 that needed help, and was deserving of an extension. What he got though was a highway robbery. The borderline second liner got a ridiculous six-year, $30 million contract on a team that was facing salary cap issues before the move.  Fast-forward to today, and the Flyers will be paying $4 million against the cap over the next five seasons for McDonald to play on the bench. If this were any other GM, this would be seen as career defining catastrophe. However, Holmgren still has more terrible ideas up his sleeve that caused further Flyers suffering.

2. Signing Vincent Lecavalier

This is the one deal that current Flyers GM Ron Hextall cannot get himself out of. This move is the one dead end without any back door alleys to manage a last minute escape from. When Holmgren decided to give the over-the-hill Lecavalier $22 million over the course of the next five years, it meant a sentence to salary cap hell for the next GM that would have to clean up his mess. Ron Hextall has been talking to every team in the NHL to get rid of this hideous contract, but so far the rest of the NHL has proven to not be masochists. This year, Lecavalier gets to look forward to “earning” a sweet $4.5 million by being a healthy scratch.

1. Signing Ilya Bryzgalov

Nine years and $51 million dollars is just not a good idea ever. When it comes to the biggest head case in the history of NHL goaltenders, which is quite an accomplishment think of all the head case goalies, that amount of money is a great way to sink a once proud franchise like the Flyers. Unconvinced that Sergei Bobrovsky could be the starting goaltender of the future, Holmgren decided to break the bank for the loose cannon Bryzgalov.

In this case, breaking the bank involved trading away the team’s two best players in Jeff Carter and Mike Richards. Perhaps the climax of this move was when Byzgalov made TV history by saying the most bizarre thing ever heard in a hockey interview, earning the title Mr. Universe. One has to wonder what object Paul Holmgren was throwing at the TV when Carter and Richards were lifting the Stanley Cup, or whether he was thinking, “mission accomplished.”