I'll add my retort because I think this is just an angry post and not well thought-out by the OP.
1) The JVR signing was always OK-Good. He was one of, if not THE, best FA forward on the market. For a fan base clamoring for improvement and a LW spot up for grabs, he was an ideal fit for 2nd line LW. Nearly everyone was on-board with JVR as an addition (not a perfect one, but a positive one), but not necessarily his contract. Being a 2nd line, PP guy is great especially if Simmonds is shipped out.
2) To be frank, it wasn't Lindblom's spot to keep. He wasn't wowing us like a TK, so Lindblom's spot was/is very much in question. With JVR, it was a guaranteed upgrade to the 2nd line LW position -- not sure how there's an argument there. JVR himself isn't a bad player and he's not responsible for Lindblom or Patrick being bad. The whole team is bad -- don't point the finger just at JVR's signing.
3) JVR is very dump-able. If you really want to, you can trade an asset to have Seattle take him (most likely) so that he can contribute for a few years positively while playing out his deal. Even if he isn't dumped: we have plenty of cap (thanks to Ron Hextall) to work with around him.
I think a lot of points you make are not so different from my points but here is the thing. Just because he was the "best FA forward" on the thin market, doesn't mean that it was a good signing for the Flyers. It's true he was likely an insurance signing in case Simmonds got shipped out or completely hit a wall. Which are decent reasons to sign him on the first glance, but JVR is too one dimensional to justify the price tag for _this_ Flyers team, which arguably needed a center, a goalie or a veteran D, far more than a player who's only useful with a center who can get him the puck, who doesn't support defense or forecheck that well. The latter 2 attributes are something Flyers need desperately at the moment. It's no accident that G/JVR/Konecny line from other night had difficult time generating any offensive zone time and got torched up. That line has no one that can forecheck consistently to even dictate the play. TK is too small to consistently do it. In some ways, JVR today is an inferior fit to the Flyers than he was when he was first here. Remember the Boston playoff series where you just couldn't get the puck from him? Well, do you see anything resembling that from him now or even past few years in Toronto?
When he was signed this summer, I projected his production this year initially at about 20-25 goals with about 15-20 assists to go along with it. I think that's being fair.
Now let's turn to Lindblom. Right now there is no doubt, he is not better than JVR. But is JVR 6 million dollars better? When Lindblom is on the way up while JVR has already plateaued? I would have rather let Lindblom play and see what we had in the kid. Optimistically speaking, he could have potted around 15 or even scrape low-20 goals if things shook out right but at least we would have had another solid line to lean on and grow the kids since Lindblom would have likely played with Patrick, which would have made Patrick more effective as well. Now, I am not saying JVR made Lindblom/Patrick worse as you state, but I am just pointing out that his signing had an unexpected, if not rather unfortunate side effect that we are seeing right now.
You bring up a point saying JVR is dump-able by trading an asset along with him. Do you _really_ want this org. to go down that path again like the worst of Homer years? The cap room we have is little misleading because a lot of that money is already earmarked for signing Provy and etc, on top of couple of veteran forwards, D, and a goalie we might want to sign since we are thin on all 3. On top of that, considering our top players are hitting their 30's and facing their decline, we can use all the cap room we can get for future supplement signings. Having said that, you do bring up a good point. I hope Seattle takes him but I shudder at the thought of packaging prospects/picks to make that happen.
