hf101

@aziz, no I don't have the data, the link is broad street hockey at the bottom

duh, wishful thinking. I'll edit it, .........lol

Good point doom, Bryz has been pulled in 3 games. One of which Bob only played 13min against Tampa and made 3 saves in a 5 -2 win, which probably doesn't have any effect. But the other two may change the numbers some. Bob played 43min and made all 23 saves against the Islanders for a 4-3 win. And in the latest game Bob played 33 min and made 16 of 17 saves in Bostons 6-0 rout.

Bob is in goal against the Penguins as per Holmgren. http://www.csnphilly...0484&feedID=695

One more thing mentioned in one of the comments: [quote ]Bryz’s stats based on that split this year and they’re a bit shocking: Facing >30 shots: 7-1-0, .934, 2.26 Facing <=30 shots: 7-7-3, .860, 3.38 The splits from last season wasn’t nearly as pronounced and are probably more along the lines of what you’d expect over a full season/a much bigger sample size, but they’re still there: Facing >30 shots: 19-10-8, .928, 2.59 Facing <=30 shots: 17-10-2, .909, 2.35

Ilya Bryzgalov is struggling again. Whether you use your eyes, look at the numbers, or ask the players, the conclusion is the same. So last night Down Goes Spezza asked us to give him "something good regarding" Bryzgalov regressing to the mean. I don't know if what you're about to read fulfills his request, but it's how I spent my night after he asked. All numbers here are from Hockey-Reference.com, since I find their game logs much easier to use. First, let's just look at how Ilya Bryzgalov has played, on a game-by-game basis, over the last two-plus seasons. Click to enlarge: This gives us a baseline for how much his game-by-game performance varies, if nothing else. We see a good number of games dropping below the 85% line, but generally, every game is between 85 and 95%. Click to enlarge: Here we take the cumulative save percentage from Bryzgalov's last ten games. While the immediate drop at the start of his Flyers career is blatantly obvious, it bottomed out after he let in four goals on ten shots against Winnipeg. That marked his fifth straight game stopping fewer than 90 percent of shots. He then rattled off six straight above 91.7 percent. But we also notice a similar, if more jagged, plummet earlier. In January of 2010, Bryzgalov posted a save percentage of 83.3 or lower in four of five games. The very bottom of that spike came on January 28th, 2010. This has certainly happened before with Bryz: He goes on long cold streaks. In his next two starts, he stopped his next 63 of 65 shots. The difference is that in Philadelphia, when he bottomed out after the Winnipeg game, he had another stretch of three straight bad games, preventing him from improving his rolling average. Since Bryzgalov was pulled against the Islanders in November, he has alternated in-game save percentages of 92 or higher with 87.5 or lower. Combine the three-game skid with the consistently inconsistent play, and you have a double-dip in Bryzgalov's numbers. This raises two questions though. Is Ilya Bryzgalov unique in his peaks and valleys? What is the likelihood of someone doing what Brzygalov did in Phoenix doing what he has done in Philadelphia? To answer the first question, I simply looked at Henrik Lundqvist of the Rangers. Why Lundqvist? He's an elite goalie with similar career save percentage numbers and he's playing on a hated rival. Also, I wanted someone who played roughly as much as Bryzgalov while being on a solid, if unspectacular, team. Here is what we get: Click to enlarge: Through 145 games, the two are basically identical. Both have two stretches of terrible play and both have similar peaks and valleys in their good play. Up to this season, the two were indistinguishable. It is certainly true that Bryzgalov is having a really bad start to the season. It is also true that Lundqvist is having a very good start to the season. Yes, it's only one comparison, but it's hard to say Bryzgalov is unique in having two steep drops in performance. it's also hard to say he's more inconsistent than Lundqvist, despite conventional wisdom disagreeing with that. It is very easy to over-emphasize the short-term results, making them seem bigger than they are. Bryzgalov really is playing poorly, but the long-term trend is clear: Bryzgalov is in line with the NHL's best goalies. We can look for reasons why he's struggling - the expectations of the contract, the pressure of the media, the new teammates, the new city, the new defensive system, the injuries, his confidence - but those are just excuses to fill a narrative. This is not the way Bryzgalov, Ed Snider, Paul Holmgren, or Flyers fans wanted his nine-year contract to begin. It is understandable that the poor play, magnified by the large contract, creates panic. But with the contract also comes a new perspective: He's going to be here for nine-years, so twenty-six games isn't enough to judge him on. To answer question two - the likelihood of this happening after Bryzgalov's last two years in Phoenix - we turn to Eric T.: ///Statisticians have a simple method for testing whether the difference between two samples is significant, called a t-test. It measures the probability that you could have gotten a difference that large just by random chance, without a true talent difference. /// In this case, it comes out at 7%, which is big enough that a statistician would be hesitant to call this a clear difference, but small enough that a fan should be concerned. You got that? This is concerning, but stats nerds are hesitant to say this is concerning. Conclusion Yes, Ilya Bryzgalov is struggling. Yes, he is struggling in a way he has not in the previous two-plus seasons. Yes, this is concerning. But the good news is: Bryzgalov is not this bad. He has faced similar adversity before, less than two calendar years ago, and came through it. This year, his double-dip run of poor play has been the result of one bad month. It is far too early to think this is anything more than an outlier for Bryzgalov. Be concerned, yes. But don't expect this to continue, either. BroadStreetHockey

@MadDog I know I for one thought the Flyers should have sought after Smith. Can't say that opinion had much support. But I also though Bryz might make a good tandem with Bob for a few years, but not at the ridiculous deal Holmgren allowed.

I'm sure they will lose a lot more money in the future it this team is allowed to sink to the depths of the league with a starting goaltender that can't move quick enough to catch a beach ball. How can they justify putting a wealthy goaltender out there every night that in essence will give the team a loss due to crappy goaltending?

For the most part every player has a price tag that if another GM was willing to over pay for, most GM's will take that deal and better their team. I doubt the Ducks were looking to trade Pronger........but Holmgren posed them a deal they couldn't refuse.

If they keep playing Bryz they won't be playing in the playoffs. If they realized they've made a mistake then......put Bryz on the bench and play Bob!

It's nearly noon and I'm still seething that Laviolette is forced to play Bryz because he is paid to play the position of the #1 goalie. I could really give a crap how much Bryz is paid to sit on the bench..........HE CAN SIT ON THE PINE FOR THE NEXT NINE ******* YEARS FOR ALL I CARE. Bob has had a save % of .942 in his last 4 starts. COULD IT BE ANY MORE OBVIOUS TO LAVIOLETTE? PLAY BOB

@aziz Well on DNL the panel including Al Morganti spoke of JVR's hip ailment. No one questioned the accuracy of Servali's report, nor the fact that an injury to JVR's hip doesn't exist. No one spoke of this injury as something that is career ending, or severe enough to warrant immediate surgery. What they did discuss was how JVR needs to toughen up and play through it. That JVR needs to force himself to get to the dirty areas of the ice, like he did in the playoffs last spring. I don't think you will see an official report from the Flyers unless JVR needs to miss some games. But as we have seen in the past, a player can play through the season and have corrective surgery immediately after. As far as JVR on career pace.....that isn't saying that much, especially when we all know what he is capable of.

Most teams resign their young goaltenders as the entry level deal expires........Rask, Bernier, Scheidner, and Harding for example.

...you know, if it was JVR himself who said it in an interview, you wouldn't believe it, so why should I be surprised your struggling with a report which states that JVR has been struggling with injuries this season. (abdominal, hip, and knee) I mean why would a Flyers reporter take the time to confirm a story for us readers with multiple sources? Is that not a normal part of their job?......quotes and all from team sources are nice, but just sometimes those sources don't want to be quoted in the press, especially if it is something that Holmgren and company are keeping tight lipped. Why would Servali even bother with a story like this, especially since it isn't even possibly believable? JVR's play sure isn't 100%, that we can observe, and we can observe that he appears to be laboring with less power than in the past. How many games have members of this board stated "where's JVR"...."he is invisible out there" .........I guess he just chooses to not be the player he was last spring in the playoffs. Holmgren did say when asked about JVR, with a response "many are playing through injuries"......can you not fathom that Holmgren was including JVR? I guess at this time the medical staff has decided that with treatment JVR is able to play with the injury. There have been Flyers in the past who play through the season with hip labrum issue, JVR wouldn't be the first. You may not hear an official word until the season ends when Holmgren makes his final report stating that JVR will have hip surgery in the coming week. At that point you can put the pieces of the puzzle together,.............that JVR's season wasn't spectacular do to a lingering cam impingement in his hip that was found to be bothering him all season.

Agreed, hopefully this public knowledge can put to rest the trade JVR rumors.

Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/flyers/20111227_Hip_trouble_for_Flyers__van_Riemsdyk.html#ixzz1hjtrVluf this definitely explains why we haven't seen the JVR this season that we saw last spring

USA 11 Denmark 3

So what are these off ice issues you are speaking of? You make it sound as if the reasons why he was traded several times had more to do with some lockerroom issues than the fact that the aquiring teams made an offer that couldn't be turned down. The Oilers don't advance to the Cup Finals without Chris Pronger on the roster. The 2009-10 Philadelphia Flyers don't get to the Finals sans Pronger, either, and that annoying one game suspension in the 2007 playoffs aside, the Ducks don't win the Cup in 2007 without Pronger.

A few facts that need to be changed in order for the Flyers to be succesful in the Classic..... Giroux has 0 points in the first two meetings with the Rangers. The Rangers have gone 2 or 5 on the PP. Since 2/20/11the Flyers have lost by a combined score of 16-4 including two shutouts. ....meaning all areas of the Flyers game plan need to improve.

@Digityman Capgeek.com has a buyout calculator to make understanding all of the above easier. http://capgeek.com/faq/how-do-buyouts-work.php

I guess if Bob were to pull a Turris, then sure he could force a trade. I don't know how well that will go over really, there are only 60 NHL goalie jobs in the league every year. The position is becoming rather competative. Teams are constantly bringing in the new entry level goalie to save some cap space. Some may have an opening, but he may not be guaranteed even a back-up position. The league soon enough will be saturated with quality goaltending. For now though he is signed with the Flyers till the end of 2013 with an entry level contract.

Bob doesn't exactly have a choice until he is a FA. Currently he is on an entry level contract, when that ends next year he will be a RFA.

" All my spare time I dedicate to my beloved wife." .........sane you say???

@jammer2 We must be the only ones that enjoy the skill employed during a shootout.

Top Quotes From The First Episode Of 24/7 By: Philly Sports Daily Staff on December 14, 2011 11:28 pm COMMENTS OFF The anticipation for HBO’s 24/7 was met, if not exceeded, on Wednesday night when the film was finally screened from all the behind-the-scenes cameras over the past couple weeks. Peter Laviolette dropped the F-bomb five times before the opening credits even rolled. In the end, he lost the F-bomb battle 10-8 to Rangers head coach John Tortorella. Aside from the profanity, there were a lot of entertaining quotes from the Flyers and Rangers ends of the documentary alike. Here are the top 10 from the Flyers: “When I signed here, people said ‘Oh, you’re going to hell. They hate that they never have a goalie and they go hard on goalies. It’s a miserable market for the goalies.’” — Ilya Bryzgalov “The solar system is so humongous big.” — Ilya Bryzgalov “If you see the big picture, our universe is so tiny, like a dot. And you think we have some problems here on the Earth? What about, compared to like…nothing.” — Ilya Bryzgalov “Play f***ing hard. Come back to the bench f***ing dripping tired and f***ing sweating of exhaustion.” — Peter Laviolette “[Philly] is different than LA, it’s a way better hockey town.” — Wayne Simmonds “Sorry, G.” — Wayne Simmonds “I have a theory about Claude and that’s that anyone that plays with him is probably gonna have chemistry.” — Peter Laviolette “If you kill the tiger and they find you…that’s it. You’re dead.” — Ilya Bryzgalov “I never thought I would like this so much.” — Jaromir Jagr “Let’s f***ing giddy up and go.” — Peter Laviolette