Mad Dog

I think even the Flyers themsleves (and I mean Holmgren, his assistants and Snider) realized a while ago how big of a mistake they made by signing this clown to the contract they did. What a disaster this truly is. When he implodes in the playoffs - and I really hope he does suck real bad - the team will be urged to make some drastic merasures to rid themsleves of this ludicrous contract. I don't even think it's even a question of IF, but WHEN. And I really hope it's as soon as this summer. They will have to get creative...

But I am not talking about smothering good shots or catching one-timers. He was great at it, but so were many, many others who played the position. I am talking about winning games by himself, which he has done plenty of. If you look back at the most recent goalies whose teams won the Cup, I am really not sure how man goalies we can say that about. Fleury played well, and so did Tim Thomas, but both Pittsburgh and Boston had great all-around teams. Having their goalies play at the top of their games cirtainly helped, no doubt. Giguire looked good, but the *team* in front of him made him look good. Osgood had his moments, but he has a dynamite team who would've won with him or without him in net. Both Ward and Khabibulin played some terrific hockey, and maybe won 1 or 2 games in the entire playoffs by themselves, but that was a team's effort more than anythying, and excellent coaching. Even going back to the success of Tom Barrasso in Pittsburgh and Mike Richter in New York, again, both golaies were at the top of their games, they made difficult saves, but that was a full team effort. Brodeur, I think, had to win more than 50% of games all by himslef - which is what I call "stealing games" - in order for the Devils to have any chance of keeping advancing from round to round, let alone winning the whole thing. He literally had to stand on his head just about every game because the team in front of him, while surely adequate, simply didn't have enough in their arsenal to hoist the Cup. That's the difference.

Sorry Aziz for getting back to you late on this... I have to COMPLETELY disagree with you on this point. Marty was most certainly stealing games. I don't know how you can even argue about that. Watch his playoff performances. There were games when the Devils were badly outshot, outperformed, and outplayed. Again, people tend to give that team a credit for their incredible, flawless defense. And there is no doubt, Stevens, Neidermeyer and Daneyko, as well as the whole "trap" defense worked. But without Marty's making one sick save after another, I doubt they win even a single cup. He was winning games all by himself more often than not. I agree that he didn;t make many mistakes, but that can be said about many good goalies in the playoffs. You won't win Cup by your goalies simply making saves he is expected to make.

To the topic of this thread... I imagine the team is giving it some thoughts, but it's not that easy. There are multiple ramifications of making Bob #1, the most important is basically wasting the gigantic burden in the cap space resulting from Bryz' annual salary. You;ll have hard time justifying having a $6mil+ goalie sitting on the bench. Secondly, are we really convinced Bob is at least no worse than Bryz? I am really not sure what the benefit of starting him more. God, I respect Ed Snider for his passion and desire to win, but he really has to stop screwing with the team and sticking his nose into the team's affairs.

But that's what separates a great goalie from average ones. As flawless as New Jersey's defense was made out to be, they *did* screw up, and quite often. But that's where Marty showed his brilliance. Watch the old tapes especially during the year they won teh Cup beating Dallas in the finals. He was making saves that he had no right making. Now, of course, there is only one Marty and it would be hugely unfair to Bryz, or whoever else, to be compared with him. But can he at least sometimes make saves that are impossible to make? I mean...... at least once every game? Is that too much to expect from the $51 mil goalie?

Yeah, I guess you're right. One needs to back up his yapping with his play. Somehow, though, I rarely pay attention to what players have to say. I didn't care much for what Richards said to the reporters while a big deal was made of it. After all, action speaks louder than words.

I really don't care how sane, crazy, half-crazy, emotional, etc. he is as long as he vastly improves on his 2.87 GAA and 0.9 save %.

Let's put it this way: at the very least, Bob is not playing *worse* than Bryz. And that, right there, is a huge problem. When we had Bob and Boucher competing for the #1 spot, OK..... But we shouldn't even be at the point where Bryz is competing with anybody for the #1 spot on the team. It should be automatic, but it's not because his play has been OK at best. Not horrendous, but OK. But we didn't sign him to give us a fair pefromance. We signed him to give us a performance of an elite goalie.

And I am not sure what puzzles/angers me more: Bryz's sporadic play or the Flyers' defensive struggles. I can't figure out how the group that features Timonen, Coburn, Carle, and Meszaros - with such a great combination of size, speed and strength - cannot be more effective in locking down on the players in their zone. I am puzzled by why this defensive group cannot consistently protect their blue line. Granted, Bryzgalov *must* play better. No two ways about it. But the D is not helping him nearly as much as they should.

The only thing he has stolen so far is $51 mil. No biggie! Here is a thought that really makes me wanna gobble up Valium: Bryzgalov will count $5.67 million against the Flyers' cap until he is 40 years old. I can't imagine how this mere thought cannot drive people to drinking.

@radoran I see a pretty ugly ending to this marriage, myself. I really, REALLY want to be wrong here, but having seen Bryzgalov's play, my prediction is that he will implode in the playoffs, Laviolette will flip flop him and Bob, and with the team desperately needing a cap relief, he will be waved over the summer or during the training camp of 2012, and God only knows what will happen from there on, but I just can't see a happy ending to this. The best-case scenario is that maybe somehow, miraculously, they would be able to actually trade him, but I just can't see a team foolish enough to take on his ludicrous contract. But I am not sure if he has a NTC and NMC built into his contract, in which case he would have to wave those. The Flyers *will* realize - if they haven't already - that he is not much of an upgrade over Bob and will try to right the mistake they made by trying to get rid of him at whatever cost they can. This has a boiling mess written all over it.

Very stricky for my liking, but not a bad choice. Again, there are quite a few of good goalies in the league. Price, Lundqvist, Luongo, Fleury, Rinne, Miller, Backstrom, and yes, even our own Bryzgalov, are in a category of good goalies. But in terms of great goalies, there are not many of those. In fact, as of right now, I only consider Tim Thomas a truly GREAT goaltender who has been great consistently and stands as an unquestioned #1 in this league as of this moment.

Yep. There were not many Martin Brodeurs in this league in the past or the present, but I really think Thomas comes as close as one can come to match the greatness of Marty.

I hate to be a voice of negativity, but it's becomeing clearer and clearer by day that Bryz is not the savior we were hoping he would be. Snider panicked and ordered Homer to get a goalie. A good cause, but problem is, there didn't happen to be a real #1 stud free agent golaie available so Homer had to settle for whoever was available.

And even if Bob *does* develop rapidly, what are we going to do with our overpriced, overhyped, overrated #1? Who else is stupid enough to take him off our hands? Homer and Snider F**ked this one up pretty good.

A very good observation. But what about open ice hits that lead to head injuries? But in terms of hits along the bords, you are absolutely correct. I would think that *has* to contribute to concussions at least to some degree.

I can't even put this in words. But if there *is* silver lining in all this is that it's early in the season. The Flyers don't need to rush these guys back as long as they at least play at 500 till they return.

@ Sure. But here is what's unclear to me. Do the players today miss time MAINLY because they fail that baseline test and/or being symptom-free for whatever number of days they are required to be symptom-free, or..... they miss time because they are just not in a position to play? If it's the later, then clearly concussions today are more severe and intense. And that's what I am wrestling with...

OK, but as I mentioned to Canoli, this only addresses awareness and diagnosis aspects. But how do we explain a mere fact that more players miss time with head injuries today? Let's say there is a Flyers-Bruins game in 1973 and John McKenzie is going off the ice and doesn't come back. Then he misses 5-10 games with something weird. But whatever the docs or media or whoever else calls it, there would still be at least a hint that the player is out with a head injury. Instead, head injuries were virtually non-existant. That's why the only conclusion is that there *is* in fact a considerably, ridiculously more concussions now than 20-30 years ago. I don't know why this is even being debated. The real question is why...

Because a truly concussed player would miss time. Would have to.... You cannot - CANNOT - play with a concussion. If I pay you money and ask you not to eat for two days, you can do it. If I ask you not to sleep for few nights, you can do it. It will be hard on you, surely, but you can do it if you have stamina. But if I ask you to play at your normal level when you are concussed, you CANNOT do it. That is, if you are truly concussed. That's why I say we would know. And it's normally more than one day. So when the player misses a significant time, how would that be possible to hide it. Clarke tried to hide it once with that whole Lindros saga; and I am not even saying he did it on purpose. Maybe he was mislead by the Flyers' medical staff. But we all know how that ended. When, like you said, you have your bell rung, or you have whiplash, sure, you can play through it. But concussion? No sir. No job security, money, fame, image or anything else can make you play. You physically cannot. The symptoms are too severe for you to play. The player would be forced to miss time... and, as a result, that would've welled up to the surface. But we hardly heard of players missing time due to head injuries until literally the beginning of this century.

The only thing I can think of is that players, today, have absolutely no respect for each other. Scott Stevens, for better or worse, essentially gave birth to these vicious hits to the head. And then you see more and more of similar type injuries. Perhaps players like Cook or Kunitz just really started polishing this particular skill with a goal to make it their mark. Who really knows. Look at that Max Pacioretty's hit on Letang. That was a vicious, ferocious hit. I am not even talking right now about the legality of the hit. I am talking just about the sheer brutality and viciousness. I don't know - and nobody other than Pacioretty knows - if there was an intent to injure. The hit of Tucker on Kapanen that you are attaching here is in that same category: brutal, vicious, and nasty. There were certainly good, honest checks in the 70's and 80's, but I honestly don't remember so much of outright violance. And I don't even know whether this violance is good or bad for the game. But what I *do* know is that I don't want the Lindroses, Savards, Crosbys, Letangs, and Giroux of the world end their careers so prematurely because of concussions. Something needs to be done. What exactly? I'd like to hope there are enough sharp people in the league who can figure that out.

I hear your point loud and clear, but I don't know if I completely agree with it. Here is why I don't think your theory is true. When people are concussed, beleive me - they know there is something really wrong with them. Don't want to call it a concussion? Fine. I can see how 30 years ago, with sports neurology not being anywhere near the level it is now, people could misdiagnoze or not diagnoze concussion. But the player would know there is something wrong with him. In fact, look no further than what we are seing with Pronger. The first thing I read when this whole fiasco happened is he complained about some vague symptoms and said he "never felt like this before". Only *later* he was diagnozed with a concussion. My point is, if the players in the 70's and 80's were concussed at the same rate as they are today, they would know it, and the media and we, fans, would hear about that. Again, we may not have been hearing the word concussion per se, but we would hear about these issues. They may've been referred to as head injuries, or something else, but we *would* hear about them. Injuries like knees, elbows, shoulders, groin, etc. were always there. But I've been watching hockey since the mid-70's, and I don't remember seing such an outburst of head injuries in hockey as I've seen over the last 10 years. The baseline tests you are talking about certainly help with diagnosis to draw a red line under the word CONCUSSION. But the head injury is as clear as a day: you either have it or you don't. It's more than a bad headache. I had it and I can tell you: when you have a concussion, there is no doubt in your mind that there is something terribly wrong with you. Again, you may not know you are concussed. Hell, you may not even know what the word concussion even means. But rest assured, you *will* know you are not right and the last thing you will want to do is to step a foot on the ice.

No no, I am not comparing Letang with Weber. I am just using Letang's name to make a point that young quality d-men in this league are a rarity. But purely hypothetically and for shits and giggles, let's say the Pens learn that Crosby is lost for the rest of the year, and we are in the similar situation with Pronger. The Flyers need to fill the void created by a great d-man and the Pens have a void created by a great forward. Both teams suddenly have needs. Would you trade JVR or Couturier and a 1st round (and something else) for Letang?

Giroux was a freak accident inflicted by the player of his own team. sh!t happens. But the rest are over-exuberant hits, elbows, and headshots. I don’t know…… but there’s gotta be a reason why when Clarke played concussions were almost unheard of, which is why many players even played without helmets, and now, like I said, it’s not even epidemics but pandemics. There's gotta be a reason for this ridiculoulsy increased number of concussions. Maybe the rules have to be tighter, maybe the equipment needs to be strengthened…. I really don’t know. But I am sick to my stomach with a very thought of not being able to watch Crosby or Giroux play this game.

The Flyers' medical stuff is completely incompetent. They have been proving it over and over again. But the bigger issue is the growing number and frequency of concussions in the NHL. There have to be changes made.