Who starts against the Rangers?

[aziz]

1) Bob has three starts since November 26. In that span, he's 2-1 with a 2.01 GAA and .935 SV%. I have not included two games in which he subbed for Bryz - once due to injury the other against Boston.

2) In that same span of time, Bryz is 6-1-1 in 8 starts, 2.83, .898. Removing Boston - in which, in my opinion, the entire team played like warmed over dogmeat - he's 2.29, .914 in seven starts.

Given those numbers*, I'm not so sure one is obviously "hotter" than the other, especially given that Bobrovsky - with slightly better stats - has all of three starts in the past month.

i dunno, man. .021 is quite a spread in save%. and that's rolling with dropping the dud against boston. 3 starts versus 8 starts makes the comparison tenuous, agreed, but to the extent you are going to reference stats, that kind of of difference is what seperates top 5 from top 35, most seasons.

you and i are on the same page, the team is locked into bryzgalov as the #1, and that means what is best for him over the long term is what needs to be done...and in this case, that means he needs to get back in the net, and suggestions of controversy need to be headed off as soon as they pop up. especially given that the PR will demand bryzgalov start the classic on the 2nd, and the worst thing possible would be for him to go into that after a pair of standout games by bobrovsky. bryzgalov is a twitchy mess sometimes, but the flyers own him and his issues and have to accomodate them if they want any kind of value from this asset they are married to.

i need to stress it hurts me to say all of that, because, as i've said before, bob > bryzgalov, imo, and the team has a better chance of winning any given game with him in net. bryzgalov will be in philly for the next 8 camps, though, and will be in the driver's seat in the postseason. with those things in mind, getting and keeping him in top shape has to be a priority, and unfortunately the team has to accept a lesser resource in net to make that happen. which is very inspiring, but there it is.

[aziz]

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.

honestly, i don't agree with this. every goalie in the world makes saves he has no business making. head to the local rink tonight and watch a few games. each beer league goalie will have one or two stupid amazing saves at some point in each game. i could tell you stories about the OMG saves i have made over the years, stopping breakaways from my butt, diving and making saves with the paddle of my stick, rediculous gloves saves that i didn't even see, just waved my arm in the right direction at the right moment.

but.

it isn't the pull-it-out-of-your-ass saves that make a good goalie. its the consistency with which a goalie makes the saves he has every right making. watch those same beer league goalies tonight, and you'll see a ton of shots get through that they should have had. those are what makes them beer leaguers. as you go up the ranks of goaltending, the frequency of those goes away until you get to the top tier of NHL keepers, who almost never let innocent pucks in the net.

sorry, just a thing. people judge goalies on the wrong criteria, imo, and i wanted to pipe up. marty wasn't amazing because of that one crazy save he made. marty was amazing because he didn't leak; he was able to lock down all the routine plays, and if you were gonna beat him, you were going to have to work for it and execute perfectly.

this is why i get a little frustrated with people who want thier goalie to "steal a few games". that isn't what a goalie does. if the skaters in front of him allow the other team to put together the perfect play and the shooter is allowed to get off the perfect shot, the best goalie in the NHL and the worst goalie in your local D league have the same chance of tracking it down. which is to say: anyone can get lucky. the most you can ask of a goalie is not allow the unearned goal.

bryzgalov has allowed too many unearned goals, and that's what we should be on him about. not that he isn't making top 10 highlight reels.

[radoran]

i dunno, man. .021 is quite a spread in save%. and that's rolling with dropping the dud against boston. 3 starts versus 8 starts makes the comparison tenuous, agreed, but to the extent you are going to reference stats, that kind of of difference is what seperates top 5 from top 35, most seasons.

Absolutely true, but also an inadequate statistical set - especially 3 games vs. 8. Dropping the outlier - a completely accepted practice in statistical analysis - his two games of .938 and.903 (the .968 against DAL being dropped) are more in line with his career .915 mark.

It's also why looking at a guy who's got three starts in a month and calling him the "hot hand" is a bit hyperbolic.

you and i are on the same page, the team is locked into bryzgalov as the #1, and that means what is best for him over the long term is what needs to be done...and in this case, that means he needs to get back in the net, and suggestions of controversy need to be headed off as soon as they pop up. especially given that the PR will demand bryzgalov start the classic on the 2nd, and the worst thing possible would be for him to go into that after a pair of standout games by bobrovsky. bryzgalov is a twitchy mess sometimes, but the flyers own him and his issues and have to accomodate them if they want any kind of value from this asset they are married to.

i need to stress it hurts me to say all of that, because, as i've said before, bob > bryzgalov, imo, and the team has a better chance of winning any given game with him in net. bryzgalov will be in philly for the next 8 camps, though, and will be in the driver's seat in the postseason. with those things in mind, getting and keeping him in top shape has to be a priority, and unfortunately the team has to accept a lesser resource in net to make that happen. which is very inspiring, but there it is.

I'll put a "potentially" before "lesser" just because we honestly don't know how Bob will be long-term. Given his age, he should continue to develop into a better goalie. Some guys do, as you know, plateau, however.

I just don't see the "upside" of playing Bob "for the hot hand." Suppose he goes on a five-game tear and reels off wins in a row. He had six consecutive wins twice last season - the last coming in January, 2011.

Then he ended the season with his last 16 games being 5-4-5 and pulled twice. And that's not counting the playoffs.

What's the GAIN here? That we develop a dominant goalie we're totally in love with who's contract is up after next season and we can't afford to keep with the "#1 G" that we "had to sign" in this past offseason?

Ilya Bryzgalov for better or worse is a Vezina Trophy nominee averaging 60 starts a year for the past four years with a .920+ SV% in 3 of the 4.

Sergei Bobrovsky has great potential but I am hesitant to say that he has been "consistent".

Again I LIKE BOB - but I can see why Flyers management wasn't prepared to hand him the reins to start this season and why they're not going to do it now.

[terp]

21-8-4, top of the conference. Two regulation losses and two OTLs in the past two months. He has been a real drag on this team's chances...

It's almost as if you are trying to say he is playing well but that the rest of the team isn't. Meanwhile, most of the rest of us see him as playing mediocre, with the team winning despite him not even coming close to living up to his contract.

I don't see that there is much to debate with regard to Bob. He's been around for nearly 1 1/2 seasons. This season, he's played reasonably well despite sporadic work and by most measures and in the eyes of most observers has played better than Bryzgalov. However, I think there is a debate over what the team should do now. Some have said that the Flyers need to start Bryzgalov nearly every night regardless how he played the previous night and that the heavy schedule would sort out his problems. I think it is a little tougher to argue that point now that he's started 8 of the last 10 and recently (I think) 6 in a row. He isn't playing any better.

At some point, you play your best goalie irrespective of who gets paid the most. I'm not sure when that is. It might be in the playoffs. It might be when your team isn't winning in the playoffs and you need to make a drastic move to right the ship and avoid elimination. But it could also be sooner, like say when the team can't win despite the starter's erratic and mediocre play, or because the head coach either goes with a hunch or gets sick of watching Bryzgalov float through the season.

[aziz]

What's the GAIN here? That we develop a dominant goalie we're totally in love with who's contract is up after next season and we can't afford to keep with the "#1 G" that we "had to sign" in this past offseason?

long term? i agree, there is none. short term? i really do believe bobrovsky to be the better goalie, and like i said, i think the flyers stand a better chance to win a particular game with him in net. given that ultimately bob is going to go away and bryzgalov will still be around, the long term overrides the short, but i can definitely see people taking it game by game and wanting laviolette to make his call based on that. i don't have statistical basis for leaning towards bob; as you pointed out, we only have one season's worth of work, and that ended poorly for him. still, from what i've seen, he is athletically, technically, and mentally stronger than bryzgalov. he ended last season in uncharted territory, having run well over his previous career high of 35 starts. i believe that was a teaching moment for him, and i think there is a good chance he learns how to go through a full NHL schedule. can't prove it, but i believe it to be the case.

Again I LIKE BOB - but I can see why Flyers management wasn't prepared to hand him the reins to start this season and why they're not going to do it now.

well, i know *why* they weren't. i think it was a piss poor call for reasons other than purely hockey, but i get it. as for now, sure, i get that, too. they made a terrible decision last spring for all the wrong reasons, and that has tied their hands. if they are to save any face at all in this debacle, they have to set the stage for bryzgalov to the fullest extent of their abilities. can you imagine if bobrovsky were allowed to earn starts and conceivably win the starting gig? can you imagine if he were to continue to develop and end up a vezina canidate in his own right over the next season and a half...but the flyers were forced to trade him away due to cap complications stemming from bryzgalov's contract? can you imagine the headlines coming from that?? "Flyers develop first star goalie in 30 years, trade him for picks, declining veteran retains starting job". yes, you're right, total hyperbole, but.....a management team willing to spend 51 million dollars in persuit of a momentary public relations bump could not suffer that to come to pass.

ok, i'm starting to hyperventilate again. the bottom line is the flyers are stuck with bryzgalov. there's little point in pretending otherwise.

[flyercanuck]

I didn't make Bryzgalov the Flyers' #1 goalie by signing him to a 9-year, NMC, $51M contract.

Management did.

I don't disagree with any of the legitimate criticisms of Bryzgalov's play. I am disappointed in it as well.

Nevertheless, it is what it is and what it is is Bryzgalov needs to start against New York for the good of the team or you have a $5.6M millstone with a no movement clause on your cap and we can "hope" that something in the new CBA "might" let us get out from under it.

I like to bet on 17-black, but you can't make a living at it.

I'm not discounting Boston - but the entire team did play like crap and was due for a stinker. Bryz was not good in the game.

But if you even include Boston, and go with the 2.83 GAA (2.87 season) thus "needing" four goals to win, Bobrovsky is 2.52 for the season (about his career average, actually) - thus "needing" four goals to win more often than not.

See, I remember the Bobrovsky who sputtered into the playoffs last year, 0-2-2 in his last five starts, giving up four to Ottawa, four to Buffalo and getting pulled in his last regular season start - against the ISLANDERS - giving up three goals on 10 shots in 12 minutes.

Of course, all goalies have bad stretches. Start Bryz.

[Digityman]

Bryz in net. We'll see if the majority was right or wrong.

[OH1FlyersFan]

I play Bob. Always Bob. Bryz is wearing thin. I can't put it all on Bryz tonight, though, as much as I may want to. We had plenty of powerplay opportunities. Just couldn't score. How do we get a guy like Lundquist?????

[JackStraw]

How do we get a guy like Lundquist?????

Simple, just draft a Swedish goalie in the 7th round. Especially if you can get exactly the 205th pick overall.

Edit: Just looking through that draft (2000): Scott Hartnell (6th overall) has played in more NHL games than any other player from that class. NYI took a goalie #1 overall... Rick DiPietro. Anaheim took a goalie at #77, Ilya Bryzgalov. The Flyers took a goalie at #171, Roman Chechmenek.

Edit #2: OR... maybe this is the answer, bring King Hank's identical twin brother Joel over from Sweden. He plays in the Swedish Elite League, he's a center but maybe he could learn?

Edited December 24, 2011 by JackStraw

[AlaskaFlyerFan]

Bryz in net. We'll see if the majority was right or wrong.

I didn't see the game (yet). From everything I've been reading, the majority was right.

[Vincent05]

NYI took a goalie #1 overall... Rick DiPietro.

Too bad Bryz has a NMC or we can swap goalies with the Isles. I rather have DiPietro at 1 mil a year less and we can possibly ltir him.

[flyercanuck]

@Vincent05

The sad thing is the DiPietro contract was the laughing stock of the entire league and our goalie is being paid more and the lengths are now pretty close.

[OH1FlyersFan]

Simple, just draft a Swedish goalie in the 7th round. Especially if you can get exactly the 205th pick overall.

That seems easy enough and I bet they signed him for a lot less than $51 million......

[radoran]

That seems easy enough and I bet they signed him for a lot less than $51 million......

Lundqvist's current deal is six years at $6.875M per - probably close to what it would have taken to sign Bryz for a shorter term..

Obviously Lundqvist's entry level was lower.

[Mad Dog]

honestly, i don't agree with this. every goalie in the world makes saves he has no business making. head to the local rink tonight and watch a few games. each beer league goalie will have one or two stupid amazing saves at some point in each game. i could tell you stories about the OMG saves i have made over the years, stopping breakaways from my butt, diving and making saves with the paddle of my stick, rediculous gloves saves that i didn't even see, just waved my arm in the right direction at the right moment.

but.

it isn't the pull-it-out-of-your-ass saves that make a good goalie. its the consistency with which a goalie makes the saves he has every right making. watch those same beer league goalies tonight, and you'll see a ton of shots get through that they should have had. those are what makes them beer leaguers. as you go up the ranks of goaltending, the frequency of those goes away until you get to the top tier of NHL keepers, who almost never let innocent pucks in the net.

sorry, just a thing. people judge goalies on the wrong criteria, imo, and i wanted to pipe up. marty wasn't amazing because of that one crazy save he made. marty was amazing because he didn't leak; he was able to lock down all the routine plays, and if you were gonna beat him, you were going to have to work for it and execute perfectly.

this is why i get a little frustrated with people who want thier goalie to "steal a few games". that isn't what a goalie does. if the skaters in front of him allow the other team to put together the perfect play and the shooter is allowed to get off the perfect shot, the best goalie in the NHL and the worst goalie in your local D league have the same chance of tracking it down. which is to say: anyone can get lucky. the most you can ask of a goalie is not allow the unearned goal.

bryzgalov has allowed too many unearned goals, and that's what we should be on him about. not that he isn't making top 10 highlight reels.

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.

[aziz]

You won't win Cup by your goalies simply making saves he is expected to make.

a goalie's technical abilities can expand the range of saves he is expected to make. bob, for example, has exceptional lateral movement and can be "expected" to make saves that are outside bryzgalov's envelope; bob can reset on cross ice plays and be square to the resulting shot, whereas bryzgalov can't get square and has to rely on diving/scrambling to have any chance. broduer is one of the best skating goalies in the history of the game, and was able to keep so many quickly developing plays in front of him. prefectly executed cross-slot onetimers would find broduer completely set and square and the shot would be smothered in his gear. THAT is what put him in a class above, not the fact he was able to lunge at a bunch of pucks and luckily have them deflect of the paddle of his stick. again, any goalie in the world can pull those off. luck is luck. technique and talent are something else. diving desperation plays are luck.

this is luck:

this is technique:

he closed his eyes and hoped on the first one. he deserved attaboys and a couple w00ts, but that doesn't seperate the good from the great. on the second, he recovered from the initial shot, squared to the rebound opportunity and shut down the angle. if you look at the angle shown around the 18 second mark, his glove is in place before the shot leaves sanderson's stick. the fact he made those saves are what put him in a class above. in my opinion, anyway.

Edited December 26, 2011 by aziz

[aziz]

anyone can make these, including sebastian caron and amrty biron, decidedly NOT amazing goalies:

again, luck is luck.

[radoran]

Good technique can raise your luck quotient - like good positioning.

There is also something to be said for the stability of the team in front of the goalie.

And Marty Biron? 7-1-0, 1.84, .933 this season. How does that stack up against Bob's current numbers? (7-2-1, 2.57/.913 this year)

[Mad Dog]

prefectly executed cross-slot onetimers would find broduer completely set and square and the shot would be smothered in his gear. THAT is what put him in a class above, not the fact he was able to lunge at a bunch of pucks and luckily have them deflect of the paddle of his stick.

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.

[aziz]

i don't disagree with any of that but the tim thomas thing. tim thomas won a stanley cup, the rest of the roster were just technically elligble for rings. i get what you are talking about re: broduer really doing the work for the debbies, but imo thomas and the bruins were the same situation. more so, arguably. good lineup, unfreakingbelievable goaltending.

[s3x]

I'll tell you what -- if I ever see Bryzgalov move as fast as Brodeur in that second video, I'll eat crow for a month.

[doom88]

Don't worry, it will never happen on ice. Maybe on his way to the bank, or out of Philly, but not in net.

[Vincent05]

@doom88

LOL good one.

[flyercanuck]

After what I've seen from Bryzgalov so far, if he starts against the Rangers I think I'll find something better to do than sit there getting frustrated for 2 1/2 hours.

[flyerrod]

Can I change my vote on who I think the Flyers will start? After last night's debacle in goal(against the lightning), they should have only one option, and that is start Bob. He has more than earned the start regardless of how much money Snider appears to have wasted on Bryzgolov.